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Comment by Niten | Hacker News Reader

You intend to use your phone for a year without installing any security updates?

Some people like living dangerously, I guess. For the rest, it's a good thing iOS strongly encourages people to keep up to date.

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What about folks who continue to use older hardware?

This is a problem with the manufacturer, that doesn’t backport security fixes to older OS versions.

It’s a sign that we are still in the software dark ages when security is so poor that a continuous stream of patches is the only way to stay safe.

It will only change when all software vendors become liable for security failures.

So... what's the alternative? How do you address security vulnerabilities without pushing out a change in the code that patches the vulnerability?

It would be a good thing if iOS was stable as it should be. iOS 11 is a buggy mess that I regret updating to.

I'd rather miss out on few security updates for a year, than have my phone completely freeze, require reboots, etc quite often - and this isn't even an old phone, it's 7+. And let's be honest, the security issues aren't even that easily exploitable or can be mitigated some other way.

I will never again update macOS and iOS until at least few months, and newer fix versions, after release - I've had nothing but problems with both.

I have a 6s and regret upgrading to 11. Slow and unstable. Frankly I don’t do enough sketchy crap on the phone to care about security updates as much as I’m supposed to.

It always amazes me how subjective adjectives like "slow" and "unstable" are when referring to software. I too have a 6s (plus), and iOS 11 has been just as fast and stable as iOS 10 in my experience.

This kind of disparity makes a lot of sense in the PC world, where everyone has slightly different hardware. I can't quite figure out why it's still common on a platform where there is relatively no hardware variation.

I mean if I had devices side by side of different OSes, I’m confident I could measure it. Time to open applications, like the phone dialer and messages, is noticeably slower than ever before for me. Another issue is that now when I open my recent calls, it shows a cached image of its last state for a few seconds before it refreshes with the most recent state. Unfortunately, in those few seconds, I usually already clicked the contact I wanted to call back, only to see the screen refresh after my click and find out I’m calling someone I did not mean to call. This is the same annoying way that Safari treats the back button, but I’m sad to see that pattern creep into other apps. I’d rather see a loading screen than a false view.

I keep screenshots of battery use in iOS. I went from 10.3.3 to iOS 11 when it was available. Gave it the obligatory 3 days to "stabilize" and was amazed at how crappy it was. Given my usage I was seeing about 4.5 hours Usage at the 50% mark on 10.3.3. On iOS 11 it was down to 3.25 hours. I tried all the Public betas up to 11.2B1. I DFU'd. I set up as new. I ran without my usual assortment of apps and just used the stock ones. I jumped through every single hoop I could and iOS 11 was just a downgrade for me.

Sketchy crap like checking your mail?

Or like using Wi-Fi, given that iOS 10 will not be patched for the KRACK vulnerability.

It's also good for Apple's pocket. It's really good for them when people have to buy a new phone just because the old phone is extremely laggy after a mandatory update.

Apple should be legally required to maintain the same level of functionality as before then.

I don't agree with that but they shouldn't be allowed to stop signing the old versions. People should be able to downgrade if they have a need or desire to do so.

There has to be a middle ground. If I want to run iOS 10, I should get a set number of years (3? I'd be happy with 3) Apple will back port security fixes to it instead of being forced to run the dumpster fire that is iOS 11. Simply continuing to sign old versions or make them available isn't enough.

Hopefully the EU takes this up, as they’re far more pro consumer than the US.

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