4 ms·

Apple is providing 6 years of support for old phones. As the author notes that's more than in the past, where they offered 4 years of support. My experience has

Apple is providing 6 years of support for old phones. As the author notes that's more than in the past, where they offered 4 years of support. My experience has been that the first generations had a lot of difference year to year and so when I moved from the 3GS to the 5 it was a massive difference and it would probably have been hard for Apple to support phones for as long as they do today with those handsets. That doesn't mean it's easy to support those old models and if Apple did 8 years of support instead of 6 we would still get these articles (but with ... iPhone 6s?). At the end of the day things have a design life and Apple does offer pretty good support – and if we do indeed see newer handsets receiving updates for longer the authors argument ends up kind of being negated. If people were willing to pay for software updates after a certain number of years it might be viable but ultimately the author kinds of expect everyone else to support his phone without offering much in how he'll pay for said support with something that can tangibly be used to pay rent. And so it's probably easier the author just buys a new phone and remembers to turn the old one in for recycling.

smoldesu 4y ago
It sounds like the author wants Apple to let you unlock those device's bootloaders so that they can have an elegant depreciation/recycling lifecycle instead of becoming e-waste that can only be salvaged by a proprietary Apple-designed robot. That would be good enough for me too, I think.
- magnuspaaske 4y ago
  Seeing as Apple sometimes release patch updates to previous iOS versions (as they've done with iOS 15 just this year) suggests they take security somewhat seriously. Jailbreaking them would have some interesting security implications, especially as it relates to distributing apps via the App Store. The easiest way out of this remains to just buy a new phone and recycle the old one.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    They certainly don't have to stop updating people on OFW, I just want the option to unlock the bootloader for my iPhone. Bonus points if I can do it without an iCloud account, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. It's less about jailbreaking and more about ensuring your hardware stays usable even if Apple doesn't think it should be.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    Jailbreaking could be allowed with the generalized "boot screen is red now" strategy. The biggest problem is that now you might have a bunch of SE's floating around in the secondary market, _all_ jailbroken just to be supported. But at least that means that in-support devices could still be experimented with, but with an obvious "this has been tampered" with strategy.
bdcravens 4y ago
In 2009 I found an old Samsung flip phone I last used in 2003. Out of curiosity, I turned it on - it immediately crashed as soon as it tried to talk to a tower. We've definitely come a long way.

smoldesu 4y ago

It sounds like the author wants Apple to let you unlock those device's bootloaders so that they can have an elegant depreciation/recycling lifecycle instead of becoming e-waste that can only be salvaged by a proprietary Apple-designed robot. That would be good enough for me too, I think.

magnuspaaske 4y ago
Seeing as Apple sometimes release patch updates to previous iOS versions (as they've done with iOS 15 just this year) suggests they take security somewhat seriously. Jailbreaking them would have some interesting security implications, especially as it relates to distributing apps via the App Store. The easiest way out of this remains to just buy a new phone and recycle the old one.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  They certainly don't have to stop updating people on OFW, I just want the option to unlock the bootloader for my iPhone. Bonus points if I can do it without an iCloud account, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. It's less about jailbreaking and more about ensuring your hardware stays usable even if Apple doesn't think it should be.
- rtpg 4y ago
  Jailbreaking could be allowed with the generalized "boot screen is red now" strategy. The biggest problem is that now you might have a bunch of SE's floating around in the secondary market, _all_ jailbroken just to be supported. But at least that means that in-support devices could still be experimented with, but with an obvious "this has been tampered" with strategy.

bdcravens 4y ago

In 2009 I found an old Samsung flip phone I last used in 2003. Out of curiosity, I turned it on - it immediately crashed as soon as it tried to talk to a tower. We've definitely come a long way.