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Comment by kjullien | Hacker News Reader

What the hell is everybody on about? How can you defend Apple (I don't know much about Samsung so can't comment on their behavior) This was clearly done to promote sales of newer generation products. I can prove that in 1 sentence. Apple does not let you downgrade to an older version of iOS if you find out that the new version you installed slows your phone down. It's as easy as this. They actively go out of their way to prevent customers from rolling back to a stable and fast release, try and find a justification for that... (inb4 "its for security/privacy")

edit: I'm going to get downvoted to oblivion for this comment and I could not care less, I'm tired of Apple fanboys on hn

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Why is 'security/privacy' not a valid answer?

A separate anecdote: My company requires the same thing for on-prem installs - you can't downgrade. Data/schema migrations for our single application become a pain in the butt if we allow downgrades. For an OS and lots of applications, I can see it being a UX/support nightmare. We disallow downgrades for this reason because we don't wish to tackle the technical challenge of enabling it, but primarily we disallow downgrades because of the security liability.

Say I BOUGHT an iPhone 5 years ago, I think I should be allowed to run the software that came with it 5 years ago. I could not care less about security or privacy or the illusion thereof, all I care about is being able to use the device I paid for, and to be able to actually use it, not simply have a paper holder that acts as a constant reminder that I need to get the iPhone 123 XLSE or whatever version is out these days if I want to have the same experience I had with the phone when I took it out of the box 5 years ago. Not a worse one. It is absolutely not a technical challenge to downgrade as I remember fairly vividly (some years ago) that a simple Jailbreak was enough to allow you to restore to any version you could want. I don't care about data loss. The last thing is that this would not be the path the average consumer would take, it would simply be a possibility for people who do not want to trade "privacy" and "security" for usability. They have the technology, they have the resources, everything that could possibly be needed for this is already in place and has been since the iPhone 3G. The only reason you cannot do it today is that Apple has servers that tell iTunes whether or not this image is allowed to be flashed onto the device. So the only reason is probably a text file hosted somewhere with contents along these lines : Allowed: >= 12 Disallowed: < 12

> I should be allowed to run the software that came with it 5 years ago. I could not care less about security or privacy or the illusion thereof

Ah but then when there is a bug that is exploited (e.g.SMS resetting phone) or a flaw that needs to be fixed (e.g. unexpected shutdown) then everyone is angry and pissed off because they haven't fixed it. It's damaging to their brand, and damaging for users who don't know/understand/care.

It's kind of a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation.

That said, they could just roll out security patches independently of new features - I believe Google is planning to do this in future Android releases via Project Treble - 1? Apps would rot though, as they update to use newer API features not available in the base OS.

Edit: I think project treble is just about easier OS updates and not modular security updates for older platforms

1 - https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/here-comes...

Everybody gets to be on HN, not just folks aligned with our product preferences.

Possibly adopting a less strident tone will find a more favorable audience for what are admittedly good points.

The more people who do not have the latest version not only means a larger target area for unpatched bugs, but also means that developers only have the target the latest version of IOS.

The one app that I use that only targets iOS 12 with it's latest version is OverCast. Why bother targeting older OS's when every device that can run iOS 11 can also run iOS 12?

I am not asking for them to support every release they ever did until the end of Apple's existence. I think it is safe to assume that even the "latest" release has some bugs. I am simply asking why downgrading to an older version (even though every technical bit is in place for this to be possible) is not allowed by Apple. It's not as if your average grandpa was going to do this, but what I cannot fathom is the reason they ACTIVELY go against this. The only explanation I can come up with is planned obsolescence, but am happy to hear any other idea anyone might have about this.

The argument for this I come up with is rather that they want to maintain the security of their platform - protecting things like their App Store DRM as much as possible.

By disallowing downgrades you can't get back to a version with older exploitable bugs.

Seeing that you can still download “the last compatible version” of apps with a first generation iPad running iOS 5, I seriously doubt that’s the reason.

Unless you believe they use s separate DRM scheme to download apps on iOS 5 than iOS 12.

Apple supports phones for about 5 years, I'm not sure how that is planned obsolescence. An iPhone 5S is still perfectly usable today given it has a good battery.

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