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If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack f

If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things. I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort so that I can run their apps on my old device. It is not just the overhead of supporting multiple different OS versions with different technologies, it is also that this support takes a lot of time while there's a tiny fraction of people that, like the author, use an old phone. I've worked on apps with +1Mio users, and we did have users who were on very old devices using apps which were severely outdated. Those were maybe 1000-2000 of the one million. Adding a constant additional workload of up to 30% (you also have to run CI and everything on older devices) for 1000-2000 users is just not feasible. If you want to continue to use older hardware, just accept that you also have to use older software. I also don't expect to be able to run VSCode on a 1996 Pentium 60. I'd run Emacs instead, or Vim, or whatever else was en vogue in 1996

LtWorf 4y ago
> If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. Here in Sweden taxi and public transport apps need to be kept up to date or they stop working.
- wruza 4y ago
  This. You can live without basic apps or updates. Even without twitter, in non-pathological cases. But services like taxi, banking, e-stores, delivery apps just stop working due to API changes on their side, together with OS requirements. And there may be no useful alternative (e.g. a website doesn’t cut it).
dncornholio 4y ago
Hard agree. I was happy running old iOS. Until my banking app required me to upgrade my phone. If it wasn't for this, I'd still be running with my iPhone 7. I also used my Samsung S2 way beyond reasonable terms, think maybe 6 years I have used that one and it was still perfectly usable when I switched to iPhone. It's my festival phone now.
- medstrom 4y ago
  That's interesting, someone I know just upgraded to the iPhone 7. It's got iOS 15, which is just behind the current iOS 16.
- thr717272 4y ago
  My Samsung S2 was the last Android phone I was happy with. Every one I personally owned since that was either janky or pulled some stupid tricks on system updates or something.
medstrom 4y ago
It's one thing if you already have the app and just stop updating it. My experience with the iOS App Store has been that if you only just now heard of the app and your phone's too old, you can't even download the version that works for your phone. That is what ends up forcing an upgrade. That people's phones can't run the newest version of an app, and aren't allowed to get an old version as a substitute.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Apple has every incentive to make sure old devices become unusable. It pushes people to buy new devices. The effect may be indirect - someone in a poor country with a 6 year old iDevice finds it becomes unusable, so they want to buy a 3 year old iDevice... And they're buying that from someone who has a 3 year old iDevice who sees that for not a lot of extra money they can buy the newest one.
  - medstrom 4y ago
    It's not just an issue of poverty, as if only poor countries have to contend with old phones. In rich countries, there's still an issue of valuation. I have money, but I don't value phones that highly. Just like I could buy a $100 ice cream if I wanted to, but I don't value ice cream that highly.
- drdec 4y ago
  Same issue with Android, FYI. We have a Ring with the app installed on an old phone that we use as the "household" phone. I was going to "upgrade" the household phone to be an old tablet which while newer and running a later version of Android, is still old. Can't install the Ring app on the newer tablet because it is too old. So we are stuck with the even older phone unless we buy something new.
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    Can you download and save the .apk file of the older app perhaps? This obviously would require you to know ahead of time what you were going to potentially use the device for in the future, which is ridiculous.
erk__ 4y ago
That is just not always a possibility especially if you use apps that connect to online services, this is something that has quite recent come up again as Steam is ending support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 in nine months which have caused some uproar in that community. I am surprised that the post about that have not gained any traction on here [0] since to touches the same topic as this one [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35337611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35337611
- distcs 4y ago
  > I am surprised that the post about that have not gained any traction on here Unfortunately which posts get traction is very much a game of luck on HN. Some good samaritans have to hang out on the 'New' page and upvote interesting stories for them to have a chance to come on the front page. Once on the front page, the interesting stories get voted rapidly but coming to the front page itself is 90% of the battle. I like the Lobsters model here where every new post remains on the front page for sometime and then drops off if it does not get enough votes. Due to the volume of posts HN receives, naturally such a system won't work here! So it is all down to the good samaritans hanging out on the New tab.
- maccard 4y ago
  Windows 7 and 8 are both EOL by Microsoft. I don't think it's unreasonable of valve to drop support for OS's that Microsoft aren't maintaining, and the hardware requirements for 7 and 10 are the same today according to MS [0][1]. For a while you could officially upgrade to win10 for free, and it seems that even now, it still works 5 years after they stopped offering upgrades, and 3 years after win7's end of life. I'm not sure what your gripe is here specifically, if you want to continue to run steam, you can upgrade your OS once a decade, or you can install steam for Linux if your device doesn't meet the requirements. That's about as good a set of options as I could imagine. [0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-system-requirements-6d4e9a79-66bf-7950-467c-795cf0386715 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-syste... [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-system-requirements-df0900f2-3513-a851-13e7-0d50bc24e15f https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-system...
seqizz 4y ago
Until the app says "we don't support versions older than X" and stops working I assume?
pch00 4y ago
> I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things. I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort so that I can run their apps on my old device. The fact that "it still works" isn't the only consideration though - it's the security posture. There's plenty of remotely-exploitable flaws in that software stack from 2013.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Remember back in 2002 where if you connect an unpatched windows machine to the internet, it would only be a few minutes before it got infected? Well running unpatched stuff is no longer like that. I bet you could use a 2013 iDevice for a whole year and not get exploited once. Exploits are mostly against the rich and famous now, and not so much against regular joe.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > Remember back in 2002 where if you connect an unpatched windows machine to the internet, it would only be a few minutes before it got infected? Was that actually true, or just an urban legend? I've heard this a lot back then, but never actually saw it happen.
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      It was true (well perhaps more like 10 minutes). You had to connect your machine straight to the internet (ie. through a dialup modem), not via a router. Also, some ISP's blocked ports which protected you somewhat. It was certainly quick enough that there was no way to get the updates installed before the machine would bluescreen (many of these exploiters didn't care much for the stability of your machine...)
    - zevlag 4y ago
      Oh, it's definitely true. I experience it multiple times.
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
Because nobody cared about going offline first, all those apps are now clients of API that will eventually being deprecated, breaking everything.
hdhrufjdi 4y ago
> Those were maybe 1000-2000 of the one million. Adding a constant additional workload of up to 30% (you also have to run CI and everything on older devices) for 1000-2000 users is just not feasible. This mentality is one of the reasons why there's only such much people with older phones. > If you want to continue to use older hardware, just accept that you also have to use older software. I don't think we should accept that easily, because after all there are physical (somewhat finite) resources and external costs such as green house gas emissions involved when new hardware gets produced.
nickkell 4y ago
They're referring to developers updating application servers, meaning the client software is no longer able to operate correctly. If your client software doesn't require internet access for example it's probably fine. For all the other apps it's a problem.
1celebreinconnu 4y ago
The problem is that in current app stores, there are no easy way to find apps that match your hardware requirements. If I want a fitness app that I didn't think of installing when I got the device 5 years ago, I can't easily look for one designed for 5 year old phones on the App Store. Or an app that developers forgot to update/bloat for the last 5 years. Also, sometimes you don't have the choice. The app for the public transportation in my city is quite heavy but there is no alternatives except queuing for a paper tickets. And I would bet that most users would be absolutely fine with a leaner/faster app. So sure, you have to keep up with the time but to me, it feels more and more like a wasteful flight forward anyway.
badpun 4y ago
Many apps connect to backends maintained by the developer. The developer usually doesn’t care about backward compatibility (they only support the latest version of their app), so your old version of the app will, at some point, stop working because it’s not compatible with the current release of the backend API.
idontwantthis 4y ago
I wonder if you could run modern Vim/Emacs or if even they are too resource hungry by now.
- chongli 4y ago
  You could totally run them on an early 90’s PC. Just don’t try to use autocomplete plugins or anything else that needs to hook into every character insertion event. Also I would imagine git (and hence magit) would run pretty slow on an old PC due to all the hashing, but I think it would still be usable. Also you’d want to avoid loading too many plugins all at once, due to limited RAM, but that should be obvious as well.
- pmontra 4y ago
  Vanilla Vim and Emacs are pretty small by today standards. They can run everywhere. Emacs was born text only, BTW. If you start turning on language servers, that becomes the larger part of the editor and the actual editor is just a small fraction of the total.
wiredfool 4y ago
Ipad Mini2 owner here. Twitter doesn't work. Their app now shows _maybe_ 5% of tweets that my logged in user does. Safari is slow as crap on the website. Google voice still rings and shows notifications, but can't function because no updates are available and something in the api is broken. A non-zero number of sites show no-css warnings or just crash because it's an old JS interpreter. (HN though -- it's still rocking the 2000 era web design) Apps that access the network are slowly dying. Though kindle and mail still work, and that's about all I use it for now. This was a $300 device 8 years ago, and probably has my best $/usage of any tech I've ever had. The replacement is an 800eur ipad (edit: mini, with cell), because it's (the mini) now effectively a pro model rather than the cheap one, and I'm not sure I can justify that.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > The replacement is an 800eur ipad, because it's now effectively a pro model rather than the cheap one, and I'm not sure I can justify that. I find this hard to believe. A $300 iPad mini 2 from 2015 is comparable in specs to an 800 Euro 2023 iPad Pro? Edit: Actually, you can compare them directly on Apple’s website: https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ipad-pro-11-4th-gen https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ip... Even the current iPad mini (6th gen) blows the iPad mini 2 out of the water. https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ipad-mini-6th-gen https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ip...
  - jclardy 4y ago
    That's because it isn't true, the replacement is the $599 iPad Mini 6 which is in a completely different class of tablet. Even the $300 iPad would outclass it by a mile. Mini 6 has regularly been on sale for $499 as well since it is now long in the tooth already.
    - wiredfool 4y ago
      Size, not specs. If I want a mini with cell, it's 800 eur, which might be 600 moneys where you live, but VAT is included here. Actually, 64GB mini with Wifi+Cellular is 869 eur in Ireland, just checked there. When I bought my original mini, it was the cheapest new iOS device with a cell radio.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> I also don't expect to be able to run VSCode on a 1996 Pentium 60. You don't? I can run VsCode on my laptop from 2005. I dont have anything older, but Debian does run on servers from 2005, and can probably run VsCode Sure, mobile phones changes a lot between 2005 and 2015. But in the past 5 years there hasn't been much progress This sits with OS first and foremost, and we do this shit because we can get away with it. We will have to change, this isnt sustainable
- whynaut 4y ago
  No, you don’t… we didn’t even have multicore processing in 1996. 1995-2005 looks very different from 2005-2015.
  - nikau 4y ago
    Funny, I had a dual pentium pro in 96...
    - whynaut 4y ago
      where were you/what were you doing? That line didn’t sell well until it was reintroduced, IIRC. you’re right though, I may be off by a couple years but correct for most I suspect
      - nikau 4y ago
        Investment banking area. We had a bunch of DECpc XL dual Pentiums a few years before that too. I'm pretty sure it was on nt3.51 at that stage with exceed for remote X windows apps and a bunch of bespoke win32 stuff.
not_your_vase 4y ago
I wish it was that simple. I use a 4th gen iPod touch, every day, only to listen to music while commuting. Just this week I needed an interval timer, and thought that I could just install one on my iPod. Nope - AppStore showed about 12 results for "interval timer", but none of them were installable on iOS 6. I thought then I will look for an online interval timer, and use it through wifi. After clicking through the first 3 pages of Google results, Safari could not make any of the pages usable. Either loaded a blank screen, or the interface didn't react to the touches - I guess some "fancy" new features that are too modern for the old Safari. I could rant about loading 10MB JS on a typical lightweight site that has the same visuals and functionality as 15 years ago, but now it makes Chrome cry on a modern machine... but I won't do that. Anyway this is how I gave up having an interval timer on my iPod. Maybe my plan was too grandiose to begin with. Neither new software, nor old software.
- kaba0 4y ago
  That device is 13 years old. It could definitely do more than what it currently can, but I don’t think it is reasonable to expect such a long support period, especially that mobile hardware underwent a complete metamorphosis in the meanwhile. It is reasonable to expect an iphone 14 to be usable as a general purpose device until the next major breakthrough, because year-to-year upgrades are mostly incremental nowadays, but say the first iphone is incomparable on the hardware front to a modern smartphone.
  - not_your_vase 4y ago
    Support? It doesn't need any action to let a 13 years old timer run on it. But removing the applications from the AppStore, it does need action, and investment of money and time. Keeping the support would be easier for Apple... but they don't want. Frankly, there hasn't been a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of interval timers' technical design in the past decade that would warrant such a ridiculous obsolescence. We are literally talking about "hello world" level applications, that can't run on the device - not because the hardware or software isn't capable.
    - 4y ago
serf 4y ago
> I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort that isn't supposed to be a herculean effort -- if it is then you should question those that provide the software stack, and question why you're beholden to those decision-makers.
vanilla_nut 4y ago
No, you cannot. Apple does not give you the freedom to use old versions of software. You can't downgrade your iOS version. You can only upgrade apps, and iOS only lets you download the latest available version of an app for your version of iOS. Need to do a device reset? If you have managed to keep any apps on old versions, you'll get upgraded now. And you can't even save APKs and sideload because of Apple's developer signatured and certs. Old versions of iOS get some, but certainly not all security updates. And most importantly... so, so, so many apps, from banking to navigation to music, insist on checking your app version and blocking usage with a massive dialog box if you're a couple of weeks out of date. It's incredibly obnoxious, especially when some of these apps update 2-3 times a week and each update is >100MB. I try to use those services from a web browser these days, but Safari is so limiting you can't even reliably block ironic "download the app" banners. And that's to say nothing of actual cellular advancements, like new LTE bands and 5G and voLTE, which older phones understandably can't get... but which certain phone providers use to kick old phones off the network. For instance, AT&T no longer allows any activations for phones not on their (very limited) voLTE whitelist, since they shut down 3G. Like OP, really wish I could just use the 2016 SE for the next 10 years. But even though the hardware is capable the software industry has pushed it into the "legacy" bin.
- datadeft 4y ago
  This ship has sailed when people accepted that everything lives in the cloud and companies can dictate what you can, can't and must do with your own property. The last thing they cannot take away and cannot control is offline physical goods, like books for example.
  - Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
    >> The last thing they cannot take away and cannot control is offline physical goods, like books for example. Not really. E.g. can download mp3 music and mp4 movies on my own HD and so far Microsoft Defender hasn't deleted them.
    - default_png 4y ago
NikolaNovak 4y ago
I agree in principle but reality is more complex. I am an android / windows user. After several years I splurged for an expensive brand new iPad specifically to run music apps such as behringer deepmind (which integrates with their synth). Couple of weeks later iPad silently installed some os update. Half my apps stopped working! They were apparently incompatible with the current OS and I needed to "contact app developer for an update". Which as you point out isn't going to happen. This is extreme user-unfriendly BS, but apparently par for the course in Apple Land. Eventually I gave the now-useless iPad to my wife. Lesson learned, though not sure what lesson it was. It's hard to run apps?
- scarface74 4y ago
  Unless you specifically enabled it, iOS does not get automatically updated.
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    They might have enabled it without understanding what could (and did) happen. Victim-blaming isn't the answer here -- that was a genuine clusterfuck that hosed a lot of working installations for no good reason.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      You mean if you enable “automatic iOS updates” you don’t expect automatic iOS updates? Or do you mean that when the user specifically enables “automatic iOS updates”, Apple shouldn’t automatically do iOS updates? If we don’t “blame the victim” for explicitly making a choice , who is at fault?
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        There was no reason to think you'd be effectively cut off from half your apps if you enabled automatic upgrades. Or that many of the apps you could still use would be forcibly "upgraded" to subscription models, as iTeleport tried to pull.
AndyMcConachie 4y ago
Enjoy all the security vulnerabilities.
rexreed 4y ago
I so wish this was true. I'm a happy Android phone user with OS vintage 2016, but now all my banking apps are no longer working because they refuse to support my OS version. Many other apps from airline check-in apps to chat apps that used to work perfectly fine all refuse to work because upon running they say "This app no longer supported" and forces an OS upgrade, which is not possible on this version phone. This is forced obsolescence in action.
eviks 4y ago
no you can't, some apps just stop working, some become vulnerable/unsafe to use. Then you can't install apps you haven't "purchased" before, then ...
jjulius 4y ago
>If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. And if the app developer has updated the app and sunsetted certain functions of the old version such that the old app no longer works right despite being installed? I've had banking apps, which I haven't updated, completely lock me out until I moved to the newer version.
l72 4y ago
Really? My ipad became e-waste because HBO, Hulu, and Netflix all released new versions of their apps for the new version of iOS, and then decided to cut the old versions off from their services. The old versions all show an error telling me to upgrade to a new version, which I can't do. The sole purpose of this ipad was for media consumption. I then thought I would use my ipad as a Shopify POS terminal for my side business when I do pop-ups. I obviously didn't want any of my personal information on _that_, so I reset it and created a new apple id. Except, you can't download any apps! Apple only allows you to download the latest support version of an app IF you had already downloaded it. This meant first installing on a device with the latest version of iOS. So I began backing up my iPhone 12, resetting it, signing in with the new business apple id, downloading the apps I needed, resetting it, and restoring it with my personal account. THEN I was allowed to download the latest supported app on my ipad. Success!! Well, no, because the latest supported version of the Shopify POS says I have to upgrade to a new version to use it, which my ipad doesn't support... So, back to e-waste... The article is right. Blame us developers for: 1. Requiring the latest OS instead of lastest-2. 2. Cutting off older versions of our software from our services.
- scarface74 4y ago
  You can still buy apps on iTunes for Windows can’t you and then download the “last compatible version”.
  - Technetium 4y ago
    No you cannot.
makeitdouble 4y ago
Fun fact: as iPad batteries are glued[0], when requested Apple won't renew the battery alone and do full machine exchanges (but charge for the price of the battery only). So if you ever update your iPad 3 battery you'll probably need to do local backups to keep your apps if they got removed from the Store or you need a specific version. Otherwise that's 50+ steps of fun to change the battery yourself: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+3+Wi-Fi+Battery+Replacement/11605 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+3+Wi-Fi+Battery+Replacemen... [0] at least before the latest models ? Did they stop doing that ?
II2II 4y ago
> Adding a constant additional workload of up to 30% (you also have to run CI and everything on older devices) for 1000-2000 users is just not feasible. How old is very old here? If you're talking about devices that are under ten years old adding 30% to your workload, I would argue that something is wrong on the operating system end of the deal. Part of the reason why we have operating systems is to provide a layer of abstraction so that software is not tied to particular hardware. > I also don't expect to be able to run VSCode on a 1996 Pentium 60. I'd run Emacs instead, or Vim, or whatever else was en vogue in 1996 I think that most people would agree that expecting support 25+ year old hardware is not reasonable. When you're talking about hardware that is less than 10 years old, people's opinions are going to vary. Those who feel as though they are upgrading without seeing tangible improvements in functionality are likely to be more adamant about longer support periods. For what it's worth, I have run recent versions of VSCode on my 10+ year old PC. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it's performance of the editor itself, or the associated extensions. I would imagine that it supports much older hardware than what I have simply on the merit that the operating system supports much older hardware.
everdrive 4y ago
Most of the apologetics in this reply are unintentional workarounds which either don’t function in a number of cases, or else are unlikely to work in the future as Apple updates their practices. (ie, they will not preserve functionality which was never originally intended.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Reason077 4y ago
> "I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things." I've got an iPad 2 which I purchased on the day of release! It's still in great shape and runs well. The original battery still holds a good charge. Still connects fine to modern WiFi networks and my Bluetooth devices. I still use it for classic iPad gaming, but besides that unfortunately it increasingly struggles to "do things" because the ancient Safari is losing its ability to load/render modern websites properly. If only there was a way to get a more modern web browser on it (maybe there is, with jailbreaking?) then it'd be way more useful. Side note: I like my iPad 2 but I've long since vowed to never buy another iPad until Apple supports multiple user accounts in iPadOS.
zelphirkalt 4y ago
> If you want to continue to use older hardware, just accept that you also have to use older software. This sounds like making an excuse for completely unnecessarily obsoleting hardware and ignorantly continuing to make hardware that is completely fine spec-wise obsolete. It all be damned, as long as we can make software how we want. No need to see beyond one's own nose, as long as the rare earths can be mined. The planet be damned. If at least we kept supporting older client side software, I guess people could live with that, but without a doubt, software businesses are a driving force behind the need felt by many people to have a new phone every 1-2 years. Another driving force are manufacturers that try to convince us, that we need their newest ever more dystopian products. I personally keep using my now more than 12y old phone as a music player and my phone with broken display (not worth the repair costs) which is approximately 8 years old. Some software like Signal or Syncthing can still be installed (some from Fdroid) and I am not using iPhones, but older Android phones. Some day I might have to look into rooting them and install another OS, because I dread the day, when they will stop working and I have the choice of buying an even more dystopian spyware device. But you know what I could not install, or even find in the app store? The Covid warn app! So these idiots made the app only for newer phones, creating a huge incentive for people to get newer phones and again wasting perfectly fine hardware. All that of course without proper justification. Even my old phones have WLAN and bluetooth and whatever. So I ended up not being able to use the Covid warn app at all, just because I do not like to trash perfectly fine hardware or unnecessarily buy a new phone every year. Great. Just great.
taylodl 4y ago
This mindset is what the author is addressing. This strategy may have been acceptable in the 80's, 90's and 00's when advances in computing power were coming in leaps in bounds, but the 10's and 20's have seen a much slower advance in computing power. I mean, good grief! I was running Garage Band on my original iPhone SE using an audio interface for my guitar and several Audio Unit effects chained together. The phone handled it just fine. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to run the overwhelming majority of today's apps on these "old" platforms.

LtWorf 4y ago

> If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. Here in Sweden taxi and public transport apps need to be kept up to date or they stop working.

wruza 4y ago
This. You can live without basic apps or updates. Even without twitter, in non-pathological cases. But services like taxi, banking, e-stores, delivery apps just stop working due to API changes on their side, together with OS requirements. And there may be no useful alternative (e.g. a website doesn’t cut it).

dncornholio 4y ago

Hard agree. I was happy running old iOS. Until my banking app required me to upgrade my phone. If it wasn't for this, I'd still be running with my iPhone 7. I also used my Samsung S2 way beyond reasonable terms, think maybe 6 years I have used that one and it was still perfectly usable when I switched to iPhone. It's my festival phone now.

medstrom 4y ago
That's interesting, someone I know just upgraded to the iPhone 7. It's got iOS 15, which is just behind the current iOS 16.
thr717272 4y ago
My Samsung S2 was the last Android phone I was happy with. Every one I personally owned since that was either janky or pulled some stupid tricks on system updates or something.

medstrom 4y ago

It's one thing if you already have the app and just stop updating it. My experience with the iOS App Store has been that if you only just now heard of the app and your phone's too old, you can't even download the version that works for your phone. That is what ends up forcing an upgrade. That people's phones can't run the newest version of an app, and aren't allowed to get an old version as a substitute.

londons_explore 4y ago
Apple has every incentive to make sure old devices become unusable. It pushes people to buy new devices. The effect may be indirect - someone in a poor country with a 6 year old iDevice finds it becomes unusable, so they want to buy a 3 year old iDevice... And they're buying that from someone who has a 3 year old iDevice who sees that for not a lot of extra money they can buy the newest one.
- medstrom 4y ago
  It's not just an issue of poverty, as if only poor countries have to contend with old phones. In rich countries, there's still an issue of valuation. I have money, but I don't value phones that highly. Just like I could buy a $100 ice cream if I wanted to, but I don't value ice cream that highly.
drdec 4y ago
Same issue with Android, FYI. We have a Ring with the app installed on an old phone that we use as the "household" phone. I was going to "upgrade" the household phone to be an old tablet which while newer and running a later version of Android, is still old. Can't install the Ring app on the newer tablet because it is too old. So we are stuck with the even older phone unless we buy something new.
- ridgered4 4y ago
  Can you download and save the .apk file of the older app perhaps? This obviously would require you to know ahead of time what you were going to potentially use the device for in the future, which is ridiculous.

erk__ 4y ago

That is just not always a possibility especially if you use apps that connect to online services, this is something that has quite recent come up again as Steam is ending support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 in nine months which have caused some uproar in that community. I am surprised that the post about that have not gained any traction on here [0] since to touches the same topic as this one [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35337611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35337611

distcs 4y ago
> I am surprised that the post about that have not gained any traction on here Unfortunately which posts get traction is very much a game of luck on HN. Some good samaritans have to hang out on the 'New' page and upvote interesting stories for them to have a chance to come on the front page. Once on the front page, the interesting stories get voted rapidly but coming to the front page itself is 90% of the battle. I like the Lobsters model here where every new post remains on the front page for sometime and then drops off if it does not get enough votes. Due to the volume of posts HN receives, naturally such a system won't work here! So it is all down to the good samaritans hanging out on the New tab.
maccard 4y ago
Windows 7 and 8 are both EOL by Microsoft. I don't think it's unreasonable of valve to drop support for OS's that Microsoft aren't maintaining, and the hardware requirements for 7 and 10 are the same today according to MS [0][1]. For a while you could officially upgrade to win10 for free, and it seems that even now, it still works 5 years after they stopped offering upgrades, and 3 years after win7's end of life. I'm not sure what your gripe is here specifically, if you want to continue to run steam, you can upgrade your OS once a decade, or you can install steam for Linux if your device doesn't meet the requirements. That's about as good a set of options as I could imagine. [0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-system-requirements-6d4e9a79-66bf-7950-467c-795cf0386715 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-syste... [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-system-requirements-df0900f2-3513-a851-13e7-0d50bc24e15f https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-system...

seqizz 4y ago

Until the app says "we don't support versions older than X" and stops working I assume?

pch00 4y ago

> I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things. I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort so that I can run their apps on my old device. The fact that "it still works" isn't the only consideration though - it's the security posture. There's plenty of remotely-exploitable flaws in that software stack from 2013.

londons_explore 4y ago
Remember back in 2002 where if you connect an unpatched windows machine to the internet, it would only be a few minutes before it got infected? Well running unpatched stuff is no longer like that. I bet you could use a 2013 iDevice for a whole year and not get exploited once. Exploits are mostly against the rich and famous now, and not so much against regular joe.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > Remember back in 2002 where if you connect an unpatched windows machine to the internet, it would only be a few minutes before it got infected? Was that actually true, or just an urban legend? I've heard this a lot back then, but never actually saw it happen.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    It was true (well perhaps more like 10 minutes). You had to connect your machine straight to the internet (ie. through a dialup modem), not via a router. Also, some ISP's blocked ports which protected you somewhat. It was certainly quick enough that there was no way to get the updates installed before the machine would bluescreen (many of these exploiters didn't care much for the stability of your machine...)
  - zevlag 4y ago
    Oh, it's definitely true. I experience it multiple times.
  - CamperBob2 4y ago

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

Because nobody cared about going offline first, all those apps are now clients of API that will eventually being deprecated, breaking everything.

hdhrufjdi 4y ago

> Those were maybe 1000-2000 of the one million. Adding a constant additional workload of up to 30% (you also have to run CI and everything on older devices) for 1000-2000 users is just not feasible. This mentality is one of the reasons why there's only such much people with older phones. > If you want to continue to use older hardware, just accept that you also have to use older software. I don't think we should accept that easily, because after all there are physical (somewhat finite) resources and external costs such as green house gas emissions involved when new hardware gets produced.

nickkell 4y ago

They're referring to developers updating application servers, meaning the client software is no longer able to operate correctly. If your client software doesn't require internet access for example it's probably fine. For all the other apps it's a problem.

1celebreinconnu 4y ago

The problem is that in current app stores, there are no easy way to find apps that match your hardware requirements. If I want a fitness app that I didn't think of installing when I got the device 5 years ago, I can't easily look for one designed for 5 year old phones on the App Store. Or an app that developers forgot to update/bloat for the last 5 years. Also, sometimes you don't have the choice. The app for the public transportation in my city is quite heavy but there is no alternatives except queuing for a paper tickets. And I would bet that most users would be absolutely fine with a leaner/faster app. So sure, you have to keep up with the time but to me, it feels more and more like a wasteful flight forward anyway.

badpun 4y ago

Many apps connect to backends maintained by the developer. The developer usually doesn’t care about backward compatibility (they only support the latest version of their app), so your old version of the app will, at some point, stop working because it’s not compatible with the current release of the backend API.

idontwantthis 4y ago

I wonder if you could run modern Vim/Emacs or if even they are too resource hungry by now.

chongli 4y ago
You could totally run them on an early 90’s PC. Just don’t try to use autocomplete plugins or anything else that needs to hook into every character insertion event. Also I would imagine git (and hence magit) would run pretty slow on an old PC due to all the hashing, but I think it would still be usable. Also you’d want to avoid loading too many plugins all at once, due to limited RAM, but that should be obvious as well.
pmontra 4y ago
Vanilla Vim and Emacs are pretty small by today standards. They can run everywhere. Emacs was born text only, BTW. If you start turning on language servers, that becomes the larger part of the editor and the actual editor is just a small fraction of the total.

wiredfool 4y ago

Ipad Mini2 owner here. Twitter doesn't work. Their app now shows _maybe_ 5% of tweets that my logged in user does. Safari is slow as crap on the website. Google voice still rings and shows notifications, but can't function because no updates are available and something in the api is broken. A non-zero number of sites show no-css warnings or just crash because it's an old JS interpreter. (HN though -- it's still rocking the 2000 era web design) Apps that access the network are slowly dying. Though kindle and mail still work, and that's about all I use it for now. This was a $300 device 8 years ago, and probably has my best $/usage of any tech I've ever had. The replacement is an 800eur ipad (edit: mini, with cell), because it's (the mini) now effectively a pro model rather than the cheap one, and I'm not sure I can justify that.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
> The replacement is an 800eur ipad, because it's now effectively a pro model rather than the cheap one, and I'm not sure I can justify that. I find this hard to believe. A $300 iPad mini 2 from 2015 is comparable in specs to an 800 Euro 2023 iPad Pro? Edit: Actually, you can compare them directly on Apple’s website: https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ipad-pro-11-4th-gen https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ip... Even the current iPad mini (6th gen) blows the iPad mini 2 out of the water. https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ipad-mini-6th-gen https://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/?modelList=ipad-mini-2,ip...
- jclardy 4y ago
  That's because it isn't true, the replacement is the $599 iPad Mini 6 which is in a completely different class of tablet. Even the $300 iPad would outclass it by a mile. Mini 6 has regularly been on sale for $499 as well since it is now long in the tooth already.
  - wiredfool 4y ago
    Size, not specs. If I want a mini with cell, it's 800 eur, which might be 600 moneys where you live, but VAT is included here. Actually, 64GB mini with Wifi+Cellular is 869 eur in Ireland, just checked there. When I bought my original mini, it was the cheapest new iOS device with a cell radio.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> I also don't expect to be able to run VSCode on a 1996 Pentium 60. You don't? I can run VsCode on my laptop from 2005. I dont have anything older, but Debian does run on servers from 2005, and can probably run VsCode Sure, mobile phones changes a lot between 2005 and 2015. But in the past 5 years there hasn't been much progress This sits with OS first and foremost, and we do this shit because we can get away with it. We will have to change, this isnt sustainable

whynaut 4y ago
No, you don’t… we didn’t even have multicore processing in 1996. 1995-2005 looks very different from 2005-2015.
- nikau 4y ago
  Funny, I had a dual pentium pro in 96...
  - whynaut 4y ago
    where were you/what were you doing? That line didn’t sell well until it was reintroduced, IIRC. you’re right though, I may be off by a couple years but correct for most I suspect
    - nikau 4y ago
      Investment banking area. We had a bunch of DECpc XL dual Pentiums a few years before that too. I'm pretty sure it was on nt3.51 at that stage with exceed for remote X windows apps and a bunch of bespoke win32 stuff.

not_your_vase 4y ago

I wish it was that simple. I use a 4th gen iPod touch, every day, only to listen to music while commuting. Just this week I needed an interval timer, and thought that I could just install one on my iPod. Nope - AppStore showed about 12 results for "interval timer", but none of them were installable on iOS 6. I thought then I will look for an online interval timer, and use it through wifi. After clicking through the first 3 pages of Google results, Safari could not make any of the pages usable. Either loaded a blank screen, or the interface didn't react to the touches - I guess some "fancy" new features that are too modern for the old Safari. I could rant about loading 10MB JS on a typical lightweight site that has the same visuals and functionality as 15 years ago, but now it makes Chrome cry on a modern machine... but I won't do that. Anyway this is how I gave up having an interval timer on my iPod. Maybe my plan was too grandiose to begin with. Neither new software, nor old software.

kaba0 4y ago
That device is 13 years old. It could definitely do more than what it currently can, but I don’t think it is reasonable to expect such a long support period, especially that mobile hardware underwent a complete metamorphosis in the meanwhile. It is reasonable to expect an iphone 14 to be usable as a general purpose device until the next major breakthrough, because year-to-year upgrades are mostly incremental nowadays, but say the first iphone is incomparable on the hardware front to a modern smartphone.
- not_your_vase 4y ago
  Support? It doesn't need any action to let a 13 years old timer run on it. But removing the applications from the AppStore, it does need action, and investment of money and time. Keeping the support would be easier for Apple... but they don't want. Frankly, there hasn't been a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of interval timers' technical design in the past decade that would warrant such a ridiculous obsolescence. We are literally talking about "hello world" level applications, that can't run on the device - not because the hardware or software isn't capable.
  - 4y ago

serf 4y ago

> I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort that isn't supposed to be a herculean effort -- if it is then you should question those that provide the software stack, and question why you're beholden to those decision-makers.

vanilla_nut 4y ago

No, you cannot. Apple does not give you the freedom to use old versions of software. You can't downgrade your iOS version. You can only upgrade apps, and iOS only lets you download the latest available version of an app for your version of iOS. Need to do a device reset? If you have managed to keep any apps on old versions, you'll get upgraded now. And you can't even save APKs and sideload because of Apple's developer signatured and certs. Old versions of iOS get some, but certainly not all security updates. And most importantly... so, so, so many apps, from banking to navigation to music, insist on checking your app version and blocking usage with a massive dialog box if you're a couple of weeks out of date. It's incredibly obnoxious, especially when some of these apps update 2-3 times a week and each update is >100MB. I try to use those services from a web browser these days, but Safari is so limiting you can't even reliably block ironic "download the app" banners. And that's to say nothing of actual cellular advancements, like new LTE bands and 5G and voLTE, which older phones understandably can't get... but which certain phone providers use to kick old phones off the network. For instance, AT&T no longer allows any activations for phones not on their (very limited) voLTE whitelist, since they shut down 3G. Like OP, really wish I could just use the 2016 SE for the next 10 years. But even though the hardware is capable the software industry has pushed it into the "legacy" bin.

datadeft 4y ago
This ship has sailed when people accepted that everything lives in the cloud and companies can dictate what you can, can't and must do with your own property. The last thing they cannot take away and cannot control is offline physical goods, like books for example.
- Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
  >> The last thing they cannot take away and cannot control is offline physical goods, like books for example. Not really. E.g. can download mp3 music and mp4 movies on my own HD and so far Microsoft Defender hasn't deleted them.
  - default_png 4y ago

NikolaNovak 4y ago

I agree in principle but reality is more complex. I am an android / windows user. After several years I splurged for an expensive brand new iPad specifically to run music apps such as behringer deepmind (which integrates with their synth). Couple of weeks later iPad silently installed some os update. Half my apps stopped working! They were apparently incompatible with the current OS and I needed to "contact app developer for an update". Which as you point out isn't going to happen. This is extreme user-unfriendly BS, but apparently par for the course in Apple Land. Eventually I gave the now-useless iPad to my wife. Lesson learned, though not sure what lesson it was. It's hard to run apps?

scarface74 4y ago
Unless you specifically enabled it, iOS does not get automatically updated.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  They might have enabled it without understanding what could (and did) happen. Victim-blaming isn't the answer here -- that was a genuine clusterfuck that hosed a lot of working installations for no good reason.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    You mean if you enable “automatic iOS updates” you don’t expect automatic iOS updates? Or do you mean that when the user specifically enables “automatic iOS updates”, Apple shouldn’t automatically do iOS updates? If we don’t “blame the victim” for explicitly making a choice , who is at fault?
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      There was no reason to think you'd be effectively cut off from half your apps if you enabled automatic upgrades. Or that many of the apps you could still use would be forcibly "upgraded" to subscription models, as iTeleport tried to pull.

AndyMcConachie 4y ago

Enjoy all the security vulnerabilities.

rexreed 4y ago

I so wish this was true. I'm a happy Android phone user with OS vintage 2016, but now all my banking apps are no longer working because they refuse to support my OS version. Many other apps from airline check-in apps to chat apps that used to work perfectly fine all refuse to work because upon running they say "This app no longer supported" and forces an OS upgrade, which is not possible on this version phone. This is forced obsolescence in action.

eviks 4y ago

no you can't, some apps just stop working, some become vulnerable/unsafe to use. Then you can't install apps you haven't "purchased" before, then ...

jjulius 4y ago

>If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. And if the app developer has updated the app and sunsetted certain functions of the old version such that the old app no longer works right despite being installed? I've had banking apps, which I haven't updated, completely lock me out until I moved to the newer version.

l72 4y ago

Really? My ipad became e-waste because HBO, Hulu, and Netflix all released new versions of their apps for the new version of iOS, and then decided to cut the old versions off from their services. The old versions all show an error telling me to upgrade to a new version, which I can't do. The sole purpose of this ipad was for media consumption. I then thought I would use my ipad as a Shopify POS terminal for my side business when I do pop-ups. I obviously didn't want any of my personal information on _that_, so I reset it and created a new apple id. Except, you can't download any apps! Apple only allows you to download the latest support version of an app IF you had already downloaded it. This meant first installing on a device with the latest version of iOS. So I began backing up my iPhone 12, resetting it, signing in with the new business apple id, downloading the apps I needed, resetting it, and restoring it with my personal account. THEN I was allowed to download the latest supported app on my ipad. Success!! Well, no, because the latest supported version of the Shopify POS says I have to upgrade to a new version to use it, which my ipad doesn't support... So, back to e-waste... The article is right. Blame us developers for: 1. Requiring the latest OS instead of lastest-2. 2. Cutting off older versions of our software from our services.

scarface74 4y ago
You can still buy apps on iTunes for Windows can’t you and then download the “last compatible version”.
- Technetium 4y ago
  No you cannot.

makeitdouble 4y ago

Fun fact: as iPad batteries are glued[0], when requested Apple won't renew the battery alone and do full machine exchanges (but charge for the price of the battery only). So if you ever update your iPad 3 battery you'll probably need to do local backups to keep your apps if they got removed from the Store or you need a specific version. Otherwise that's 50+ steps of fun to change the battery yourself: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+3+Wi-Fi+Battery+Replacement/11605 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+3+Wi-Fi+Battery+Replacemen... [0] at least before the latest models ? Did they stop doing that ?

II2II 4y ago

> Adding a constant additional workload of up to 30% (you also have to run CI and everything on older devices) for 1000-2000 users is just not feasible. How old is very old here? If you're talking about devices that are under ten years old adding 30% to your workload, I would argue that something is wrong on the operating system end of the deal. Part of the reason why we have operating systems is to provide a layer of abstraction so that software is not tied to particular hardware. > I also don't expect to be able to run VSCode on a 1996 Pentium 60. I'd run Emacs instead, or Vim, or whatever else was en vogue in 1996 I think that most people would agree that expecting support 25+ year old hardware is not reasonable. When you're talking about hardware that is less than 10 years old, people's opinions are going to vary. Those who feel as though they are upgrading without seeing tangible improvements in functionality are likely to be more adamant about longer support periods. For what it's worth, I have run recent versions of VSCode on my 10+ year old PC. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it's performance of the editor itself, or the associated extensions. I would imagine that it supports much older hardware than what I have simply on the merit that the operating system supports much older hardware.

everdrive 4y ago

Most of the apologetics in this reply are unintentional workarounds which either don’t function in a number of cases, or else are unlikely to work in the future as Apple updates their practices. (ie, they will not preserve functionality which was never originally intended.)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Reason077 4y ago

> "I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things." I've got an iPad 2 which I purchased on the day of release! It's still in great shape and runs well. The original battery still holds a good charge. Still connects fine to modern WiFi networks and my Bluetooth devices. I still use it for classic iPad gaming, but besides that unfortunately it increasingly struggles to "do things" because the ancient Safari is losing its ability to load/render modern websites properly. If only there was a way to get a more modern web browser on it (maybe there is, with jailbreaking?) then it'd be way more useful. Side note: I like my iPad 2 but I've long since vowed to never buy another iPad until Apple supports multiple user accounts in iPadOS.

zelphirkalt 4y ago

> If you want to continue to use older hardware, just accept that you also have to use older software. This sounds like making an excuse for completely unnecessarily obsoleting hardware and ignorantly continuing to make hardware that is completely fine spec-wise obsolete. It all be damned, as long as we can make software how we want. No need to see beyond one's own nose, as long as the rare earths can be mined. The planet be damned. If at least we kept supporting older client side software, I guess people could live with that, but without a doubt, software businesses are a driving force behind the need felt by many people to have a new phone every 1-2 years. Another driving force are manufacturers that try to convince us, that we need their newest ever more dystopian products. I personally keep using my now more than 12y old phone as a music player and my phone with broken display (not worth the repair costs) which is approximately 8 years old. Some software like Signal or Syncthing can still be installed (some from Fdroid) and I am not using iPhones, but older Android phones. Some day I might have to look into rooting them and install another OS, because I dread the day, when they will stop working and I have the choice of buying an even more dystopian spyware device. But you know what I could not install, or even find in the app store? The Covid warn app! So these idiots made the app only for newer phones, creating a huge incentive for people to get newer phones and again wasting perfectly fine hardware. All that of course without proper justification. Even my old phones have WLAN and bluetooth and whatever. So I ended up not being able to use the Covid warn app at all, just because I do not like to trash perfectly fine hardware or unnecessarily buy a new phone every year. Great. Just great.

taylodl 4y ago

This mindset is what the author is addressing. This strategy may have been acceptable in the 80's, 90's and 00's when advances in computing power were coming in leaps in bounds, but the 10's and 20's have seen a much slower advance in computing power. I mean, good grief! I was running Garage Band on my original iPhone SE using an audio interface for my guitar and several Audio Unit effects chained together. The phone handled it just fine. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to run the overwhelming majority of today's apps on these "old" platforms.