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Comment by wincy | Hacker News Reader

Apple has planned obsolescence? I’m amazed that I got a software update for my iPhone 6S last year. And it worked pretty well. So well that when I upgraded and the trade in value was $100, rather than the $200 I had expected, it gave me pause and I decided the device was still worth $100 to me, and kept it. My daughter sometimes watches Cocomelon or does Khan Academy Kids with it, on the original battery.

What exactly is Italy expecting from Apple here? The device doesn’t stop working, or anything like that.

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I have an original iPad, still works fine. Or rather, it would, were all the apps for the latest compatible iOS version still available.

But they're not, and there's no way (sort of jailbreak) to install them otherwise.

So hardware is fully functional (for the most part), but can only be used as a slow browser. The fault here is in (a) mandating use of a single store, combined with (b) not supporting the store longer.

I understand nobody wants to maintain services for 9yo hardware, but since they wanted to be a gatekeeper, I place the blame squarely on them.

Meanwhile, my 13yo X220 works like a charm.

It wasn't the case on the original iPad (only started with the iPad 2), but iOS will show you the last version compatible for this iOS (even if this is not the most recent version available on the App Store). Assuming of course that all the APIs being used by this app are still functional.

iPad 2 launch date was 2011.

Interesting. Imagine if Apple sent an update to EOL hardware that effectively "jailbroke" them for you.

"Out of the garden! Go free!"

If you kept your receipts you can get refunds on the apps you bought that no longer work.

What a disingenuous argument. It doesn’t matter when the phone was first introduced, that’s not what makes it “old.” Apple sold (as a first party) the 6S through at least 2018. If you bought it then, it would certainly not be a thing worth celebrating that last year (less than two years later) the phone was still supported.

Claiming an argument is disingenuous because you don't like it is an extremely cheap retort. They clearly were sincere in their statement, and given that the 6S was released in 2015, everyone who bought one at a later date knew that it was an older device, and it's still supported and will continue to be supported.

Another way to put it is that no one does better than Apple at keeping their devices useful and valuable (easily demonstrated in resale values). Maybe Apple could do even better, but it's in a market where it is far and away the standout.

As an aside, people say "well look I can put some completely unsupported, random ROM on my old device!" is not a counterpoint. iPhones and iPads continue on as our kid's devices, resolve for a handsome resale price, etc. Competitor devices collect dust in a drawer. This is empirical truth.

The 6s is still getting updates. The user meant they got an ios 14 upgrade. But it continues to get security updates now. Rumour is it will get support dropped in september for ios 15, though Apple has been issuing security updates for older devices so remains to be seen.

Ongoing support has to be seem in the context of the market. Every phone manufacturer bases support on both original sale date and ongoing sale date. So you can’t just ignore original sale date when considering longevity.

Chromebooks are really bad for that too. Google mandates a certain support time period, but it begins when the device first goes on sale. Really obnoxious to find that out and have to sort out chromebooks by release date

Microsoft provided security patches for Windows XP for 14 years. The way Apple and Google retool their mobile OSes every couple years seems deliberately designed to create a technical justification for ending support. And Apple pioneered this business model with the original iPhone.

It will be interesting to see how Windows 10 shapes up. It seems like a really well-thought-out OS so software patches never have to be stopped. Of course if Microsoft chases Apple to ARM we could see a repeat of when Apple obsoleted all old Macs by ending support for PPC.

> And Apple pioneered this business model with the original iPhone.

Oh come on, your perspective is ridiculously short. This practice goes back decades and predates Apple's founding.

At least one can flash LineageOS on Google's phones. With Apple you're dead in the water.

GrapheneOS keeps the AOSP security model intact.

> Microsoft provided security patches for Windows XP for 14 years.

Yes, business vs. consumer. Microsoft had, I imagine, powerful clients that were still on Windows XP.

The consumer space is a much more dynamic space. As it would happen, it has been about 15 years since the first iPhone. I would be surprised if there were someone still wanting to use that device. (I mean, un-ironically.)

Also too, the smart phone was a new market and the "Cold War" between Android and Apple meant change was harried (is that the proper use of that word?). "Move fast and break things" was certainly evident on both sides.

Now though, as the market has matured, I would hope all players slow down a bit and look to extend the lifetime of their hardware/software.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724#:~:text=Apple%2....

Most likely this is about CPU throttling when the battery's health degrades, not software updates.

you can turn that off now

Wait, really? How?

Settings -> Battery -> Battery Health -> Peak Performance Capability. There should be a small link to disable this.

Here is an article describing everything:

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/disable-performance-manageme...

Apple added that very quickly after the scandal came to light. A clear sign that they knew it was wrong to artificially slow down customers' phones without notifying them.

I think they could’ve messaged better around that, but some people seem to have the fairly ridiculous notion that Apple purposefully made the batteries degrade. Which is a bit like suing Nike for the rubber on your shoes wearing down.

That being said, Italian courts are a bit notorious for doing insane things. Italy ended up jailing some seismologists for failing to predict a deadly earthquake, which is both ridiculous and obviously has done nothing to make Italians safer.

> Italy ended up jailing some seismologists for failing to predict a deadly earthquake

That was a first level sentence, which was revoked in 2015 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/italy-s-supreme-cour...

> The ruling marks the end of a 5-year legal process that has proven immensely controversial in the scientific world and beyond.

That is already bad enough

Yeah, it is bad, but let me be the devil's advocate: Italy's justice has three levels, and it's very easy to be judged guilty during the first step, the judge needs only a small evidence and he/she defers to the next level. Frankly, I don't feel the Italy's justice system to be worse than other countries, it's pretty fair IMHO (disclosure: I'm Italian but in no way related to Italian justice)

The phrase American defense lawyers use is “the process is the punishment.” Even if a higher tier eventually exonerates the wrongly accused, they’ve already been dragged through years of stress, had their reputation ruined, and probably have gone bankrupt.

Unfortunately the higher levels allow those currently invested in the system as is to say “see, they were exonerated” and ignore the massive amount of purposeful damage done in the process.

> [...] for failing to predict a deadly earthquake

That's not what they were accused for. After a earthquake swarm that scared the people, the head of the national service for civil protection asked them to reassure the population, and they obeyed, publishing a statement that said that everything was OK and there was nothing to worry about.

After the definitive absolution, some of them kept saying that they were tried for being scientists, but the truth is that they were tried for NOT being scientists: saying what politicians ask you to say is very far from being a scientist.

Did they jail the politicians? And if not, why not?

Interesting. Or if car manufacturers, detecting thin walls on your tires or mileage put on your tires, throttled the top speed of the car to avoid deadly blowouts at highway speeds.

Feature or nuisance? I'm on the fence. Maybe a warning light when you pass some critical speed.

> I think they could’ve messaged better around that

It wasn't bad messaging, it was no messaging. That's why they got slapped with a fine. People saw their phones were slowing down, assumed the phones were just old and bought new ones. If they knew they just needed a battery change, many wouldn't have bought a new phone. Don't tell me that wasn't deliberate.

But that is specifically meant to preserve the battery longer, and at any rate can be fixed with a new battery, just like my car needed new breakpads.

Yes, they were already fined for slowing down older iPhones.

Italy wants money. That’s what they expect.

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