[HN Gopher] Running Unsupported iOS on Deprecated Devices
___________________________________________________________________
Running Unsupported iOS on Deprecated Devices
Author : OuterVale
Score : 205 points
Date : 2025-11-26 22:57 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (nyansatan.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (nyansatan.github.io)
| thisislife2 wrote:
| Yes, we definitely need something like this for the iDevices -
| it's outrageous that an old but capable device like iPad Air (1st
| generation) has to become e-Waste simply because Apple has
| decided not to support it any longer and won't allow other
| Operating Systems to run on it. Mac's already have the _OpenCore
| Legacy Patcher_ - https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-
| Patcher - that allow you to run newer macOS versions on older and
| even unsupported Macs.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Not sure this would solve much as new iOS would be far too slow
| for these devices.
|
| Better they allowed installing linux on old devices. But even
| then it wouldn't move a needle - it's such a niche case.
|
| Maybe some would end up in extremely poor countries, but even
| there people can afford $30-50 for a brand new computer and
| Apple rather get those old devices recycled properly.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I don't understand that. 98% of devices over 15 years old have
| either died of old age or are completely obsolete. Something
| can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would
| only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices
| in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should
| expect from a premium brand.
| excalibur wrote:
| > I don't understand that. 98% of devices over 15 years old
| have either died of old age or are completely obsolete.
| Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but
| it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people.
| Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as
| you should expect from a premium brand.
|
| This comment gave me whiplash
| Joe_Cool wrote:
| I am typing this from my 2009 Win7 PC I use for older Windows
| games...
|
| Huh?
| beeflet wrote:
| The PC ecosystem is the exception to the rule. 20 year
| lifetimes are typical, but in the smartphone world 10 years
| is treated as an impossibility. It is all disposable by
| design
| mc3301 wrote:
| I'm not sure about today's conventions, but it used to be
| that every component inside a car had a minimum standard
| of 10-year-life. The Toyota Landcruiser famously had a
| minimum 25-year-life for each and every single component.
| I have worked closely with some older Toyota engineers in
| Japan. It is possible but not conventional.
| chasil wrote:
| I am running the latest LineageOS on my OnePlus 5, which
| is eight years old. I intend to be using it for some
| time.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePlus_5
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| HN is biased towards the sort of people who keep computers
| from 2009 to play with and wish they could get more use out
| of their 12 year old iPad Air. That's great, but it's
| simply not a thing for most people so i don't see how it
| significantly reduce ewaste.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| The average salary in the USA is still $66k. You're
| living in a bubble to think people don't want to get more
| time out of their family's iOS devices.
| Klonoar wrote:
| The iOS ecosystem graduated to status symbol for many,
| $66k average salary doesn't really matter when society
| will just take whatever carrier trade in deal they can
| use to status up.
| gruez wrote:
| >You're living in a bubble to think people don't want to
| get more time out of their family's iOS devices.
|
| No, at least for Apple devices, the overwhelming majority
| are replaced before they reach EOL. According to
| https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/,
| only around 25% of people are using iPhones that were
| released more than 3 years ago.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| So only ~35 million people?
|
| Maybe more people aren't running older hardware because
| it's too difficult, rather than because they don't want
| to. The basic idea is here is taht if a device can still
| hold a charge and the user is OK with limited features,
| they should be able to keep using it as long as they feel
| like it.
| gruez wrote:
| >So only ~35 million people?
|
| Citing large absolute numbers for rhetorical effect is
| dishonest because multiplying a huge number with any
| percentage will result in a shockingly large number. The
| original claim is that "people who keep computers from
| 2009 to play with and wish they could get more use out of
| their 12 year old iPad Air [...] it's simply not a thing
| for most people", which is true even, if there are
| millions in absolute terms.
| layer8 wrote:
| If mobile devices would routinely last twenty years,
| which they very well could, that would reduce a lot of
| e-waste. Software getting more demanding is also a
| function of hardware churn.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's sad that hardware outlasts software. You'd expect
| the opposite.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > If mobile devices would routinely last twenty years,
| which they very well could, that would reduce a lot of
| e-waste.
|
| Unfortunately, battery technology doesn't - and even if
| we had long lasting batteries, we'd also need fall-
| resistant screens. And no matter what, even if you have a
| device held together by screws and allowing easy repair
| instead of messing around with glue and click-tabs...
| screens still are really expensive, making it often
| enough more worthwhile to take the opportunity and
| upgrade the whole device rather than to repair the
| screen.
| layer8 wrote:
| Batteries are easily replacable. LCD can last a long
| time, my main desktop monitor is 18 years old at this
| point. OLED less so, admittedly.
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| How did it vote in this election?
| Yokolos wrote:
| You clearly haven't met a lot of your average PC or phone
| user then. Most people don't care about getting the
| newest and best thing. If a thing still works, they'll
| use it until it doesn't anymore, however long that is.
| You have no idea the kinds of PCs I saw people using when
| I worked as a technician. People just don't have an
| interest in getting new tech unless they're forced to,
| because they largely aren't interested in tech. They're
| interested in document processing, watching videos,
| listening to music and dealing with their pictures. And
| they don't care how old the device is they're doing it
| on.
|
| In addition, they don't want to spend money on it. They'd
| rather spend money on things they actually care about.
| Festivals, clubs, vacations, a new TV, a car,
| restaurants, whatever. Your average non-tech person is
| happy if they don't have to spend anything on gadgets for
| 10 years.
| gambiting wrote:
| My mum was still happily on some 8 year old iphone, I'm
| not even sure which one that was, and then got really
| annoyed that she had to upgrade just because her banking
| apps stopped updating and wouldn't log in anymore. It's
| just pure and complete e-waste.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| RE "....I am typing this from my 2009 Win7 PC...."
|
| Ssssshhhh ..... Microsoft does not want people to hear this
| .....
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| Ahh the good ole days.
| _fzslm wrote:
| It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-
| than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage being
| consigned to landfill is bonkers.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-
| than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage
| being consigned to landfill is bonkers.
|
| That's not a high bar to clear. Who's realistically going
| to use a laptop/desktop with a Core 2 Duo (2006), for
| instance?
| asdefghyk wrote:
| With lightweight , efficient , non bloated software it is
| entirely possible ? Start with a efficient OS
| marci wrote:
| Thinpkad owners/modders, probably.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You're going to think my answer is bizarre, but those
| kind of underpowered devices would be ideal for office
| work or non-IT businesses in general. They need computers
| to do the same things as they needed 15 or 20 years ago.
| Writing documents, spreadsheets, taking inventory,
| sending and receiving e-mail.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| No, your idea is perfectly rational. Somebody I know
| consulted me on what kind of computers to buy for their
| new small business that would only be used for browsing,
| email, word processing. I found them a store that sold
| used Dell and HP workstations. They got 3 Dell machines
| (CPU + Monitor + Keyboard + Mouse), all Intel Core i5
| with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD with Windows 7 Pro, for $75 /
| each. We spent an additional $25 to purchase a cheap 128
| GB SSD and installed Linux (LMDE), Firefox, LibreOffice
| and GNU Cash on it. (Preserved Windows Dual boot option,
| just in case they needed Windows for something). This was
| 2+ years ago and the owner was so happy that I reduced
| his IT hardware budget by a quarter. I recently purchased
| a used HP 25" monitor from Craigslist, for $60, in
| excellent condition and still having a year warranty on
| it, whose retail price was around $500 on launch. There
| is so much e-waste being produced ...
| gambiting wrote:
| It's the same as with cars - companies want brand new
| because then you get a full warranty and theoretically
| you don't need to worry about it. So that $400 you saved
| would be spent in IT support for your old failing
| hardware.
|
| But the thing is.....old PCs are really not that
| unreliable. If they survived the last 5-10 years then
| they are probably still chugging along just fine and for
| a small business there is literally nothing wrong with
| using them.
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| Well except the software.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| What about the software?
| gambiting wrote:
| OP said they got a bunch of computers, wiped them and
| installed Linux and LibreOffice on them - in which case
| the software is not a problem.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Writing documents, spreadsheets, taking inventory,
| sending and receiving e-mail.
|
| Well... Outlook is already a web app, the rest of the
| Office suite will follow rather sooner than later, and
| inventory - it's either web apps or SAP, both memory
| hogs.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| But not all businesses need to use the latest versions of
| Microsoft Office. They might not even need to use
| Microsoft Office at all. iPads come with a stock e-mail
| application, as well as word processing and spreadsheets
| etc. And if you're using old PCs, you can use old
| versions of Office. Or WordPad and an e-mail client. They
| are light-weight.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| You are thinking of big businesses, where as I was
| talking about Micro and Small businesses (in India). They
| don't even use Outlook today. For them email means Gmail,
| and even its use is declining as most business
| communication in India is done over WhatsApp!
| shawn_w wrote:
| I still use a C2D laptop running Linux for some things.
| amatecha wrote:
| I was ripping CDs with a Core 2 Duo Macbook a couple
| weeks ago lol (running Linux)
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Who's realistically going to use a laptop/desktop with
| a Core 2 Duo (2006), for instance?
|
| I was literally still using a Core2Duo Macbook Pro as a
| kitchen laptop just for looking up recipes and watching
| youtube videos etc until last year. Worked absolutely
| fine until Chrome decided that it's not going to update
| itself anymore and since I'm on an old version of chrome
| I can't use google sync. That's what killed it for me -
| the hardware itself was still perfectly functional.
| baubino wrote:
| > Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices,
| but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of
| people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time
| anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.
|
| Used by a tiny percentage only because Apple has made it as
| difficult as possible to not upgrade, which is especially
| egregious _precisely because_ their devices are long-lasting.
|
| (This comment brought to you via a perfectly functioning
| iPhone 8 running the latest possible iOS that supports it.)
| Fnoord wrote:
| They did the same for the iPad Pro. My kid is using the hand-
| me-down of my mother (so from grandmother to granddaughter).
| I put a case on it to protect against bumps, protect screen
| (has a couple of burn-in marks but it is still very usable)
| and put tape on top of the camera (the mics likely still
| work). I also put it on my IoT VLAN. She uses it for YouTube
| Kids and Disney+, mainly, but schooldays it is limited to 15
| min a day and weekend days (fri and sat) to 1 hr. After that,
| she needs to ask for more time. Usually we don't give that,
| although in vacations we are lenient. The device still works
| very well, although the battery (still same as in 2017 or so
| when it was bought new) is a lil' bit hammered. Now here's
| the thing: is this device not overkill for the tasks I
| mentioned? I think so, yes. A kid her age (almost 8) would be
| happy with whatever, it could be 480p and they're cool with
| it, as long as the software is still secure (and don't give
| me the BS of 'don't give them a tablet'; it is locked down
| and my first shared PC was in like 1989 when I was about her
| age). And sadly, Apple doesn't want to provide software
| updates for this device anymore. Microsoft not either, btw,
| as they deprecated Windows 10 and Windows 11 requires TPMv2
| (though Windows is more about PCs and laptops, I'm not sure
| if there's any effect on Surface hardware). I believe
| companies can do better, but if they don't want to, they
| should unlock the bootloader and give the user free reign on
| the device. You quit support, you unlock the hardware, or
| else you're violating the local law. That'd be my preference.
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| Id vote for that law.
| PrairieFire wrote:
| Absolutely, me as well. I think the key here is that
| Apple is selling a _platform_ that is used for a
| multitude of purposes, often including running software
| from third party developers. If you're selling a platform
| device in large numbers you should have the choice
| codified by law of either continuing software support to
| some degree or releasing an unlock kit for it. You should
| not have the option of effectively abandoning and
| bricking it, if that's the route you must go the buyer
| should get the option of a full purchase price refund at
| that point in time.
| eviks wrote:
| Because your made up stat is false because you lump a real
| problem (died of old age) with a fake one (completely
| obsolete)
| cjstewart88 wrote:
| Kinda related... I put together a filterable set of apps that
| are supported on older iOS devices.
| https://cjstewart88.github.io/vintage/
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| god i thought ios 12 was old lol
| asdefghyk wrote:
| RE ".... won't allow other Operating Systems to run on it...."
|
| How does apple do this ?
| layer8 wrote:
| By requiring signed firmware and holding the signing keys.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Even if this was overcome (checkra1n) or they provided for
| bootloader unlocks to run an unsigned firmware, you would
| still then need to reverse engineer all the drivers. It's
| why you don't see stuff like the original iphone SE's
| running different OS.
| gbear605 wrote:
| It would be difficult, but it would at least be possible.
| See projects like Asahi Linux where they did the work to
| reverse engineer the drivers for ARM-based Macs.
| grishka wrote:
| And I'm sure a lot of that work could be reused for the
| A-series SoCs.
| jevinskie wrote:
| There is already code to support phone/tablets in
| asahi/m1n1 bootloader (for use with an exploited
| bootrom).
| close04 wrote:
| Asahi started to be developed a couple of months after
| the first of what would turn out to be the very popular
| M-chip Macbooks was launched. Those Macbooks are still in
| people's hands in very large numbers.
|
| Compare that to the number of 1st gen iPads or older
| iPhones and the demand might not be to the same level to
| justify the endless reverse engineering effort.
|
| The solution is for the companies to have to open up the
| device once it's officially not supported.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Or, legally require vendors of general compute devices to
| provide a common SW-layer with respective documentation,
| to allow utilization of underlying hardware (not
| explicitly within the shipped OS, it can also be a
| separate maintained platform disconnecting the device
| from the shipped ecosystem).
|
| This would prevent e-waste and put this old hardware to
| better use. A community OS could then be built on top of
| this common SW-layer and be maintained for a wider range
| of devices.
|
| I would e.g. LOVE a "Browser on everything" OS which just
| provides a Browser OS for outdated hardware, but the only
| way this could work on scale would be if the device-
| vendor would be mandated to provide and document the
| lower layer...
|
| Someone would have to make the economic case for such a
| regulation as well, i.e. demonstrate the benefit for
| society and reduction of e-waste if such a law is in
| place. But the chances for this are razor-thin,
| especially in today's public/political climate.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| The key difference here is iOS becomes a complete brick
| once the device no longer is supported in the store. We
| had a gen 1 and 2 iPad and both were just used for Kindle
| and web surfing but once they pulled safari and apple
| store they were paperweights.
| MYEUHD wrote:
| You need to be on the most recent available minor update.
|
| If the App Store still doesn't work, you can always
| jailbreak and install apps on your own
| nicoburns wrote:
| Older iPhones/iPads don't have the same longevity as a
| MacBook, but an iPhone/Ipad sold today could, hardware
| wise.
| Doohickey-d wrote:
| An Android port to iPhone hardware does actually exist
| (for iPhone 7): https://projectsandcastle.org/
|
| Obviously not everything works, but someone did try.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It wouldn't be that big a problem if 3rd party app developers
| would stop dropping support for older operating systems. This
| is the thing that truly kills the devices.
|
| Go to the App Store on an iPhone 7 and every app will refuse to
| install because it requires the latest and greatest OS even
| though they _used to_ work just fine on the old OS. They
| deliberately drop support even when they don't have to. Total
| shitty behavior.
|
| I gotta throw away my phone because you, Mr. Developer, can't
| be bothered to keep the old code around for backward
| compatibility.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's not how that works. Broadly speaking, you compile your
| app against a selected SDK version. Want to use newer
| features? You have to use a newer SDK. The SDKs themselves
| support selected ranges of OSes and don't go back all the way
| to the beginning.
|
| If you're writing an app that targets the newest hardware
| features, say because you're making a camera app that uses
| the latest updates, it's not going to run on iOS 5. You can't
| hold that against app authors, or even against Apple, really.
| There's not a lot of return on investment for sinking
| thousands of dev hours into supporting ancient phones that
| almost no one uses, and which by definition are more likely
| to be used by people who won't spend a dime on apps or
| services.
| Sophira wrote:
| It's also worth noting that app stores tend to have a range
| of SDK versions that they will accept for new uploads. (For
| iOS apps on the Apple App Store, the minimum is currently
| the SDK for iOS 18[0], and in April 2026, that will change
| to a minimum of the SDK for iOS 26[1]).
|
| In some cases (such as with Google Play), app stores will
| even unpublish apps that were built with old versions of
| the SDK.
|
| In other words, if you want to update your app at all, you
| have to stick to the rules that they provide regarding SDK
| versions.
|
| [0] https://developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-
| requirements/?id=0...
|
| [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/submitting/
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm not talking about the SDK version, I'm talking about
| the minimum supported OS version, which is selected by
| the developer in Xcode. While App Store requires a
| minimum SDK version, your app using that SDK version is
| free to target iOS versions all the way back to some
| limit that Xcode sets, which is currently 15.
| jovantho wrote:
| As far as I know, it's not really on the app developers,
| after a while Apple requires them to switch to a newer
| "target" build if they want to push out an update. Currently,
| the minimum target iOS version if you're submitting an app to
| the app store is iOS 18.
|
| And additionally, even if there once was a compatible
| version, Apple only lets end users download it if they have
| previously purchased/downloaded the app.
|
| In my opinion, this is almost fully Apple's fault
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm on iOS 15 and still regularly get updates for a handful
| of apps. How are they doing it?
| selectodude wrote:
| Your app must run on iOS 18 but you can drop features to
| get it to support as old of an iOS as you want.
| xp84 wrote:
| That's not true, watch the video here to see why not:
| https://youtu.be/WXqVV8_GORE
|
| TL;DW
|
| 1. you must use current Xcode to submit to the App Store
|
| 2. Current Xcode only supports a short list of the most
| recent iOS SDKs as targets
|
| 3. Therefore you can't make a build with an older Xcode
| to submit, and you can't make a build that supports say,
| iOS 15, with current Xcode.
|
| The video highlights a complete hack which can for now be
| used to make builds that target older SDKs, but Apple
| could change their systems to break that at any time, and
| in fact the latest iOSs don't use these device support
| files that he shows are the key to the hack. So while you
| can do this now for old iOS, when 26 is too outdated for
| Apple to want you to target, this hack won't work to
| bring it back.
| my123 wrote:
| No you can
|
| https://developer.apple.com/support/xcode/ the iOS 26 SDK
| can target iOS 15 or later
| xp84 wrote:
| Sorry. I meant iOS 14, then
| xp84 wrote:
| This video was very informative on how Apple deliberately
| blocks developers' ability to update an app without
| removing support for older iOS and an unsupported
| undocumented workaround the creator has noticed which at
| least momentarily works to work around it:
|
| https://youtu.be/WXqVV8_GORE
| dagmx wrote:
| You're conflating target version with minimum supported
| version.
|
| There aren't requirements to update the minimum. They're
| independent. There might be limitations on what APIs are
| still available though in Xcode if they're removed after a
| deprecation period however.
|
| You can use the latest SDK, and if you don't use any new
| APIs, your app will continue to deploy to whatever minimum
| you have set.
|
| If you want to use the new APIs, you can put their use
| behind availability checks.
|
| It's just that at some point, as a dev, you want to stop
| testing on older devices and you want to stop branching
| your code for OS versions that are a minuscule fraction of
| the active user base. The ROI changes quickly.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Xcode occasionally bumps the minimum will compile for
| without complaint.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yes, but even with the current latest SDK and latest
| Xcode, iOS 15 can be set as the minimum supported
| version.
| dagmx wrote:
| Which, importantly means you can support devices back to
| the iPhone 6S that is a decade old at this point.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think a lot of people in this thread are mistaking SDK
| version and minimum supported version.
|
| The App store requires you to link with a minimum SDK
| version, but the minimum supported version is set
| independently by the developer in Xcode. The latest
| version of Xcode + the latest SDK can still support
| devices running iOS 15. Developers are deliberately
| choosing to drop such support. Or maybe they just don't
| know how, as evidenced in this thread.
| 0x0 wrote:
| It's actually a requirement by app store connect to use a
| modern sdk for uploading binaries, and modern sdk versions
| will often raise the minimum supported ios version, so this
| is not always the developer's fault. See for example
| https://developer.apple.com/news/upcoming-
| requirements/?id=0...
| monegator wrote:
| > you, Mr. Developer
|
| Yes, it is I, Mr Developer, that decided that every year the
| minimum XCode version / SDK Version must be raised
| yaky wrote:
| It's Apple more than developers. Even if an app _has_ an
| older supported version, you cannot install it outright on
| older iDevices. You have to "purchase" it first (even if
| it's free) using old iTunes version or a newer iDevice with
| the same account, and only then, when you "own" the app, the
| old iDevice will prompt you to install the older version, if
| it's supported.
| karanveer wrote:
| I second this.
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| I just bought an iPad Air 1on Mercari for $25 in mint
| condition. Handles EPUBs and PDFs like a champ. Battery drains
| when wifi is turned on. Webkit is horribly out of date, but the
| kernel says its from 2021? I think webkit was frozen in 2018.
| extra88 wrote:
| That makes sense, that iPad had 5 years of major OS updates
| (2013-2018), which included the browser, but Apple provides
| security updates and critical bug fixes for at least 2 years
| after major updates end. That model stopped at iOS 12, first
| released in 2018, which received security updates for an
| especially long time, 2023.
|
| In that era, Safari added new features, including adding
| support for web standards, in the major update and in a .1
| update about 6 months later, Safari 12.1 came out in March
| 2019.
| PrairieFire wrote:
| sadly apple silicon and Tahoe may have delivered a knockout
| punch to the future of oclp. the dortania team has said apple
| silicon support is more or less out of the question at this
| point. with Tahoe ushering in the first large batch of
| deprecated intel machines with the t2 chip, it's tbd if
| dortania will be able to ship something to get them to Tahoe.
| sad days and may soon mean we're having the same convo about
| older Mac's as we are about old iPhones and iPads.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| True. But there's also the plus side - Intel Macs allowed us
| to run multiple OSes and that was a very desirable feature
| that was part of its attraction. With ARM Macs, this
| attraction is truly gone (even if Apple fans taut its ability
| to run a crippled Linux). So, many will no longer buy any ARM
| Macs at all. That's Apple's loss. As soon as the battery of
| my old iPad also conks out, I plan to buy an Android tablet
| with an unlocked bootloader - I am never buying a locked
| device that infringes on my rights, ever.
| dangus wrote:
| I think this kind of comment represents a little bit of denial
| about e-waste.
|
| You call it "old but capable" but it's really more close to
| just "old."
|
| We really want tech to be less disposable but the problem is
| that tech is still progressing fast.
|
| Automobiles have barely changed in the past few decades as a
| fundamental concept and in general capability and road-
| worthiness and that's why you see a lot of 20-30 year old
| examples on the road.
|
| But imagine that buying a 2000 Volkswagen Jetta meant a car
| that had a 20 horsepower engine that gets 20mpg. That's what
| old tech devices are often like. Sure, you _can_ use it as a
| glorified gas-guzzling golf cart, but not many people need that
| and they'd rather just get a golf cart if they do.
|
| A 2013 iPad Air is not going to be a very usable experience as
| the device was originally intended even if you get suitably
| lean software on it.
|
| This is a dual core device with 1GB of RAM. At this point it
| can barely browse the web in an acceptably performant way. We
| can lament our inefficient web apps and fuss and moan but if
| grandma can't get her slippers from Amazon without waiting half
| a century for the page to load it's not a useful device
| anymore.
|
| Sure, you can use it as a server or something, or maybe some
| kind of smart display, it would work fine. But let's go back to
| the golf cart analogy: presumably the original XX million units
| that were sold can't all be web servers or smart home screens.
| The quantity of people who originally bought them for the
| original mainstream purpose have moved on to something newer
| and aren't looking for a niche secondary use case. You have to
| be a very specific person to try to fit that square peg into a
| round hole.
|
| I have been a user of the OpenCore Legacy patcher. I bought a
| 2012 Mac mini, excited that I could use it as a Mac server with
| the latest OS. The experience was sluggish at best even with a
| brand new SSD installed and RAM maxed out. I also had random
| kernel panics that I couldn't resolve. So I ditched the Mac
| server idea and installed Linux. I went with that for a while
| but it turned out to have insufficient single core performance
| for my applications. The architecture also couldn't accept more
| RAM even if I found higher capacity sticks, the technology was
| completely at the limits. I ended up selling it and built a
| server with much newer (but still mostly used) parts instead.
|
| The calculus for reuse gets even worse if you start thinking
| about performance per watt and energy efficiency. There are
| some devices especially in the desktop category where you get
| to 15 years old and you have a real legitimate "I'll save more
| energy and cost on my power bill" argument.
|
| E.g., Let's say I own an AMD FX 9590 (2013) with its 220W TDP,
| I can replace that with an Intel N355 15W embedded class chip
| and it'll be _faster by a double digit percentage_ with the
| same number of threads. I know this is an extreme example but
| it's still a demonstrator in the amount the technology has
| changed.
|
| This would be like if my 2013 Toyota got 2mpg.
|
| I think we need to be more pragmatic and accept these devices
| for what they are: a temporarily owned thing, almost like a
| lease. They aren't all that different than buying some fast
| food that comes in disposable packaging, the difference is the
| time scale. Once you've eaten it, you've consumed it, and it's
| over. There's maybe a bit of material you can recover at the
| end, let's call it 10%. And we have to grapple with that
| reality rather than pretending we can fully change it.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue against right to
| repair. Yes, they should have things like replaceable
| components and a requirement to become more open as they age.
| They should be designed to be as usable as possible when they
| become older. At the same time, we should be pragmatic and
| accept that the most likely scenario is that a device like a
| 2013 iPad Air will still only see 5-10% of buyers reusing the
| device in this way rather than sending it to the bin even in
| the most ideal scenarios. Of course, that number is a lot
| better than some smaller number like 1-5%, with many iPads
| being thrown out as soon as the battery swells.
| zapzupnz wrote:
| All of that is cool, but can this help get iOS 18 back on
| _supported_ devices that have upgraded to 26? That 'd be magical.
| N_Lens wrote:
| 26 (Tahoe) has had a lot of teething problems on ALL platforms,
| and lacks the typical quality and polish of Apple releases. I
| couldn't believe how many obvious bugs there were on first use
| across Macbook and iPhone.
| accrual wrote:
| Seconding this simply for data purposes. iOS 26 was the worst
| release I've ever dealt with coming from an iPhone 4S user to
| present. Goddamn there were so many obvious bugs and flaws.
| The .1 release fixed some of them but my keyboard still
| randomly shifts to the left by a few pixels every time it
| opens.
|
| Take me back to the days where things were governed by UX and
| not revenue.
| gamer191 wrote:
| Sadly not, those devices don't have an exploit afaik
| gessha wrote:
| I wonder if liquid glass will push people to jailbreak 18 and
| 26.
| xuki wrote:
| Probably need a lawsuit in the EU before they allow downgrading
| OS. I would love to get my old phones to iOS 16 to jailbreak
| it.
| handsclean wrote:
| Well, I wanted to revert and wanted a new phone, so bought an
| iPhone 16 instead of a 17, which comes with iOS 18 installed.
| iCloud data synced in fine, and the 17 is a very small upgrade
| anyway, even a downgrade in some ways.
| AstroJetson wrote:
| I have an iPad Air that I love, made in 2014, last iOS is 12.5.
| I'd love a slightly more current browser, but the rest of the
| software is working fine. I spend 6-7 hours using it each day.
|
| Just a browser is all I want.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| And this is a great example of planned obsolescence because
| Apple does not allow any other browser with its own rendering
| engine on ios - all browsers on ios are _forced_ to use ios
| provided browser engine, and thus when they stop updating it,
| all browsers, even the non-Apple when become "outdated" to.
| All apps that also use WebViews also become "outdated". (Note
| that Safari is "bundled" as part of ios and thus stops
| receiving updates when ios updates stops).
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| Strangely enough they updated the kernel to one in 2021.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I joined Apple at the start of my career when iOS 6 and Snow
| Leopard were the active projects. I had to learn all of this.
| I've since forgot but this post was a wonderful bit of
| proprietary OS jargon and trivia nostalgia for me.
| Tepix wrote:
| Interesting article. Minor correction: $(cat
| n18.10A403.kextlist | sed 's/^/--bundle-id /') - this weird
| expression appends --bundle-id to every line from the file at
| n18.10A403.kextlist.
|
| It _prepends_ "--bundle-id ".
| baiac wrote:
| Really the command to strip a "fat header" is called "lipo"...
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| lmao
| noaccesstomy wrote:
| Writing this from an iPhone 8 (no sec updates anymore) and I am
| not feeling good about it...
| pickledoyster wrote:
| A bit of OT, but I have four iPhone 5/5s/SE (the SE is peak
| design and form factor, fight me) lying around that I use
| strictly as offline devices for things like saving data from my
| heart rate monitor, controlling my action camera, doing
| voice/field recordings through the 3.5mm connector - stuff I'd
| prefer never to leave my device (or data that should be open to
| user control but requires an invasive app to work, I have very
| few apps on my daily driver).
|
| These devices are are small, snappy and powerful enough in 2025.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| I am going farther offtopic, too. I have removed the radio on
| Samsung Galaxy IV device+ and they still work. I don't know if
| that is possible for iphones, just throwing it here.
|
| + I don't have the skills to reverse the process, though :)
| Neil44 wrote:
| It's a shame there isn't something like Lineage OS for Apple
| mobile devices.
| jimangel2001 wrote:
| The blame is on Apple, that I hate as much as any other company
| that locks their bootloader.
| rekoil wrote:
| Fascinating. Could this method be used to boot iPhone OS 1.0 (or
| at least 1.1.1) on an iPhone 2G with 16GB NAND maybe?
|
| The oldest iPhone OS that natively boots on my particular one is
| 1.1.4, 1.1.1 (which is the highest version number where you can
| trivially escape the OOBE via the emergency dialer) fails to
| initialise the FTL (flash translation layer), probably because
| the chip is sufficiently different from that used in the older
| phones.
|
| It would bring me great joy to be able to relive emergency dialer
| hacktivation again, but I have lost that particular iPhone 2G,
| and only have this 16GB one left.
| norman784 wrote:
| Would be cool if companies are forced to open the devices that
| they aren't supporting anymore.
| karanveer wrote:
| Good work this is.
| nullbyte808 wrote:
| I have an old iPad Air 1. Can I upgrade to a newer OS from 12?
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