This is a 10 year old phone, released in 2014. Edit. I was wrong, 2015, sorry
There is nothing fundamentally incompatible about the last couple of generation of iphones. ARMv8 CPU, PowerVR derived GPU. If the mobile computing space weren't driven by greed, this would be a non issue.
A Sandy Bridge era intel machine deployed in 2011 is easily capable of running the latest Linux, BSD or win10. And in the case of the first two, I'd wager it will continue to be viable for the foreseeable future.
- Linux dropping support for old graphics drivers (Nov 2023) - https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Drop-Old-UMS-DRM-Infra
- Linux Kernel Developers Discuss Dropping A Bunch Of Old CPUs (Jan 2021) - https://www.phoronix.com/news/2021-Linux-Drop-Old-CPUs
Supporting all of these is work. It makes development of new features harder, because it has to account for quirks of older hardware. Older hardware is also harder to get in the hands of developers and harder to test on. That’s why Linux has dropped support for 386, 486, IA-64 and other architectures.
There’s no point saying trillion dollar corporation etc. It comes down to some basic fact - phones must be built with SoCs, that’s the easiest way. The PC way doesn’t work at scale. Now that we are on SoCs you have to draw the line on support somewhere. Just because the costs imposed on future development aren’t obvious to us doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
I think 5 years minimum (and sometimes more) of OS updates is pretty good, FWIW.
Think about how many devices Microsoft has to support in Windows, it’s orders of magnitude more.
Apple doesn’t want to support older devices because they don’t see a benefit to themselves.
5 years of support is pitifully short. Pretty much everything I own lasts longer than 5 years, my phone is one of the things I have to replace most often, not because the hardware is broken, but because it stops receiving updates.
Again, bugs are this are not hardware specific. You are not supporting "devices". You are supporting the OS which all of them run. Ideally (I'm not familiar with OSX/iOS internals) all they have to do is push out an update that contains the newly fixed libwebkit.so or whatever. They control everything on their own platform so they don't even have to deal with glibc breaking backcompat like we have to in the GNU/Linux world.
If they can't figure out a way to make changes like this universal across devices, it's either deliberate negligence or incompetence.
Don't sell crap you can't support for a decent amount of time. Stop ruining this planet we live on by creating immense amounts of e-waste every few years.
We both know your argument is dishonest or at least naive, though. They could easily support updates if they want to. But it's about money. This way they are forcing people to buy a new phone every few years. It's clever, shame about the planet.
Dishonest? You're saying I'm lying to support a trillion dollar corporation I have no financial stake in and never have? Is such an accusation really in the spirit of this forum?
I suggest you review the guidelines - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Don't be snarky. Don't sneer. Assume good faith.
Also, your claim that it's "not economical" is entirely unproven and arguably false. iPhones are still architecturally supported by Linux and will continue to be for a while (even longer on BSD). Other Apple products (eg. Apple Silicon) received community driver support entirely from donations and volunteer time. There's no reason to assume that iPhones lack community interest, especially since Apple has never given the iPhone community the same leverage they had on Mac.
If that's the sum of both arguments, then you're mostly just leveraging FOMO to support an unproven concept. At best you're jumping the gun, at worst you're twisting the facts to preclude discussion of open iPhone software alternatives.
Pixel 8: released in 2023, updates through 2030 Pixel 5: released in 2020, stopped getting updates in October 2023.
3 years worth of updates is pretty shit… my son’s iPhone 5c got updates for over 5 years (and I think there were some security issues they patched after that even)
At the moment I’ve got a perfectly usable Pixel 4a that I’m going to have to replace as it’s not secure enough for work related stuff anymore
This isn't a debate about what company is better. The word "now" is used for Google's promises for a reason.
Over a decade of Nexus then Pixel devices being flashable has not moved any needle of Apple doing the same. Google promising 7 years is in line with Apple's 10 year track record of providing 6-8 years of updates, so it's more like Google aligning with Apple, not Google pushing Apple.
Still, a vague† promise in a blog post or keynote address is not going to fit the bill, at the very least it should be in the EULA or other contractually enforceable document, otherwise the promise is worth nothing.
Ideally I wish software would be treated as with e.g automotive or washing machine manufacturers, who in the EU have a legal requirement to provide parts for 10 years.
† I mean the promise is clearly worded but bears no weight, especially when pitted against Google's track record over the last decade of making grand announcements then puling the rug down the road.
Let’s talk again in 5 years, once they had the opportunity to prove their plans. So far, it’s all just talk.
"not everyone" is an understatement.
That's a solution for you (and the dozens - dozens! - of people doing the same), in practice it is not for 99% of Android users, therefore, again in practice, there's a huge fleet of devices with out-of-date software out there.
> But Android also lets you run custom builds
That's not even counting that:
- many Android manufacturers make it non-trivial† to root/unlock/flash a build and/or make it blow a warranty fuse, and that's if it's even possible at all.
- usually the camera goes ape shit, and often loudspeaker audio quality too.
- unless you relock the bootloader it immediately compromises security and makes bootloader updates nontrivial as unlocking again clears the device.
Mind you, this is a fine, intellectually satisfying strategy for you and me to be able to flash open builds, but it's by and large an extremely fringe strategy, and it's been shown over a decade that it's staying that way.
† Often involving downloading random flashing tools from obscure forums, that run only on Windows, some of these being one shot and requiring to plug in magic numbers corresponding to your exact device, and if you screw it up the device is bricked (e.g Samsung). Or the unlocking is on a low-write-count chip and once you exceed that limit the device is bricked (e.g OnePlus). I know, I've been there, bricked a few, recovered only one through JTAG.
Yes, but that is only one component of a modern phone. Basebands and system bootloaders, among other firmwares, don't receive updates. Those are regularly attacked.
It's good that they do but it's not enough.
Don’t buy brand new old phones new from Apple, they’re a ripoff. If you buy either an iPhone 12 or 13 used for $250-350 you can basically plan on a $50 a year budget to have a smartphone that always has the latest OS judging by their expected remaining lifespans.
I think the big flaw with the status quo is e-waste more than cost to the consumer. I think an iPhone 6S or 7 are incredibly slow and outdated devices for today’s usage but in 5 years I don’t think we will be able to say the same thing about an iPhone 12 or 13. Smartphone hardware is far more mature now than it was even 6 generations deep into the iPhone product line.
We should be able to replace batteries for $20 and replace things like broken screens for not much more, and Apple should be enthusiastic about it considering how services are their bread and butter moving forward. Apple should be happy to produce fewer phones and keep more consumer dollars allocated toward the purchase of high margin digital goods.
The wildcard here is local LLM use cases and any new hardware that increases their speed by orders of magnitude.
I also don’t see any indication that there will be impactful local LLM silicon at the smartphone scale anytime soon.
The 2020 SE is available from a wide variety of sources for 200USD (still new in box); it'll be supported until 2027. The 2022 SE is 400USD, supported until 2029.
By comparison the Android phones at this price point functionally went out of support 2 years before they even existed- not only is there zero support for them, but they ship with outdated OS versions to begin with. And no, "but I can go to XDA and get a shitty ROM at the cost of my camera" doesn't count as support.
While Google promises, Apple actually has a decade long track record of updating older phones for 5 or more years. We don’t know if Google will actually follow through on their promises or the execs in charge in 5 years will feel differently. But I personally bet $1000 that the iPhone 13 will get 5 years of OS updates minimum.
I’ll believe it at 6 years in, maybe.
Google: promises
you're being disingenuous
Google is not promising this out of the goodness of their heart. They're just getting ahead of what the EU is planning to mandate [0], and doing that to get some good marketing while they're at it.
So, while Google's track record leaves a lot to be desired, in this, I think they'll keep their promise, either because they actually care, or because the EU will force them to. Either way, we, the end users, will benefit from it.
And this will apply to all electronic device makers. That's probably why Samsung also increased their updates policy to five years as well.
[0]: https://www.insideprivacy.com/cybersecurity-2/eu-publishes-d...
> "The requirements apply for the lifetime of a product or five years from its placement on the market, whichever is shorter."
If that was the case then why did Google exceed the requirement by 2 years? Additionally, Google is providing 7 years of OS upgrades and 7 years of security updates. Google could have easily just do what they did with the Pixel 7 and offer 3 years of OS upgrades and 5 years of security updates, thus, meeting these EU requirement of 5 years of updates. So to claim that Google offering an industry leading 7 years of OS upgrades and 7 years of security updates is not out of the "goodness of their heart" is being disingenuous IMO.
Do you really think the cost of the class action lawsuit and settlement and the bad publicity for not adhering to their 7 years of support would not exponentially exceed the cost of a team of engineers tasked with supporting updates for their Pixel phones?
As for "promises" - why hasn't any other OEM matched or exceeded Google? Apple should have been the first one to step up the very next day.
And how many are there, then?
I do wish apple would follow google's example and commit to a service lifetime upfront, but other than that, I don't object to their model. in practice, it vastly exceeds the level of support for any android phone other than the pixel 8, and we have yet to see whether google actually follows through on that.
I don't think there is a real concern about app store economics collapsing, the app marketplace business is very lucrative. We can see this in related cases: you can avoid certain iOS taxes by purchasing your subscriptions on the web: Twitter Blue is $11 on iOS and $8 on the web. Spotify used to be $12.99 for iOS sign-ups and $9.99 on the web.
Why should users pay full bundled iOS tax that supports security updates, if they are getting none?
I don't think I've ever seen someone express the expectation that Apple's App Store fees are for the purpose of supporting iOS development and maintenance. Mostly I've seen and heard the expectation that those fees are connected to running the App Store itself (payment processing, hosting, app review, etc.) and beyond that, vague profiteering. iOS itself isn't a subscription service, and Apple seems quite happy to sell you devices even if you don't spend money in the App Store. So you seem to be stretching a bit by attributing those fees to iOS maintenance and then turning around to say that unsupported iOS versions should get a discount on the fees for any services that still work.
It means they’re shoehorning another issue into this discussion.
> seems very unethical
When Apple announces this (very ethical) policy change, I expect you to full-throatedly defend Apple from the mass shrieking cries of "but muh planned obsolescence!!" Right? Right?? ;-)
In fact, one could argue it's also "very unethical" for Apple to (negligently) allow someone to use a potentially unsafe or hackable product. To be maximally ethical, Apple should be remotely bricking any Apple device the day it loses security support. Better to be on the safe ("ethical") side and remote wipe too, to protect people's data privacy.
Can you see how Argument From I Merely Assert XYZ Is Unethical Then Demand Some Arbitrary Relief can quickly break down?
> iOS 12.5.7
> Released January 23, 2023
This device had 256Mb RAM and 400Mhz 32 bit processor. Should Apple still support this with security updates?
Like the battery issue, I feel the whole issue is communication. Apple needs to communicate when they EOL OS versions. You don’t otherwise know it, partly because EOL OS’s, including this phone’s, still get security updates, just not all of them.
Is the implication that once a device is EOL that a vendor should never release an update for that device again?
I feel like Apple changed the dynamics of smartphone market from company-issued devices like BlackBerry to BYO with the iPhone essentially on purpose so they don’t get stuck providing decades of enterprise support promises like companies like Microsoft.
Companies purchasing bulk orders of hardware probably wouldn’t tolerate a vendor unwilling to make any sort of concrete support promise for the contract. But a company who employs iPhone users can basically put the responsibility on the user and simply block access to non-compliant devices.
It seems typical for vendors use "EOL" to refer to end of support life, not merely discontinuing sales of the produce. Most notably, that's how Microsoft generally frames EOL for major Windows releases, hence expectation of jumps in PC sales corresponding to EOL of XP, 7, and 10.
No, I’m not implying there’s something wrong with shipping the occasional update to EOL devices.
[^1] It would be completely reasonable to say "Earth-shaking? Really? You expect security backports for a decade?" I've been in mobile my whole career, iOS for 7 years, starting from jailbreaking the original iPhone, then worked on Android itself for 7 years. I am sure significant decisions were made assuming this was the case.
Google no longer offers security patches directly, but since you control the phone sufficiently to install your own OS, the community can come together and keep security updates flowing. You could do it yourself if you wanted.
Apple devices make this sort of community maintainership effectively impossible.
I know this means practically nothing since only nerds can actually install a third-party ROM, so for the general populace only the "default" security patch window matters, but for the hacker news crowd it seems like it might be a meaningful difference.
The bigger problem is that a huge bunch of software running on the phone is fully proprietary and closed source, and there are many many different versions for different phones around - making it virtually impossible to do any meaningful reverse engineering. So sure, your main OS may be up to date, but the baseband OS and virtually all of the device drivers will be left vulnerable, and they have just as much if not more access to the data on your device.
Can we just choose to stop suggesting it as a legitimate solution cause outside of this bubble, it absolutely is not.
Come on.
You don't have to agree but resell value of older iPhone being much-much higher than Android tells customer values the support and quality of iPhone.
Microsoft is trying to fix this. Win 11 wants a TPM. /s