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Comment by oblib | Hacker News Reader

I had a two old smartphone sitting in a drawer for a few years, an old iPhone5 and an old Android phone. A few months ago I looked into using them for security cams and did a search and found https://alfred.camera/

Alfred is pretty cool. They have a free version that does what I wanted and a premium version that's got quite a few nice additional features.

I'm still using an old iPhone 10. Apple has obsoleted it too. I can't install any apps from the "App Store" but it still does what I want most. The phone and the "Maps" and text apps still work fine.

One of my daughters works at Verizon and asked me if I wanted a new iPhone for Christmas last year but I really don't need one. I work from home, do not work for anyone else, and don't need any additional "Apps". My apps are "web apps" so they run fine on those old phones.

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I think there should be a law that any phone that loses official support should be able to be jailbroken and boot unlocked by an official tool. The best thing about this is that it will disincentivize companies from dropping support early for perfectly functional devices.

Why limited it to old devices? If I buy it I should be able to run my own software if I want.

Because there's an implicit binding of hardware and software in the overall proposition which includes the software (like Fire homescreen ads), until 1 party wants to stop providing their side, which should then free the other.

I'm never shy about jailbreaking devices, new or old. They're mine, and I'll do whatever I want with them.

As a philosopher once said, just do it.

Doing it for old hardware makes a much more compelling case for the general public to rally behind.

For lots of folks, as long as things are working, they don't care how. Limiting such a law to out-of-support hardware would give a clear value-add of "Your phone stopped working, but if this legislation got passed, it could keep working".

(I personally would love the right to control all my hardware, but that's a much tougher sell.)

If you just limit it to old devices, you're also limiting the pool of people who might be interested in hacking something up for the device to be usable by non-devs later on. You're certainly delaying the porting effort.

Not a phone but my PlayStation vita got a whole new life after jail breaking it. I actually regret not doing it earlier. I can backup and play my games from a normal sd card attached to a cheap adaptor. I can play home brew and community patches and fan translations (I have some Japanese games that never made it to the west). I can emulate anything from the 16 bit era plus perfect emulation from ps1 and psp. I can even use moonlight to play my pc.

The poor vita rejected by Sony is so good I’ve decided to skip on a switch for now because it is that good.

the PS Vita and the community behind it are a real marvel. The hardware is fantastic and has held up really well. I have one and i upgraded the battery, jailbroke the software… and i now have a fantastic emulation device in addition to full access to the PS Vita and PSX catalogues. Both are immense and the games are enjoyable.

I hope the steam deck goes down the same path and am eagerly waiting for prices to drop on the used market.

Don't forget the entire PSP catalog as well. The Vita really was an underappreciated gem when it was actively selling new units.

As soon as Nintendo announced they were shutting down the E-Shop I finally homebrewed my 2DS XL. Best thing I ever did to it.

The 3DS series was probably the peak of console hacking. There was a surprisingly long period where you could install freeshop and it would download any game direct from Nintendo’s servers without paying.

Along with easy persistent soft mods.

I expect in the coming gens, console hacking will reach borderline impossible levels when things get replaced with memory safe languages. Probably all that’s left is cpu glitching with power and clock attacks.

The Switch is already said to be unhackable with purely software-side methods by the big names in the scene. I guess we'll find out with time if that's really true, but the current homebrew scene for it really only exists thanks to that hardware error in the first revision of the console which afaik isn't even Nintendo's fault. I think the 3DS scene may have been a real wake up call for them.

I don’t think it’s unhackable, it’s probably more just unviable because any software exploit just gets quickly patched and becomes useless. Along with the difficulty of having to find a whole chain of exploits to work your way up the privilege layers.

The hardware exploit is still usable in the latest models but it’s harder to access. You require soldering a mod chip to the switch rather than sliding a jig in the controller rail.

But regardless, I think hardware security is outpacing hackers abilities. The cat and mouse game is becoming increasingly one sided.

There was a recent article framing the Steam Deck as a handheld PC gaming platform, which got me thinking about using it as a base for a handheld dev environment.

It's just a pretty ordinary Linux computer with a touchscreen and joysticks attached. I wouldn't do much serious dev on it myself because of the smallish screen but I've seen Real Hackers do more with less. Could be worth a shot!

Hundred Rabbits were talking about using a hacked Nintendo handheld with a custom OS; it’s for when they run out of power while sailing. These are the folks who made UXN, and even going as far as designing gestures and glyphs for each opscode so that computation can still be worked out without electronic devices.

I got interested in this from CollapseOS and Collapse Informatics, imagining a day when we lose our ability to make advanced microchips, but still have salvagable ones laying around.

I went a bit down this path cause I thought it would be fun to not bring my laptop and only bring the steam deck on trips. It's just unfortunately not very convenient, the laptop clamshell with the keyboard right there and stably attached to the monitor is just so much more handy of a design.

In terms of actual power, once you get the steam deck hooked to an external monitor with whatever peripherals you need like keyboard, it's just fine as a dev device, or for editing photos in dark table or running music production software. And, obviously, for gaming, works well, all in Linux.

In terms of using the onscreen keyboard as a "handheld dev device" I think one of those competitors with a miniature sized physical keyboard built in would probably be better, or there's a whole scene I glimpsed once of people making mini clamshell designs of machines with mini keyboards. The touchpads work ok but it's just infuriatingly slow compared to a keyboard, especially once you start needing brackets, parentheses, etc.

IIRC, launch-day Switches are sought after in the modding communities for this reason.

On a related note, mine is in almost mint condition, but I'll make sure to let the modders know if I decided to get the upgraded one.

Or as Steam Deck shows, you can just drop the whole security theater and have a perfectly viable and arguably better handheld console device.

Same. The developer tooling for it is rad too. I’m blown away by it. It’s a really fun platform to hack on.

If you try it out drop the devs a donation! They’re super talented and deserve all the respect.

The problem there is that you would have a complete freak out on HN and other online fora.

You might be right. Unfortunately the government is just as incentivized as the rest of us to uphold a consumer economy.

I was so mad when I purchased a carrier unlocked LG Velvet 5G just over a year ago. It seemed like the perfect phone

- 5G radio

- SD card slot

- HEADPHONE JACK!

Then 3 weeks later LG quietly announces "yeah we're not making phones anymore. Sorry!"

Which, sure, fine. Fair enough LG. But at least let us unlock our bootloaders and put custom ROM's on the thing! What are you afraid of, we won't go out and buy a new Samsung phone instead?

They did release the update to 12th though, and reportedly there's going to be an update to 13th.

At which point the community interest in getting software working on those devices will have become quite diffuse. For example, take a look at how old devices drop off the LineageOS supported list. The main problem isn't bona fide DRM, but rather the endless churn of accidental complexity.

Newer LineageOS releases will increasingly depend on kernel features that aren't implemented by the downstream kernel in these older devices. So at some point old devices must be supported by the mainline kernel if they are to remain viable for general use. It's pretty hard work. (And there are lots of these devices too. I don't think we even have a list of every piece of hardware that was supported by the old Cyanogenmod at some point in its history.)

Sure, that's a large part of what I meant by "endless churn of accidental complexity". The embedded development mindset is to throw a working binary over the wall, maintainability and updates be damned. This kind of worked at the level of 16 bit micros where complexity was limited, but it doesn't scale.

Or at a minimum just be designed such that when the manufacturer stops supporting it with their infrastructure its functionality degrades ‘gracefully’.

Haven’t reached the ID or update server for weeks? - probably no need to complain to the user every time they connect to a network. Even better, implement “Service Discontinued”, so the device either stops checking permanently or only checks occasionally and doesn’t report the now expected failure.

> I'm still using an old iPhone 10. Apple has obsoleted it too. I can't install any apps from the "App Store" but it still does what I want most. The phone and the "Maps" and text apps still work fine.

The iPhone X is still supported with the latest iOS release, iOS 16[1].

Just wondering what exactly isn't working or makes it seem obsolete? :-)

I'm also a big fan of riding iPhones into the ground!

My wife is still using an iPhone XS Max, that runs like new even on the latest iOS! :-)

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/iphone/iphe3fa5df43/io...

I’ve been pretty bad for upgrading every year but i stopped at the iPhone 11 and it’s what i’m typing on right now. The battery status is “service now” and claims 70% capacity.

I noticed it getting annoyingly slow in some scenarios so before splashing to replace the battery i figured i’d try a clean reinstall and i have to say it’s cured it. So Even if the degraded battery is causing performance limitations like i was suspecting, it’s no longer enough to be a problem and a 70% battery easily gets me through a full day.

One less battery in landfill. For now.

I can’t imagine still being on the iPhone X. It was so slow when I got the 12

Slow in what sense? I was on an iPhone 8 until it broke a few months ago and it was plenty fast.

I had my 6S until last summer (when I upgraded to 11 non-pro, it's the last iphone with a non-flickering screen right now)

The main thing I notice is searching for an app in the search menu takes a long time. Opening apps also takes several seconds, and the phone will often get very hot just from normal use, like the CPU is being pegged just trying to run iOS.

Some have said freeing up space on their iPhone fixes it, but I have not had success with that.

My iPhone 6 is still snappy. Ex has an 8 which is great. How is an X slow?

> I'm still using an old iPhone 10. Apple has obsoleted it too. I can't install any apps from the "App Store" but it still does what I want most.

I still use an iPhone 10 also. But I have no problem installing new apps, so I'm confused by this. Have you updated the iOs and made sure the time is syncing properly? Those are two common problems that block App Store access.

I was going to say this too. iPhone 10 still supports the latest iOS.

I'm still using an iPhone 7 and while it doesn't support the latest iOS, I can still install apps from the app store.

My iPhone 8 seems to work just fine for installing apps. I'm on iOS 15.6.1, though the [iOS 16 info page][1] claims support for iPhone 8. (I may have chosen not to upgrade to iOS 16 in the past because my 64gb phone is chronically low on storage, and the upgrade will use an additional 2gb of storage.)

[1]: https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16/

My daily driver is an iPhone8, running iOS 16.2. It's just fine.

Same here, replaced my old 8 last month, but only because a few rows of pixels went bad, not because of compatibility issues.

I just checked and it's an iPhone 6 Plus, so even older than I thought. It's one of my wife's old phones. She did get a new one for Christmas last year but traded in her old one, which I think was an iPhone 10, so that's probably why I made the mistake.

Like I said, I really do not use it much.

For reference iPhone 6 plus was released in 2014 (iPhone 10 in 2017)

8 was also released that year.

The 6s is still supported using last year's iOS version 15. It can totally run all of the latest apps still. Why would it have a problem loading anything. She needs to sign?

Ok, well, that is a very old phone!

It had a good run though!

I believe it holds the record as the iPhone with the longest iOS current release support.

I still have one I use as a test device!

It’s super laggy under the latter iOS releases I found.

I’m reading this on my iPhone SE (the first gen, from 2016) and it works totally fine.

The best phone Apple has made so far. I regret selling my one as the font zooming too inconsistent in 2017 and got to point too few apps I could read.

I agree. It’s my favourite sized phone _and_ it has a headphone jack.

> I can't install any apps from the "App Store" but it still does what I want most.

Apple has made this such a hassle... if you actually install an app on your new iPhone 10... you can go over to your "Purchased" on your iPhone 5 and install the version that runs on it (if it exists). However if you go on the iPhone 5 to the app store, they just say "so sorry, not supported" and it is the biggest slap you can give someone to remind them the product they paid for is not owned by them.

And I believe they do actually have the binaries still on their server. At least I remember vaguely finding a trick how to find their URL and download them manually. So I guess they could give you the last compatible version, but they don’t.

Haven is open source. Last updated 2019, but works.

https://guardianproject.github.io/haven/

There's a release from 2021

"This web browser is not supported. Please use Google Chrome on PC to continue with Alfred WebCamera."

IIRC The iPhone 10 has about two more years of support left. It's far from obsolete yet.

Yeah, I just checked again after reading the replies here and it's even older than that, it's an iPhone 6 plus. Maybe I should talk to my daughter about getting a newer one :D

> I'm still using an old iPhone 10. Apple has obsoleted it too

Do you really mean iPhone 10, i.e. iPhone X, or iPhone 1? The former are very much still in support. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/supported-models-iphe...

I'm no Apple apologist, but their long-term device support puts all others in the segment to shame...

How has the iPhone 10 been obsoleted? It just got iOS 16.

Thanks for posting, was recently wanting exactly this and was dreading wading through the app store/Reddit posts to find out what actually worked

Do you know if they stream the video to the cloud or just connect locally? I am looking for a kid-cam for my son's room, but I do NOT want to have it streaming anywhere outside my LAN. This could work, because I have two old Androids I could use for this.

Try this, it isn't exactly meant as a camera but it is local only : Meshenger (P2P voice- and video phone App.) https://f-droid.org/packages/d.d.meshenger/

They stream to the cloud.

They're based here in Taiwan at least so maybe no NSA snooping? Idk I vaguely used them for my lizard camera until I could muster up the energy to self host my own setup.

Your iPhone X is obsoleted? I have an iPhone 6 with iOS 12 and can download alot of current apps from the App store. In fact iOS 12 just got new update from Apple. You should check again about this.

Can it run as a camera on iOS "in the background", or does it require the screen to remain on, and the device to be "unlocked"? The linked page is very light on details.

I tried Alfred with an old Motorola something but the app and/or phone would crash and/or shutdown because of the heat. Your mileage may vary of course.

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