Comment by vanilla_nut | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vanilla_nut | Hacker News Reader

Funny to see an article whose title I agree with and realize I'm in the exact same situation. Same phone, actually -- the last iPhone with a small size, headphone jack, touchID, and SIM card slot all in one device.

I've just eliminated most apps from my phone, but the web browser is the ultimate killer for this phone. Stuck on iOS 15's version of webkit, no real ad blockers, no real tweaks (as admirable a job as Hyperweb does) I'm being forced to upgrade thanks to the end of iOS updates.

I've decided to try another small phone: the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, which is roughly the size of the iPhone Mini with a headphone jack, fingerprint sensor, usb-c, and (most excitingly) a notification LED. Of course software support for this 2017 phone is also long gone, but I'm hoping LineageOS + Android's open software environment (giving me Firefox support for years) will keep things going for a while, at least.

I really wish there was a way to keep software support on smartphones for longer. Now that society basically requires every participant to own a smartphone with a data plan, it's as important as allowing walkability and public transit in cities so folks can live without cars, IMO.

I can personally vouch for the XZ1 Compact as a great device! Mine still worked (almost) flawlessly in 2022.

... Until US phone providers started shutting down 3G. As I understand it, in order for the phone to work correctly with towers, the 3G signal needed to be verified as sort of an emergency "fallback" in case 4G/LTE wasn't working. As soon as 3G towers were replaced with 5G, the phone started having severe connectivity issues, even with only 4G/LTE enabled. I don't know if there is a way to get around this, as I also believe the hardware modem is a factor.

I'm not thrilled at this aspect of forced obsolescence. Between (lack of) firmware support, locked root capability, frequency band issues, and non-replaceable batteries, devices are not "supposed" to be used for more than 2 years.

Fortunately, it still works on T-Mobile for VOLTE (Voice Over LTE). Apparently AT&T and Verizon never whitelisted the XZ1 models for the feature, despite the fact that they work just fine. Thankfully I use Google Fi so I'm already on T-Mobile.

A friend of mine has the XZ1 Compact, and I would not recommend it. It was a fantastic phone (with a fantastic camera) when it was released, but Sony dropped support for running apps off the SD card, and the internal storage only has 32GB. (Sony kept support moving apps to the SD card longer than Google/AOSP did, but finally gave up.)

Once the internal storage is nearly filled up, the phone slows to a crawl, randomly reboots (and runs a much slower "fixup" boot process), and some apps stop working, or only partially work. System and app updates stop happening.

It's surprisingly difficult to keep storage usage down, as many apps these days don't know or care about the difference between internal and external storage, and won't let you write app data to the SD card. Recently I helped my friend reset to factory to get a clean slate, then installing only the minimum number of apps she needed, attempting to move whatever data she could to the SD card, but the internal storage filled up again after only a few days.

I'm not sure if LineageOS brings back the ability to move apps to the SD card. I would doubt it, given what kind of massive surgery to the OS that would require. If it doesn't, you're in for a lot of trouble.

I believe LineageOS still supports "Adoptable Storage" that combines your SD card with internal storage. No hassle to move apps around, but you would want a fairly fast SD card since you can't choose which apps to run off SD and which to run off internal storage

https://source.android.com/docs/core/storage/adoptable

I used adoptable storage on LineageOS, and you do in fact have to choose whether apps live on the external or internal storage. Worse than that, in fact, you don't get a choice at installation time. All apps are installed to external storage by default, and the vast majority of apps that I've tried simply don't work until you go into app settings and move it to internal storage. In most cases they crash immediately at startup, but there are occasionally other failure modes like drawing the skeleton of the UI but none of the interactive parts.

Adoptable storage also has the neat failure mode that if you accidentally pop out the SD card while the phone is running, you're in for a real treat.

Also, anytime anyone asks about adoptable storage in the LOS subreddit, the devs always respond that the feature is broken, will not be fixed, and they don't recommend using it.

I don't install a huge number of apps, I plan on mostly just using Fennec + music on an SD card + a couple of messaging apps. So hopefully I won't fill up the 32GB of internal storage. My current SE only has 64GB of storage for all of that combined, and apps only take up one or to GBs tops. I'm sure the situation will be a bit different on Android, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Sadly it sounds like Adoptable Storage isn't quite functional enough to solve the problem, but in a pinch, it might work. I'll have to investigate if it's compatible with Telegram, which is probably the most storage-hungry app I use thanks to years of media and messages.

Appreciate the warning and transparency, hopefully my situation is more compatible with the XZ1C than yours. Keep your eyes peeled for a "trying LineageOS on the XZ1C in 2023" post on HN in the next couple of weeks, if I'm successful. Otherwise I just purchased a slightly expensive MP3 player.

At the very minimum companies should be obliged to unlock the eol devices and provide the firmware of their components.

Many of the components could have a second life. The main camera for example of the the 2016 iPhone is still better that most webcams. One could use these salvaged sensors to build new hardware.

They should but that also won’t solve the problem. No one is going to maintain a custom OS for ancient iPhones to a standard that makes them work with modern apps.

You can actually install Linux on these old phones, the technical restrictions are long since broken. But there is no funding to make something usable using this capability.

> You can actually install Linux on these old phones, the technical restrictions are long since broken. But there is no funding to make something usable using this capability.

I gave postmarketos a shot for 6 months or so, and sadly I have to agree that it's not ready for daily driving, even by experienced users.

This fairphone 4 on the other hand with lineage 20 looks like it will keep me going for a few more years.

There is an under appreciated world of difference between “booted Linux” and “I can use this as my only phone”. The community can manage the first one, they typically can’t do the second.

Postmarket OS is a cool project but I wouldn’t count on it ever being more than a neat way to tinker with obsolete devices.

To be clear, it could place calls and run a web browser on mobile data. The device was very much a phone.

It falls down (of course) at the larger list of secondary use cases many take for granted. For me it was mobile navigation, though it would also still hard crash noticeably often. I do expect the crashes at least to be fixed next time I look.

We already have LineageOS for phones, and it seems to work fairly well. Mfgrs providing specs/driver code/FW would make that effort much easier, and probably attract more volunteers too.

You don't have to maintain a custom OS. You just have to be allowed to run your own code, then you can just write a simple webcam app and never need to fiddle with it ever again. You'd probably be surprised at how many developers there are today that do in fact maintain custom software for older rooted iphones, and given that I'm sure a lot more devs would release and maintain even more software if every old iphone under the sun was fully open. Not just the few still on the lucky iOS versions that have a jailbreak released but isn't yet patched.

Was in exact same situation, and made the same spreadsheet even, except my prices were higher in India.

I force upgraded to iPhone 13 a few months after it came out, once the leaks confirmed that that 14 wouldn’t have TouchID.

I was a fan of my xz1 compact despite the fact that the square corners wore holes in my jean pockets and that it spontaneously crashed one day never to boot again.

> Now that society basically requires every participant to own a smartphone with a data plan

I feel so very fortunate that this isn't true in my area.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com