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> Apple updated her iPad while she was sleeping one night

iOS devices do not update on their own without any user intervention. In order to schedule an overnight upgrade, you have to agree to it then enter your PIN...

> Companies clearly know that these updates are unwanted, or else they would let your roll them back.

That statement makes no logical sense at all. The reaason they prevent downgrades are to reduce support costs, to ensure broad compatibility, and because of security flaws in older versions.

> The reason they prevent downgrades are to reduce support costs, to ensure broad compatibility, and because of security flaws in older versions

That's a reason, not the reason. I'm sure you can think of many other reasons a company would want to prevent downgrades that they won't tell you because it's "user hostile".

For example, say an exploit is found in the Nintendo Switch that allows arbitrary code execution. People use that to load emulators, homebrew games, pirated games, you name it into their Switch console. Nintendo does not like this, so they force an upgrade on everyone, lock it from being downgraded, and now anyone who upgraded can no longer do that. They'll chalk it up to security of course, because what company will flat out say they don't want their users to have the ability to run unsigned code on "their" device?

For the specific example of Nintendo, the codephrase for their exploit-closing patches is 'Increasing Overall System Stability'[0] which has spawned a beloved meme.

[0] http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a...

Apple will continuously nag you if you don't update. They use dark patterns (like many others) to trick you into accepting the update . Not to mention that updates also slow down your device over time, as happened with every single iphone 4s user. It was fast when I purchased it, and the updates turned it into a bottom of the barrel $99 android phone.

While you might be correct that updates also bring in fixes and new features, major updates can radically change the UI, and you're stuck with it even if you don't like it. Not being able to reset a consumer device to its factory state is a backwards mentality that users should protest at every opportunity.

What dark patterns do they use, exactly? I've been avoiding the iOS 11.3 update for a while now since I'm waiting for saurik to release his jailbreak, and iOS alerts me about 11.3 maybe once a week at most. It pops up a dialog box saying there's a new iOS version, and gives me the option to install now, install later, or defer the decision until the next alert in a week or two. The buttons are clear and meaningful and they don't appear designed to prioritise one option over another.

As for phones slowing down as time goes by, no shit - they're hardly likely to get faster as iOS becomes more complex, but Apple goes to extreme lengths to support older phones in a way that no Android phone manufacturer - including Google itself - even comes close to.

Personally I think it's ridiculous that Apple doesn't at the very least allow developers (i.e., people who have paid the $99 yearly fee) to downgrade their devices to a previous iOS version, but I don't think they're trying to "trick" anyone.

Two come to mind immediately. For one, they don't allow you to say 'NO' to their constant update nag prompts. The only options are install update or remind me later. The second is the sneaky update prompt during the unlock screen. It is designed to look identical to the regular unlock screen and the 'remind me later' option is designed to blend into the background. Indeed there is no easy way to even tell if the text is clickable. There are plenty more in MacOS too.

https://imgur.com/a/Jrn3bX9

>As for phones slowing down as time goes by, no shit - they're hardly likely to get faster as iOS becomes more complex,

Heres an idea to NOT slow them down - Let the user reset them to the factory state.

> but Apple goes to extreme lengths to support older phones in a way that no Android phone manufacturer - including Google itself - even comes close to.

If slowing down phones to the point of becoming unusable is "supporting them", then I would gladly do without their "support".

>Personally I think it's ridiculous that Apple doesn't at the very least allow developers (i.e., people who have paid the $99 yearly fee) to downgrade their devices to a previous iOS version,

I don't feel like extorting another $99 (on top of the insane profit margin that ends up in a pile of cash - i.e. not invested in creating more products or towards apple employees) is an acceptable solution in the slightest.

> For one, they don't allow you to say 'NO' to their constant update nag prompts. The only options are install update or remind me later.

As someone who has to share the Internet with your device: good.

If your device is offline and doesn’t have a persistent connection to the Internet, I would understand. But for an iPad or iPhone who spend virtually all of their useful life more or less permanently connected to the Internet? Update. It would be better if there were an option to remain on the current version but with access to anything not on a private network disabled after some period of time (say 6 months).

> iOS devices do not update on their own without any user intervention. In order to schedule an overnight upgrade, you have to agree to it then enter your PIN...

iOS devices will download a 800M update package over and over again, and then present you with the option of installing the update now, or between 2AM - 5AM the next day, at which point you must enter your pin, and only then, can you decline.

> That statement makes no logical sense at all. The reaason they prevent downgrades are to reduce support costs, to ensure broad compatibility, and because of security flaws in older versions.

They are clearly making an intentional choice with how they deploy updates. The ability to roll back updates is not difficult.

They clearly do not want users to even have a chance to think about whether they want an update. And they certainly are not going to clearly explain how an update would remove features and degrade their UX.

I was a (reasonably) happy customer on Windows 8.1 until the screen on my Surface Pro broke. Sent it to Microsoft, paid $300 for repair, came back with Windows 10. At the time I was furious, I'm still a little bitter about it.

This is like when ad agencies say, "well, actually users like it when we inform them about new products, and it's actually a very valuable service..."

No, otherwise people wouldn't be going out of their way to install adblockers. Getting users to update software is hard because they view the process as cumbersome, annoying, and dangerous.

A good rule of thumb is that if you have to resort to dark patterns to do something, you're probably doing not doing it because people want you to.

I'm sorry for your loss! :-) Now that you're on 10, though, I suggest at least taking advantage of the new features to make yourself a little happier.

One of the most underrated (yet killer) features is the transparent LZX file system compression. It's awesome. Use it on read-only stuff like huge .exe and .lib files; it'll lower your space usage dramatically. (You can read these files with Windows 8.1 too, but you'll need to manually find, install, and attach the WoF driver to make that happen.)

I know you mean well, and I don't mean to put you down, and I'm sure the technology behind this is impressive and is making some people's lives way better, but this is exactly what I was getting at above.

LZX file system compression is objectively not a killer feature. If it was a killer feature, Windows wouldn't have had to run an aggressive campaign to trick users into upgrading - they would have upgraded themselves so they could get the amazing new feature that they cared about.

It's certainly good that Windows supports it, and it's definitely an improvement. But improvement isn't a one-dimensional scale - it's possible to build a product that's technically better in some ways that's still overall a worse value proposition for a large portion of its users.

It's like if I poured coffee on your jacket and then said, "well, let me make it up to you by shining your shoes." That's very kind, but the gesture is unrelated to the problem.

You are exactly right. People used to be excited about updates. And if they didn't work out, you could roll them back. It's ludicrous that somehow everyone forgot how to do that now.

And it's not just a technical problem, it's a cultural one. It's spread to open source software. When an update from Firefox destroyed certain user's Bookmarks files that they had spent years creating, the official response was that users should have made a backup.

Using computers today is so much work. I have to be so vigilant about making backups because I can't trust that my data won't be destroyed by an update.

> People used to be excited about updates.

They were? I guess service packs were kinda exciting, but for general updates this is news to me! :-)

> And if they didn't work out, you could roll them back.

Yeah, or you could just not decide not to install a particular one in the first place!

Honestly, I think software developers in general (including but not limited to Microsoft) need to realize that they need to stop forcefully shoving updates down people's throats against their wills, and instead write updates that are so good that people will want to install them.

I agree with you... I was most definitely not trying to say I support what they've been doing or that I oppose anything you said. I was in a similar boat as you; I forced to upgrade to 10 for a different reason and I hated that just as much as you did, if not more. I'm just trying to suggest a way to at least take advantage of your situation and make yourself at least a little happier (I know I did) given that, like in my case, there probably isn't a whole lot else you can do about it.

No worries, I didn't get the impression that you were trying to excuse anyone, just trying to be helpful. And it's generally fine; in my case I use my Windows tablet for very specialized purposes, so I can honestly cope with a lot of annoyance as long as the two or three apps that I rely on still work.

I mentioned somewhere else on another post though that I try to recommend Linux to less tech-savy people now, and experiences like this are definitely a contributing part of that.

I spent a fair amount of time setting my Mom up with Ubuntu, and it wasn't particularly easy to get everything the way she wanted it. But then when Ubuntu started pushing Gnome 3 I just kept her on an LTS release and everything was fine - no annoying prompts or stealth upgrades, and she still gets security fixes.

Wow. She's actually fine with it? Or just not complaining? Everything from the touchpad sensitivity and mouse pointer ballistics to the UI shortcuts and focus-stealing prevention always suck for me on Linux, meaning more strain on my hands etc... I can't actually use a Linux OS on a regular basis without feeling like it'll make me break a few bones or pinch a few nerves in a few months.

> She's actually fine with it? Or just not complaining?

There's no way for me to know for sure which ;)

She seems to like it a lot, but I don't know how much of that is the work I put in before hand. I spent a good week customizing everything from font size to mouse sensitivity to shortcuts and browser plugins before I gave it to her. It was pretty much "what do you want your computer to do", then I built her something that did exactly that.

But that pays off because I don't have to spend a bunch of time on tech support now, and she doesn't have to spend time learning new paradigms. The only time I ever touch it is if she explicitly asks for it to do something new, which is rare. I think better file/photo tagging is the only big thing on my todo list atm.

That's a neat tip. Do you know if the compression triggers stuff like Blizzard's Warden or Valve's VAC (I think it's called that).

I haven't checked, but I don't see how or why it should. It happens in kernel-mode with a filter driver; it's pretty transparent to user-level code (though not absolutely 100% invisible).

Perhaps you don't work in software, but you definitely want constant updates for an internet connected device. Apple has a track record for providing software updates for a long time past initial device release. Do you think more manufactures should be following their lead? The "cyber" world would be a much more secure place with constant updates.

Perhaps you don't work with non-user-hostile software, but you definitely want constant security updates for an internet connected device.

No reason for constant feature updates to keep the cyber world secure. It's a shame some software vendors bundle them together inseparably.

On the other hand, you’re implying that they should maintain patches for every single version of iOS released? Because every minor includes new features. That’s asinine.

Ubuntu, a free, open source OS, maintains and backports security patches for n-2, n-1, and n LTS releases.

LineageOS, a free, volunteer-run open source mobile OS, maintains and backports security patches for n-2, n-1, and n Android versions for phones.

Red Hat, the maker of RHEL, a paid, open-source OS — and its free, open-source duplicate CentOS — maintains and backports security patches for 10 years.

Microsoft Windows 10, a paid, closed-source OS pushed aggressively by Microsoft to the point of being sued, bundles feature and security updates on users like every real-world installation is for beta-testing. The LTSB branch is not available/accessible to individual users, and it looks like that will also start bundling feature updates with security updates.

Apple's iOS, a paid, closed-source, locked-to-hardware OS that supports devices sold in the past three years bundles feature and security updates and aggressively pushes updates on people's devices. There is no LTS branch of iOS.

I think this is a case of Apple applying the logic that 95% (more likely 99.99%) of users are better off not having to make the decision of what version of their os they should they install.

Compared to other companies Apple does an amazing job of supporting older hardware.

I feel like it’s a double edged sword, if Apple devices didn’t get updates people would complain, Apple updates older devices and people complain.

I think the route they have chosen is the best for most normal none techie consumers.

I'd argue that these operating systems are much, much simpler than the entire stack that is iOS and its built in applications and services.

I strongly disagree — not that that would be sufficient excuse.

It's not like the kernel and drivers are spread across disparate layers of the iOS stack. It's not like iOS doesn't have libraries and system services and thus has to duplicate code across disparate layers of the iOS stack. It's not like Apple can't or doesn't have special code accessible only to Apple's apps and iOS internals.

As of right now, there are only a handful of hardware configurations iOS has to support, and a single software configuration. Compared to the tens of different hardware and software configurations LineageOS has to support, or the hundreds of different hardware and software configurations Ubuntu and Red Hat have to support, or the thousands of different configurations Microsoft has to support, Apple's job here is a lot easier.

Given that mac oses have only to support their hardware and that they limit what the user can do, not, not at all.

The gnu/linux stack is richer and more complex.

No, he is probably not implying that. We do not want our devices losing features or getting slower unnecessarily. It is arrogant of a company to assert that kind of control over users' devices. It is disrespectful to the customer and their wishes.

No he's saying separating security patches from feature patches would be beneficial.

They’d need multiple builds of the same software. That’s not sustainable when they can just tell everyone to upgrade to the latest build. Less required QA, less wasted engineering time.

> That’s not sustainable when they can just tell everyone to upgrade to the latest build.

That is totally sustainable. It's effortful — and they can get away without doing it — "when they can just tell everyone to upgrade to the latest build". Just because they can do something doesn't mean its alternative is not "sustainable".

> Less required QA, less wasted engineering time.

For the vendor yes. More headaches for the user when features they liked are removed or features they didn't like or want are pushed on them. But that was already accepted as inevitable when buying into the Apple ecosystem, which brings me back to my original point: non-user-hostile software.

Why are you so obsessed with foisting costs onto the user? QA is important, engineering time is important, so put in the effort to make a good product. This pattern of updates would not be nearly so necessary if SWE's (and their managers) weren't so fucking afraid of a little elbow grease

.. but this breaks or downgrades some devices. It might be less cost for them but it's more cost for us.

Those are trivial things that any software team should be able to handle. How many security bugs are we talking about? Is iOS riddled with tends of thousands of bugs per-release-brach? No, it isn't.

In any case, I'm not sure why anyone should care about saving money for Apple. As a consumer I should look for the best deal for me, not ways to funnel more money into their pockets. They are very capable of taking care of that themselves.

You don't need to change the GUI features to patch the kernel and related programs unless those patches are actually related. It's not magic.

The issue is the updates are not always functionality neutral. Like in GP's case and many others updating to the new iOS means the device becoming very slow and annoying to use. In those cases the update is not a good thing because it severely degrades the device.

The updates are not the problem. Apple handcuffing you into staying with their preferred version (even if you hate the new UI, even if it slows down your device) is the problem here.

If updates were subject to user concerns, and not shifting business objectives, I would agree with you

Currently the best way to decline updates is to install the Apple TV beta profile to your iPhone or iPad. It prevents the updates from being downloaded in the background and stops the "enter passcode to update" notifications. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/12/11/block-ios-updates/

Whoa, thank you for posting that! I had given up trying to solve that problem. I thought the only way to prevent it without jailbreaking it was to use an enterprise account to make a new provisioning profile.

Also, when my iPad ran out of space, it finally stopped downloading updates.

Of course, it would be excellent if I could just say no without having to jump through so many hoops and spend my time on it. This kind of administrative stuff is so exhausting, and I never remember it being this complicated.

>Google will coerce you into installing updates that irreversibly remove functionality

Do you have an example?

On Android you're generally free to downgrade at any time, as long as the user data partition is cleared in the process.

One that comes to mind for me, with a specific Google app: Google removed SMS from newer versions of their Hangouts app over a year ago. I kept the program at the last version to have SMS. Pop-ups appeared periodically asking me to update the app. After about a year, launching the app starting showing a page "This version of Hangouts is no longer supported. To continue, please update the app."

Of course, at that point, I moved to one of their currently-supported apps...but it means that my Hangouts conversations are in a different place than my SMS conversations.