Older iPhones bricked for being too outdated, locking users from data [video]
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This is a problem for people that refuse to update their devices from ios 9.
It is all related to changes in the activation protocol, which was utterly broken and allowed all kinds of iCloud bypasses for activation; update it to a newer version, and it uses the newer protocol and no problem at all.
This is a nine-year-old device that can still be updated.
Edit: you already can disable internet for the whole phone just leave it on airplane mode for eternity. But as you said, the use cases are quite limited
A phone. You can make and receive calls with it. And also SMS.
You don't have to spend anything if you already have that device. For instance, it could be a hand-me-down from a relative. In my family, we do have an older Android 2.x device which is currently being used as just a phone (for calls, SMS, and yes, an oversized clock); it has passed through the hands of three people already, and only the first of them used the smartphone functionality. After that, it was factory reset and never connected to a data network again (because it would then try to update all built-in apps... and that tiny phone simply has not enough storage for all these updates). It works perfectly as a phone.
That would be a 6s, the 6 supports only 12.5.6
Edit: keep in mind, in OP’s video they are refusing to update even after their device is essentially throwing its hands up and saying “upgrade or I’m a brick now” and they prefer the brick for some reason. The performance of a brick is pretty bad…
So, reason not to update: you like using software you've paid for.
Anyway I’m sharing this because the “my ancient unsupported 32 bit applications will fail”, while a minimally valid reason not to upgrade, reminds me a bit of the sob stories people would tell to get tech support for their stolen iPhones…
You're being unfairly harsh here. Most likely they bought it off the second hand market because in many countries people can't afford the prices of new iPhones, and then realized it's a stolen phone.
Just like it's the buyers responsibility to make sure they aren't purchasing a stolen vehicle, it should be equally the buyers responsibility to ensure they are not purchasing a stolen phone. Proof of a clean IMEI would be a start. The problem stems from most countries outside the US not taking the IMEI database seriously and so in some countries it's possible to activate a phone with a reported stolen IMEI.
I personally think Apple's choice to restrict activating stolen iPhones is a smart move overall. If countries won't use the IMEI database, this is the next best thing. It's not our responsibility to "unlock" phones for people because they didn't perform due diligence.
Then it your responsibility to have backups no? Forget theft, if you keep all your most valuable data on just your phone alone, you're one accident away from loosing it al, via so many ways other than theft.
>Just like it's the buyers responsibility to make sure they aren't purchasing a stolen vehicle, it should be equally the buyers responsibility to ensure they are not purchasing a stolen phone
Now you're moving the goalposts. A phone is not a car. If my car is stolen, I can't just walk into a Ford-Store and buy a new one on the spot for $1000.
What about stolen bikes? Police don't bother investigating such things and they'll basically laugh you out of the police station.
Yes, so do I and everyone else, but that's why most people pay for cloud backup services (iCloud, etc) or set up their own if they're tech savvy enough. So when they break their phone, their data is still safe.
Still, this has nothing to do with theft. You can easily drop your phone on the ground or have it fall in the ocean on vacation. If your phone is such a valuable tool to you that you can't live without then it's up to you to get various insurance policies (phone insurance, a backup phone, etc.)
And you could physically connect mass storage to an iPhone since before the iPhone (iPod days, same connector, same adapter) but unless it was jailbroken you could do almost nothing with it
Sure tools etc can last a lifetime , but my drop saws motor will probably burn out in 10 years and will be replaced with an upgraded model ?
This might not be apparent to engineers who see everything as a formula waiting to be solved from first principles.
However, some things move pretty quick and warrant updates to the whole document especially when the document is used a handbook in critical situations. The ACLS protocol manual, updated quinquennially, comes to mind.
Some textbook publishers are intentionally making small changes from year to year to intentionally make the life of those using second hand text books miserable.
Corporations have long since realised that often their biggest competition comes from their own products therefore we now have planned obsolescence (someone who already has your product and doesn't want to buy another) and the war on secondary markets (someone other than you selling your, old, product).
I can make a same counter argument using the same logic. I have a car that runs fine well past 10 year mark. Why can't I expect a software do the same?
Why is it up to others to spend resources supporting backwards compatibility instead of you to keep your code compiled for modern arch?
You however depend on the original developer to click that build button because proprietary software. If it was FLOSS, you could.
But don't worry, thanks to DRMed parts you won't be able to fix anything on your car either (or phone, or any other smart device) without the involvement of the original manufacturer. Ain't property wonderful when the manufacturers intelectual property has precedence over your physical property?
/s
Software's even better! Since it was inherently digital to begin with, I'm able to make leaps like that with ZERO data loss! The only thing that kills software permanently is planned obsolesce. It doesn't matter what the lifetime of your saw is, that's like arguing that you should be free to shoot nonagenarians because most people don't live that long anyway. It's not about how long other stuff lasts, it's about the fact that it was perfectly capable of going on living until it was killed.
Fortunately, unless you're doing hacky bullshit, changing from 32 to 64 bit should be trivial. Unfortunately, companies go out of business, so can't be relied on to update their own software into perpetuity. Fortunately, it probably doesn't have to the original company to update the software, because it should be a straightforward update of some build parameters. Unfortunately, proprietary, source-unavailable code is the norm in commercial software development, so no one but the original company has the source code. Thus it's the original company's fault for not being at least source-available.
Fortunately, we have the technology to run 32 bit software on 64 bit operating systems. Unfortunately Apple has decided to not do so any more. Fortunately, Apple used to allow this, so your software still works on an older version of the operating system. Unfortunately, Apple has decided to brick that version of the operating system, forcing you to update it and lose access to the software you were perfectly capable of running on your device before Apple's unilateral decision. Thus, it's Apple's fault, for breaking backward compatibility and then forcing people to update.
This device was a spare I just use for reading ebooks but I imagine if it were my primary phone I would balk at deleting everything just to update the OS.
It's inconvenient but it's not like you lose any data.
[0] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/supported-models-iphe...
[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/supported-models-iphe...
Because of Apple's great software design, you need an old version of iTunes. From there, you can add apps to your account. Then, on the iPad, you can install "purchased" apps. The store itself is completely useless as nothing will install, but the "purchased" page will let you download the last version that works on the device.
Last month I bought a new iPad to replace my TEN YEAR old iPad, which was working fine, but couldn't be updated to the latest iOS versions, and which was therefore missing some applications (like Netflix).
Plenty of apps still worked fine - including Safari, Mail, and most other applications.
The device is not "bricked" - which is an absurd and totally misleading description of a piece of technology that is slightly outdated, but works fine with most 'essential' apps.
Saying something is "bricked' means it cannot be used, at all. Which is totally not the case.
Obviously if you're claiming that the only application that was still working on your iPad was the lamp, then there's really nothing left for me to discuss, as I don't think that's factually the case for even the oldest existing iPads.
Where’s the moral outrage about my Macintosh SE not being able to run any version of OS X? Yes, that would be absurd. So where do we draw the line? It must be drawn somewhere - but Apple didn’t brick your device and claiming that gets in the way of reasonable discussion.
Thankfully with iOS 17 it looks like this will no longer be the case!
I'm thinking particularly of the lack of support for popular ES2020 features like nullish coalescing, which is simple to implement (but Apple prohibits developers from shipping browsers), and can technically be transpiled away, but is indeed more commonly seen in production code every day.
There are a lot of 2014 iOS devices in this category, all with dual-core CPUs and 1GB RAM, which should be totally fine for simple web browsing in theory. E.g. iPads Air 1st gen and mini 3rd gen, as well as the hugely popular iPhone 6/6 Plus.
Yes, these are old devices, and I don't suggest they continue to be used, but there is no performance-based reason they should be incapable of rendering a simple web site in 2022, provided someone were allowed to build a new browser for them.
I’ve been looking for a lightweight JS library I can build a home dashboard with. Then I’d like to mount the iPad 2 in a wall to control my smart home. It can barely open a modern webpage.
I was able to do just that as late as 2018. Netflix, Crackle, Hulu, Spotify and a few other apps that I tried ran on a reset iPad 1.
But let’s be honest, the iPad was obsolete the day it was introduced. It came with only 256MB of RAM when the iPhone 4 that came out 3 months later came out with 512MB of RAM. It couldn’t run Safari without crashing with iOS 5.
It's hard to understand because software does not degrade with use so everything else being equal it should last an eternity. But in this particular case, everything is not equal because the 3rd party app has moved on.
To me it's like keeping around a very old car because it has a little functionality you'd occasionally find handy to have (large cargo capacity, or 4WD).
I'm pretty happy that apple devices work as long as they do.
Maybe 20 years ago and before, devices were made obsolete so fast that it would not have made sense to try to extend the live of hardware but it's no longer the case. Old phones and tablets are perfectly fine for a lot of use cases, they took a lot of natural resources to build and they can only collect dust in drawers or fill landfills now. Finally we are realising that the Earth has finite resources and we should try to make the most of what we have.
Increasing the life of existing IT devices by not withholding informations would be a good first step.
The nice part about such a law, is that companies that want to keep their stuff private would have a way to do so: just keep supporting the devices. If it's not worth supporting, you should not be allowed to keep the IP closed if that prevent the devices from being useful.
It's not a problem anymore since most Apple devices are ridiculously overpowered and they have separated iOS from iPadOS.
It's hard to fault them honestly, most people don't understand how degraded batteries affect their device, they think it's just about how many hours the device lasts on a full charge, when in reality it's much more complex.
2017: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/12/20/apple-iph...
I’m also not sure why “just once” is supposed to buy back trust. They still don’t allow for iOS downgrades, so the underlying issue hasn’t been addressed.
Took them like two weeks to release a patch where you can pick which option you like.
As someone who had an iPhone that claimed to have 30-40% battery and then just shut down completely when trying to make a call, I really would've preferred the slowdown option.
It was fixed by a 50€ new battery.
There was literally no malice here, a very serious bug that obsoleted an otherwise out-of-support device of their got fixed. Sure, the best option is the one that was later implemented (people can choose which option they prefer) thanks to governments(!), but let’s not sell this story as something else.
The Mini 2 was ruined by iOS 11. I was lucky that I was able to immediately downgrade back to iOS 10.
iPhone 3G was made unusable by iOS 4.
There are also zero technical obstacles to implementing the activation lock such that you can use your own server. All that this requires is little bit of non-volatile storage that is not cleared during factory reset. Which is what modern Android devices already have.
Deservedly. If there was a normal market, or at least access to spare parts, there would be no need for donor devices.
The warehouses full of people in Shenzhen tearing down millions and millions of stolen iDevices would still be chugging along, inserting stolen parts into the supply chain.
Apple enforcing DRM on parts is very much a pro-consumer move, steadily taking us towards a world where a stolen iPhone will be worth nothing.
From my understanding of the activation lock, the phone is effectively bricked - no-one can ever use it again. No fence is going to pay for a useless device.
almost everything else is soldered onto the logic board and is futile to transfer
so i think that stolen iphones with activation lock are 100% paperweights.
I, for one, WANT my phone to be as hard to steal as possible.
Yes, this is true. Don't buy an iPhone/iPad/Mac. I've been hacking for 30+ years, I like that Apple has locked down the phones and the Mac is not locked other than Apple locking their OS. It doesn't stop me installing Macports and then the endless array of FOSS that I want.
General purpose computing is slowly evolving, like every other technology before it, to separation of the creation of code from the use of code. Computers and phones are a tool for most people, the act of coding and/or going outside the provided ecosystem is something that the majority of people, for the majority of the time, don't want or, in a lot of cases, need.
Most people don't have shortwave radios anymore, neither are they interested in amateur radio etc. Government regulations have "locked down" the radio ecosystem but maintained the capabilities for those that want to explore radio "hacking". Computing is going the same way.
If you want to hack your own environment, there are perfectly cromulent alternatives. Android and AOSP for phones and tablets, Linux and the *BSDs for general computing.
I had my entire phone backing up to iCloud. Logged in on the new phone and it downloaded all my data. But music is gone!
I don't know what your plans are for this iPhone 4 but it doesn't support 4G and won't work most places (like all of the US).
So maybe the trick is when you do not use your old iPhone as daily driver anymore pull out the SIM card and everything seems to be OK (would not recommend to use old iPhones in the wild anyway, due to severe security risks)
As a user who buys such an old phone i would expect grave security holes. But not being able to use the phone at all is harsh.
Planned obsolescence?
My partner prefers the old iPhone SE and she has no problem running the latest version of iOS on it.
I don't know that I have an opinion on this, but that's what Hugh Jeffreys' argument seems to be.
And iOS 15 performance on the 6s is far from abysmal. Sure you don't have the out of the box experience. But you have the 2022 experience.
Yes, a fresh iOS install sometimes causes some slowdown for a day or two maybe when the local-only ML models go through your local-only data and recalculate the new stuff it now knows how to do in the background.
After that it's going to be as smooth as it ever was.
If a new update slows down your phone on purpose, for whatever reason, and hides that from you, people understandably might avoid new updates.
> slowed down the performance of older iPhones in order to stop them shutting down without warning
This didn’t affect someone whose phone was working perfectly. It changed it so your phone got slow instead of crashing.
The reason some people held off on updates was that a bunch of confidently wrong people went around saying this was planned obsolescence and never went back to apologize for giving false advice.
I think another issue is that apps do tend to get more sluggish, since they probably expect to be running on newer hardware. If you stick to an older ios version, if they're deemed incompatible, they won't update. But as soon as you're on the latest ios, you get the app updates, too, if you've left the default on.
Google maps, for example, is clearly more sluggish than before. Apple maps is practically unusable. Youtube crashes reliably (but works fine in the browser...)
No, I didn’t consider funding the developers to update the version as that’s a lot of money. Especially for something that completely meets my needs.
It’s not dragging me to the past, it’s a functional tool that I acquired in the past and works into the future. Is my socket set I bought 30 years ago dragging me into the past because it’s obsolete?
I avoid generalizations and extreme thinking when it’s inappropriate.
In my opinion, in general, unsafe (outdated) devices should not be used as they are a huge attack vector because there are so many of them.
lol
half the people in the third world use their phones for 5+ years
Same goes for my SO's Galaxy Ace 4 Style, which she left lying there for an iPhone SE, but might return to the Samsung because the iPhone, while being a great device overall, will now require a battery replacement procedure because it wasn't designed for doing that at home and the battery is very much dead.
My Galaxy S8 is humming along nicely even though I subject it to a lot of environmental stress daily by e.g. showering with it in hand.
Bottom line is iPhones aren't that special in this regard anymore.
Maybe some budged non-flagship Android. You ought to compare iPhones to flagship Android devices. Because iPhone is a flagship device. Don't spread misinformation.
- He or an employee deleted it accidentally
- Facebook deleted it.
- His account was hacked and it was deleted
He had no form of 2FA switched on so I tried to help him set it up in case it was the latter in order to prevent it happening again. My first port of call was to try and use the built in Apple passwords in the iPhone settings that now allows you to scan QR codes and set keys. To my surprise, the setting was not there. Why? Because he was using an iPhone that cannot update past iOS 12.
It got worse. Rather than dotting out the passwords and requiring you to click on them to reveal them, the passwords were just sitting there in plain sight for all to see. If I had been a black hat I would have been having a field day.
After failing with the built in Apple option I tried to download a third party authenticator app but there were no applications in the App Store that supported iOS 12. In the end I had to settle for SMS authentication.
I asked him why he was still using such an old iPhone (he could clearly afford to update to a newer model) and explained the security risks of using such an old device. His response was that he didn’t like phones and didn’t want to spend any money on another one.
I get the scepticism around Apple doing this but I’m not entirely sure it’s a bad thing.
Isn’t this only once you authenticate with password or biometrics? The passwords are shown in clear text so they can be cut and pasted for use.
I don’t think this is a risk as it means someone gave you access to the device password in the first place.