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iPhone 5s Gets New Software Update 13 Years After Launch
- FridayoLeary 8mo agoPeople complain a lot about planned obsolescence but i'm mildly impressed, even if this update is only to keep the lights on and nothing else. I remember people complaining that the design of the 5 was already outdated when it was new and they needed to have bigger screens and be thinner to compete with Samsung...
- al_borland 8mo agoI would love a modern iPhone the size of the 5… or even the 3G.
- tokyobreakfast 8mo agoTLDR it replaces an expired certificate, no software is being "updated" here. Wake me when old versions of OS X can access the App Store again.
- giancarlostoro 8mo agoCant you technically access the old jailbreak app stores on a 5? I would assume these phones were jailbroken far more commonly than modern iPhones. I feel like I dont hear about anyone jailbreaking them anymore.
- jsbisviewtiful 8mo agoYeah a lot of the features people jailbroke for are generally available these days.
- Telaneo 8mo agoWhat versions can't access the App Store anymore? I've tried Catalina recently, and that still worked fine, but it only stopped getting security updates in 2022, so it's only been a few years. Also, I've barely ever used the OSX/MacOS app store anyway, and from what little I've heard from other people, it's not really all that great nor popular a place to get your software from.
- ezfe 8mo ago10.12 appears to have issues
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- FireBeyond 8mo agoYeah, I just had to re-pave an M1 MBP with Monterey. That was an adventure. Got the installer. Ran through part one, "This is no longer supported, click here to run in reduced security mode, or cancel the install?" Reduced security mode. "The installation of reduced security mode failed." Cool. My journey to figure it out found me a Monterey IPSW image. Try to install it via DFU and a second Mac. "Nah, you can't do that, I won't even let you try." ChatGPT hinted that I needed to do it from a similar vintage OS. "Even an Intel Mac running Ventura could work for this." As luck would have it, my partner still had her old MBP Core i5 running Ventura! Alright, install Apple Configurator on the Ventura Mac. "Nah. You need a Mac running 15.7 to install Apple Configurator." Chicken and egg. I mean, this OS (Monterey) only came out FOUR YEARS AGO. Ventura was three. I got lucky with a Reddit post where someone asked for and got a zip file of an old version of Configurator. I was then able to DFU re-image the M1 Mac with Monterey. (Why do I need Monterey on it? Because someone else abandoned their software.) So this Kafkaesque process to even get a four year old OS on a four year old Mac laptop means we shouldn't just be slobberingly praising Apple. (I realize you, personally, weren't. Just when you said 10.12, I got flashbacks.)
- tokyobreakfast 8mo ago> Also, I've barely ever used the OSX/MacOS app store anyway, and from what little I've heard from other people Thanks for the advice.
- rtpg 8mo agoThere's a problem with older Macbooks on older MacOS/factory reset where they can't access the App Store, so they can't directly download newer MacOS, you gotta go sidecar it Of course this is completely opaque to people who have to do this, it just ends up prompting you to login and things like that. I think newer MacOS avoids this stuff by not having OS updates be linked to the App Store
- vlovich123 8mo agoI’m honestly surprised how they kept track that the certificate for an old version of the OS and deprecated hardware was expiring in the first place AND the executives approved cutting a release to roll it.
- apparent 8mo agoI cannot remember ever installing something from the App Store onto a Mac. What software do people install that way?
- mrandish 8mo agoI'm not a fan of Apple's walled garden mindset and resistance to inter-operating with other platforms, but this degree of legacy support is a case of Apple doing a good thing and deserves praise. Note: I'm not saying that Google/MSFT et al are much better than Apple, but they're not quite as bad.
- ChrisMarshallNY 8mo agoI know folks that have 18-month-old flagship Android phones, that can’t get the latest Android releases. When they ask me what Android phones to get, I always say a Pixel, because they will at least get the latest OS support in a timely fashion. They are also excellent phones.
- nomel 8mo ago"Just jailbreak your phone and install <blank>!" they said. I did that for a while, depending on some random guy in a forum to maintain a working image for my device. He bought a new phone, and that was the end of the updates.
- Shank 8mo agoWith Play Integrity / SafetyNet this is also an uphill battle without doing even more work to spoof your Integrity status, if you want mobile banking and finance apps to work.
- estimator7292 8mo agoI bought a brand new flagship phone for $1100, couldn't jailbreak it, then the manufacturer got bored, forced an update that bricked it, then got bored and never published an update again.
- KetoManx64 8mo agoName and shame.
- 8mo ago
- augusteo 8mo agotokyobreakfast is right that this is just a certificate fix, not a real software update. But it's still notable. Lots of old devices become paperweights because of expired certs or backend shutdowns. The fact that Apple even bothered to push this to a 13-year-old device is unusual. Most companies wouldn't.
- snovymgodym 8mo agoKind of how Sony pushes a bluetooth DRM update to PS3s every year still.
- augusteo 8mo agoWow I didn't know that. That's impressive.
- bpye 8mo agoI think you mean blu-ray?
- snovymgodym 8mo agoYeah, blu-ray not bluetooth.
- Klonoar 8mo agoMaybe overlap with the device tree for the last iPod Touches that finally got sold?
- rdsubhas 8mo agoIt's likely that, the Support Contact Rate (and potentially legal contact rate if the phone gets fully bricked and unable to make basic phone calls) is higher than the cost of just pushing the certificate. I'd assume the legal hourly costs for handling 10 cases probably equals the cost of pushing this cert, even if the cases can be successfully defended.
- yunaflox 8mo agoNow, let's see if Apple can fix the A5/A6 activation bug.
- bartread 8mo agoI ran a 5S that I bought in December 2013 as my primary phone all the way up to around March 2020, just as the pandemic was really winding up. The battery, after ailing for a little while, had eventually just given up. I'd gone skiing a couple of times, with the last trip being just before lockdown, and I think it was the cold exposure of the second trip that dealt the mortal blow, and it died shortly after I returned. I liked that phone a lot. It did, at the time, everything I needed, and it was a really nice size, but that period in 2020 was a bad time to try to get a phone repaired. I did attempt to replace the battery myself using the guide on iFixit but, sadly, that did not go well due to some contradictory/out of order instructions, and all I succeeded in doing was damaging the phone, I think, beyond repair. Really good to see that Apple are still supporting them though.
- fouc 8mo agoJust so you know, apparently it's reasonably straightforward to replace the battery of the iPhone 5s, even easier than the iPhone SE (same form factor) for whatever reason. A few years ago I bought a replacement battery kit that came with everything needed for probably something like $10 from aliexpress. I never actually got around to doing the replacement yet but maybe this update will give me the excuse to dig it up and replace the battery too ha!
- 7speter 8mo agoNext time, if you try changing your phone’s battery, you should watch a few youtube videos showing how to take it apart, too.
- wewewedxfgdf 8mo agoI love it when companies keep their old hardware updated. Instills great confidence. AMD drops support as soon as it possibly can for "old" GPUs.
- jauntywundrkind 8mo agoNot AMD doing the work, but 14 year old GCN 1 / 1.1 has been getting a bunch of modernization & other improvements. R9 290, HD 7970, many more old chips. https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDGPU-SI-Power-Management https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMDGPU-SI-Power-Management https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-GCN-1.1-Driver-Default-Prop https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-GCN-1.1-Driver-Default-Pro... AMD might not be doing the work, but they set the world up to be able to support their chips. I'd take that over crossing my fingers for ok Windows driver support to hold out any day. Top range of these cards had (only 8GB) of 0.3TB/s memory, which is what a modern 9060xt can do. Double that for the 9070xt, but still not bad. 4->~48 (fp32) TFLOPS though, wow! Especially with a modern driver stack. With the accelerators all using much older architectures I wonder if they stand to get any benefit, not that they're getting used for graphics much.
- fsflover 8mo agoThus can never be viable. Instead, the companies should open-source obsolete products allowing community support.
- fouc 8mo agoI wonder if this is because some people keep their iPhone 5s around as a backup phone or for some other reason? My iPhone 5s is still attached to my apple account so a certificate update is probably useful security-wise? But that doesn't seem entirely likely because Apple's account automatically degrades the level of access depending on the age/model/OS version of the device.
- rdsubhas 8mo agoMore likely that, the Support Contact Rate (and potentially legal contact rate if the phone gets fully bricked and unable to make basic phone calls) is higher than the cost of just pushing the certificate.
- t1234s 8mo agoAny hope for ipad 1,2 or ipod touch?
- accrual 8mo agoAnyone using the original iPhone SE or the second SE? I wonder how those are fairing on their final update(s).
- usui 8mo agoReplaced the original iPhone SE battery recently with a higher capacity one. Works perfectly. Many apps require an update or else they refuse tor run, but outside of that, still doing well.
- jeffreygoesto 8mo agoHad an original SE as banking backup. Recently the banking app demanded a newer iOS after being updated. Now that good old little device that was supposed to save me eventually is basically bricked for me.
- nake89 8mo agoMe, my wife and my mom are all using the second SE. My mom is the only one who has updated to the newest iOS. I didn't want to because I heard rumors it was slow. But I tried my mom's phone and it seems as snappy as my phone (more or less, not the fastest phone to begin with, but not slow either). So I'm going to update too.
- tonyedgecombe 8mo agoI've got an iPhone 7 I use as a secondary phone. It had a new battery about four years ago. It's still going strong.
- brewmarche 8mo agoStill using it, it’s fine performance wise, maybe needs another new battery in a year or so. Apple Pay, authenticators and messaging apps are working. Was hoping for the new iPhone Fold (with Touch ID even) to be small but looks like it’s going to be a really weird ratio when folded. Of course there are caveats: - Spotify not getting app updates anymore (but still playing fine) - some websites do not support the Safari version, e.g. GitHub - most banking apps are not supported
- linhns 8mo ago
- 5350-uiop-1130 8mo agoi would NOT install this update
- throwway262515 8mo ago> Apple also released new versions of iOS 18 and iOS 16. Has anyone gotten hold of a newer ios 18 for phones more recent than 5s?
- zombot 8mo agoI am locked out of my older iOS devices. I cannot login to my Apple account on these devices because "the OS is too old", and I cannot update iOS without logging into my Apple account. They bricked those devices just by flipping a switch remotely. One of those is an iPhone 6S Plus, for instance.
- falkenstein 8mo agohappy about this since I still daily an iphone se 2016 (same form factor as the 5s but 6s internals) and about to change it's tiny battery and maybe get yet another iphone og se just in case this one stops working. abysmal battery life and tiny screen makes for the perfect dumb smartphone. aside from google search, the phone is virtually ai free (most of the ai and majroity of the social apps do require at least ios16 o 17), i do have to have an older android to use 'institutional' apps (meaning that there's a phone always at home with my banking and govt id apps). sent from the tiny screen of the SE
- 66yatman 8mo agoMaybe the update was a final death call, those users finally need to upgrade.
- crena 8mo agoBut isn’t this in a way an endorsement to still use devices with outdated operating systems full of well documented security holes?