Ask HN: How to make older iPad/iPhone usable? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to make older iPad/iPhone usable?

There is pretty big second hand market for older apple devices. I was happy for many year with ipad 2. Now, friend asked for device for childrens to play (destroy) so swiftly recommended ipad 3. To surprise you can't install anything on it due outdated firmware.

"iPadOS 15 is compatible with the iPad mini 4 and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and all iPad Pro models, and was released on September 20, 2021"

*Remind me forgotten still "physicaly" working iphone 5 in desk drawer.

Any trick to use older apple devices as normal ?

Thank you

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Jailbreak it and you can install compatible older apps via IPA files:

https://ios.cfw.guide/get-started/iPad-(3rd-generation).html

https://cydia.akemi.ai/?page/net.angelxwind.appsyncunified

This is good advice, though a lot of work. I’m still looking for a straightforward (and time-efficient) way to make use of my good old iPad 2. It would be so nice to use it as a simple a tablet or calendar! (As mentioned by @smoldesu below).

So far the best I have been able to do is to use it to (very inefficiently) view recipes while cooking.

Thanks!

The best thing to do is take them apart and use the screen for something, recycle the rest. The screen is the only really useful part as it's high quality and wont require updates to keep being useful.

https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Driver-LP097QX1-LTN097QL01...

You can do this with lots of old electronics actually. Laptops tablets and phones, you name it.

This has frustrated me to no end: my iPhone 4s is still in brand new condition and if only Apple would allow me to downgrade to iOS 7 or so, it would be roaring fast, albeit limited in what websites it can handle or what app versions it can run.

But instead it's stuck on the newer iOS 9.x, which turned it into a paperweight.

It's The Peter Principle for tech devices: a competent device will keep getting upgraded until it becomes unusable at its current OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

I've got an "iPad with Retina display" - screen is still beautiful, but it's crazy slow to the point of being totally unusable. When you type, the keyboard types 15 seconds later. It's insane.

I've been waiting for like iPad Linux or something I could do with it to make it useful. Nothing has come along.

The first iPad Air (2013)? I’m replying to you in my iPad Air 2013 and it’s working perfectly fine, almost no keyboard lag..

Have you tried factory reset? I have a bunch of a old iPads and none of them is that bad

This thread and the comments are a masterclass on Apple's terrible naming for the iPad. They've somewhat fixed it now, but it should be illegal to launch products called "New iPad with Retina Display (2013... no not that one, but that one)"

Realistically, and I know this answer isn't popular (or even a true answer to your question) but: recycle them and don't waste your time. Not sure if they can be used as trade-ins with Apple anymore but could always put them towards something newer.

This really makes me sad. I'd like to live in a world where burned-out iPads could be used as digital calendars or drawing tablets or something of that ilk. We see people revel in the functionality of old Macs/PCs all the time here on Hacker News, it's pretty harrowing to realize that our reality is one where making these systems usable again is seen as a "waste of time", and that feeling of joy derived from finding older technology that still has a place in the world has all but dried up.

I dunno, I'm increasingly coming around to the opinion that old technology that can't be used well anymore just doesn't have a place outside of a museum. Apple's recycling efforts are actually pretty good and so for their ecosystem I'm less bothered about ditching old devices and moving on with my life.

e.g, this:

>We see people revel in the functionality of old Macs/PCs all the time

To me isn't something worth revel'ing in, it just feels like waxing nostalgic. But I understand that I'm in the minority here and people legitimately like this stuff (and people like old cars and such, so hey, I get it), but it's not for me.

To me the issue is that Apple's browser is outdated and missing modern features. On top of that, I can't just put new apps on it because it's no longer supported on the App Store, and I'm not going to pay for a developer license (and a Mac) just to run whatever I want on it.

For example one of the uses I'd like to do would be to repurpose it as a smart home display with my Home Assistant setup. Problem is the web interface uses features that the browser doesn't support. The suggestions on HA forums is to run a better browser remotely and use the iPad as a dumb display: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/options-for-lovelace-o...

This is why I'm for the bills to force Apple to allow 'sideloading'. Even with jailbreaking, I haven't seen an effort to make an alternative browser engine run on iOS, and my device is further hampered by it being an older 32-bit processor that Apple no longer support.

Even if those laws do pass, I doubt they'd update my old iPad. What I'll probably end up doing instead is ripping the display out and hooking it up to a HDMI controller board, and then connecting a Raspberry Pi to that.

> I can't just put new apps on it because it's no longer supported on the App Store

Even if it hasn't support for running the up-to-date App Store app (hanging at about the point where a payment method is configured), I found out that if you have another iDevice, you can use that for purchasing and then the app appears in the purchased apps tab on the old iOS device, from where you can download it. Provided the app is supported on iOS 9 and/or the developer hasn't deliberately removed old versions.

That's how I've installed the occasional kid game or adventure game on my almost ten years old iPad mini (1!). That genre had seen a renaissance around 2012-2015, and some review comments on the app store even claim apps from that time run better on older iPads. iPad 2 is better even, actually has had a really decent run with updates for six years or so, with the latest updates only from last year (iOS 12? with metal support), so should be good for years to come.

The battery on my old iPad mini still goes strong with at least 8 hours, too; the display is no match to current devices, though.

The iPad 3 is an early adopter device, the first of the retina iPads. It was always pretty slow, and it has not aged well.

If you have a project idea for it, sure, you can probably still build stuff for it with XCode. It's not a brick. But it's a lousy consumer device.

Well, they are recyclable these days

especially since the raspberry pi just turned 10 years old and you can still get security updates for the original models because it's just linux.

Honestly you’re right to point this out. And it’s because you’re right - and the reasons behind that - that I’m gradually working to abandon the Apple ecosystem entirely over the next year or two. It doesn’t make sense for Apple’s shareholders to allow for past-useful technology to continue being used when their business model relies on new hardware sales, and they can just force you into buying a new machine. Because hey, what else you gonna do?

What are your alternatives, realistically? No access to older OS versions, no access to older App Store releases even if you could, and they won’t allow you to use any other App Store either.

You could try to jailbreak the device and see if you can find an alternative App Store (i think there used to be one called Cydia? Not sure if it still exists), but that’s a hell of a lot of work.

The minimum supported device in that list, the iPad mini 4, was released seven years ago. You won’t find this kind of long term support for any Android device at all.

Also, the installed OS continues to work, the device is not bricked. What happens is the number of apps you can’t install because they require more recent APIs keeps growing until you can’t really install anything new. Everything else works mostly the same. I can still open apps on my 2007 iPod touch…

Which of these complaints don’t apply to Android? You can’t install newer android apps compiled for higher min OS targets on older platforms. If you can find an older app binary on iOS, it can be reprovisioned and installed as well. Not quite as seamless as Android, but still doable.

It really only takes ~15 minutes to jailbreak and most of that spent waiting for the device to reboot.

> Which of these complaints don’t apply to Android

1. You can get older versions of Android ROMs from literally thousands of places. If Apple stops providing a version of iOS and you don't have one otherwise, and your device is borked, you're screwed.

2. Stock Android may not have been released by the manufacturer for your device, but that doesn't mean you can't get those new APIs from a different ROM available via the community.

3. Android doesn't prevent you from installing from anywhere NOT the official Google Play store by default. You can disable this without violating whatever internal security measures exist within Android just to get your own freedom back. Not so with iOS. You have no idea how jailbreaking that device will hinder security going forward.

4. Jailbreaking shouldn't be necessary in the first place. There is NO good reason for Apple to keep users away from installing whatever the hell hey want. IT'S THEIR DEVICE, THEY BOUGHT THE DAMN THING. They? Wait, I mean, I. I bought the damn thing. (And don't even try the whole "oh apple checks the security of app store blah blah blah" - we all know that's a load of crap and easy to bypass. But in the name of that security theater, loads of legitimate small time developers get their submissions rejected and accounts deleted in a daily basis, and for what? This is providing zero utility to the end user whatsoever.)

To be clear, I'm in NO way saying Android is better. Quite the opposite. Google wasted no time turning that entire platform into a raging dumpster fire from hell. And the number of people who've been victimized via the Google Play store is dramatically and demonstrably higher than that of the Apple App Store. But letting these guys have control for any reason is the wrong answer, full stop. The end user needs to have the tools, sophistication, knowledge, and most importantly *POWER* to secure their own device.

Neither monopoly gives people either one right now, and that's an abysmal sin.

> Quick note as well: When I wrote the above, I was thinking from the perspective of MacOS and general computing. I don't consider smart phones to be actual computers at all. More like overpriced toys that are usually far more trouble than they're worth (IMO). I wasn't even thinking of iPhone vs. Android until your comment.

I have an iPad from 2012 with retina display, still a good device, but on slower side. The battery backup is still mighty good (can last around 6-8 hours easily with constant use). It is running iOS 9.5 (probably?). It is a potential security risk too, so I dont use it for browsing random internet stuff. Instead I mostly use it for consuming media content - like podcasts, youtube videos etc, which I pre-download on my homeserver setup.

I put my old laptop and hard disks to use as a homeserver, I have scripts running which download podcasts and youtube channels I view often, and at night I can just use my iPad to consume this. Another plus with this setup is, I dont need to see those annoying YT ads, and I always have the videos backed-up with me even if the channel is taken down or the author removes videos.

I also use my iPad as a roku remote over WiFi. Overall I am able to extract utility than just throwing it away.

The iPad that I still use pretty much every single day -- for several hours a day, sometimes -- is an iPad Air 2 that I bought shortly after it was released (late 2014, I think?). It still performs quite well and I don't have any real complaints about it.

In my case, however, I stopped updating it -- a long time ago, in fact! I'm not sure when it was that I stopped but it's running version 10.0.1 so around whenever that came out.

I'm quite aware of the "risks", however, so I don't use it for anything important. It's the device I grab whenever I'm gonna sit and browse HN, catch up on the news, or read some technical documents / papers. I don't really use any apps besides other than Safari and iBooks (I was going to install Firefox for iOS a while back but couldn't as it required a newer version).

About a year or two ago, I did look into updating it to a newer version, but I didn't want to install the newest version as I was afraid I'd be unhappy with either it or its performance and be unable to downgrade / rollback. Upgrading to any version other than the latest simply isn't an option, apparently, even "manually" using iTunes with locally downloaded ".ipsw" files (which were downloaded when they were released and so had valid signatures, etc.). Apple wouldn't let me update it to the last version of iOS 13, for example, so I decided it'll be running 10.0.1 until either it dies or becomes unusable (due to being so far behind).

Similarly, I'm still using the iPhone 6S that I've had for several years -- it is kept up-to-date, though!

Ironically, I ordered both a new iPad and a new iPhone about 15 months ago (December 2020). I did finally open up the new iPhone recently, but I still haven't switched over to it; it's still sitting there at the initial "Hello" setup / welcome screen! The new iPad, however, has been sitting on a shelf, still in the unopened box, since it arrived.

Set up apache2 server, set to show file listings. Amass video folder full of x264 Profile 3.1 & AAC videos and link to apache root. Point old iDevice at server with mobile Safari browser. Browse and view movies on old iDevice across wifi forever.

Where do you intend to use it? I have an older Fire tablet that, while never fast to begin with, is frustrating slow. Ive been using it to remote into my desktop, and want to experiment running linux/windows/android/chromeOs or something in a VM and rdp into it.

I don't know what the jailbreaking scene looks like now but it was amazing almost a decade ago. It's probably worth a try.

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