[HN Gopher] We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices
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We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices
Author : zetaposter
Score : 342 points
Date : 2022-06-09 09:42 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (konradybcio.pl)
(TXT) w3m dump (konradybcio.pl)
| fartcannon wrote:
| Why does this have to be so hard? Just open your shit up, Apple.
| The majority of people will still use your walled garden. The
| rest of us will buy your hardware if you release drivers, etc.
| DavideNL wrote:
| I think the EU will soon help them with that...
|
| _" EU Planning to Force Apple to Give Developers Access to All
| Hardware and Software Features"_ :
| https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/20/eu-plans-to-force-apple...
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Even though android is more open, it's not exactly in much
| better shape. It's nearly impossible to do anything useful with
| mainline Linux on most Android devices because the SoC vendors
| don't upstream anything since their entire financial model is
| sell new chip every 6 months.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Agreed. It's a sad state of affairs.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| It's painful that for whatever reason these projects always tend
| to get built around old devices rather than more recent models,
| basically shooting themselves in the foot.
|
| Hard to garner excitement from more general crowds running
| something on an iPhone 5 than it would be 10/11/12 etc. Less
| people to become interested in contributing.
| nsonha wrote:
| Yeah same story for linux on Androids. They are at better
| state, but Ubuntu Touch website is still promoting Nexus 5 as
| their "official" device, among other similarly old phones. The
| top spec I can find is Oneplus 6T but it lacks many things,
| especislly HDMI. Can we deduce that these developers dont make
| enough money (from these projects)?
| [deleted]
| vocram wrote:
| How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices?
|
| Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful I
| can't do with iOS?
| Gigachad wrote:
| A somewhat newish iPhone would be more powerful than the
| raspberry pi. And I have got good use out of the pi for hosting
| game servers for small numbers of users. You can also get old
| apple devices way cheaper than new equivalent single board
| computers.
| heretogetout wrote:
| And as a bonus they come with GPS, compasses, accelerometers,
| and of course network connectivity, out of the box (if you
| can figure out how to access them, anyway).
| bogwog wrote:
| And the iPhone has a built-in touch screen, wifi, bluetooth,
| two cameras, internal storage, a GPU, a bunch of sensors, a
| giant battery, physical buttons, speakers, microphone, a
| giant market for third-party peripherals, cases, chargers,
| mounts, etc...AND it's way easier to get your hands on an
| iPhone (especially an old one) than a Raspberry Pi today.
|
| Sure, getting everything to work in a Linux port wouldn't be
| easy, but it does clearly show the value of such a thing.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I wonder about the implications of running them in an
| "always-on" configuration. Would it be possible to remove
| the battery and run them entirely on AC power? If you could
| do that, you might be able to have some pretty nice low-
| power home servers.
| MarioMan wrote:
| > Would it be possible to remove the battery and run them
| entirely on AC power?
|
| Unfortunately, it seems this is not possible. https://www
| .ifixit.com/Answers/View/316746/Will+this+phone+t...
| nielsole wrote:
| I removed the battery cell from a Samsung battery and
| powered the battery IC with the nominal DC cell voltage
| from a power supply. The phone then indefinitely showed a
| full battery. This might also work with an iphone
| unsafecast wrote:
| If you just want a server, you can use an android phone
| already. Either pick one that works with postmarketOS, or
| termux could work fine (I don't know the overhead of that
| though). No point in using an iPhone here.
| bogwog wrote:
| What should I do with my old iPhones then?
| squarefoot wrote:
| Assuming they're ok with being kept on 24/7, they could
| become IoT terminals. A 10 years old phone should still
| have enough horsepower if it contained the bare minimum
| to load just one program that speaks to the home network,
| or a mpd remote to play music in the given room,
| communicate through VoIP with other terminals, etc. They
| could be used also in a lab to show data coming from
| instrumentation, as secondary display for servers etc.
| Plenty of uses; the only limitation being represented by
| the roadblocks (binary blobs, lack of documentation,
| closed drivers etc.) corporations put in place to prevent
| any further use of those devices that goes beyond what
| they have planned.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| You could just buy a $2,000 2u rack mounted machine
| too... or you know, flash an old iphone you have sitting
| around with Linux.
| jsight wrote:
| I've thought of using older Pixel phones for something like
| this. One annoying downside is that the Pixel devices do not
| tend to have an easy way to enable hdmi out.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I don't know, but iDevices are more ubiquitous than other
| phones. It's much easier to source 100 of iPhone 6 than to
| collect same number of, Nexus ... whatever.
| justsomeguy123 wrote:
| We still have an original iPad at an older relative. It's
| perfect for Solitaire.
|
| It also used to be usable to load a weather page but turns out
| Safari doesn't know the certificate authority since it's such
| an old version. I guess such an old Safari is a walking
| security risk too.
|
| It would be nice to be able to put Linux on it.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Realistically? Hackers who use new phones/pads are gonna
| repurpose them for some idle fiddling with the TV at home.
| That's the extent of this "reducing e-waste" goal.
| pabs3 wrote:
| Its good for devices that stopped receiving iOS security
| updates, or for doing weird things that you can't do with iOS,
| like using your iPhone as a USB keyboard for your desktop using
| Linux's USB gadget support.
| usrn wrote:
| Yeah, it would actually be a useful computer.
| umtksa wrote:
| I'm using one of my old android phone to run node-red and
| display a dashboard on it.
|
| I want to use my old iphone 4 like this
| schwartzworld wrote:
| > Would I be able to repurpose a device to do something useful
| I can't do with iOS?
|
| How about doing anything at all? I have an iPad 2 and an iPad
| mini sitting around that aren't useful at all. Just sitting
| there, collecting dust because I don't have the heart to chuck
| them.
| quakeguy wrote:
| This, and the overall build-quality of the devices makes it
| hard to just discard them. Even their batteries are still
| mostly good. I'd love to repurpose them, have several here
| aswell lying around.
| simion314 wrote:
| >How could we benefit from having Linux on old iDevices?
|
| On old devices that do not get updates your internet will stop
| working because of old browser, missing SSL certificates or old
| libraries. With Linux you might get an updated browser and you
| could use the device to browse things and you can do whatever
| your mind can imagine like maybe write a simple bash/python
| script to automate something.
| brk wrote:
| Technically yes, but when?
|
| I just retired an iPhone5 that we were using as a "house
| controller", streaming Pandora, home automation app, etc. I
| retired it not because the software stopped working but
| because the battery won't last more than 30 minutes off the
| charger, and I had an iPhone8 sitting around doing nothing.
|
| IMO an iPhone with linux is going to be less of "do whatever
| your mind can imagine" and more of "spend countless time
| trying to hack random stuff into this unsupported platform".
|
| Overall, I think it is cool achievement, but (to me), it
| feels more along the lines of solution looking for a problem
| than an actual truly useful thing.
| JustinGarrison wrote:
| Not everything has to be useful. Many years of "useless"
| hacking has given me a lot of experience and a great
| career.
| MarioMan wrote:
| Plenty of end of life uses work just fine living off of a
| charger. For instance, setting up an old iPad or iPhone as
| a home hub (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207057)
| requires the device stay plugged in already. I can imagine
| plenty of cases where an old phone could be a suitable
| substitute or even an upgrade over a Raspberry Pi (Pi-hole,
| Home Assistant, Spotify hookup for an old home stereo,
| etc.).
|
| If the battery is absolutely crucial for your use case,
| quality replacements can still be had. The iPhone 5
| battery, for instance, can be replaced for $30, with all
| needed tools included: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/iPhone/
| iPhone-5-Battery/IF118-0...
|
| Anything that keeps perfectly usable devices like these out
| of landfills is a win in my book.
| simion314 wrote:
| So this is not for you or people like you, could be a
| solution for poor people, all my computing devices were old
| second hand stuff ntill I had a good job to afford some new
| average PC. Android devices also suffer from this issue,
| some where some stuff gets outdated and many webpages or
| apps will not longer work for you because of security
| reasons forcing you to get a new device.
|
| >IMO an iPhone with linux is going to be less of "do
| whatever your mind can imagine" and more of "spend
| countless time trying to hack random stuff into this
| unsupported platform".
|
| That does not generalize, sure you can't imagine what you
| could use a device like that and the freedom but others
| can. On my Linux desktop I have a one line script that will
| speak the time to me every 15 minutes (I need it) or I have
| a script that when I press a button it will OCR the screen
| and read it to me. Sure 99% of people will buy an app that
| might do a similar thing or just give up BUT people like me
| just think "would be cool if this would work and we do it".
|
| And don't try to accuse me that it took me 12 hours to make
| a button to OCR my screen or other bullshit accusations,
| you can spend 5 minutes googling what package does a screen
| grab, what package does OCR from image, then you combine
| the 2 packages and done , 5 minutes and I had hours saved
| and sometimes made impossible stuff possible .
| ge96 wrote:
| I don't know if it's worth it but maybe contribute to cloud
| compute like DreamLab
| perfobotto wrote:
| Am I the only one not understanding what's the point of all these
| efforts to try to run Linux on completely closed with no
| documentation devices (like iPhones and even mace for that
| matter). Seems like a lot of effort, for a crappy solution that
| maybe 0.0001% is going to use before realizing it is crap. Even
| only effort to keep up with the yearly hw updates that apple does
| and the complete disregard for backward compatibility and writing
| hw documentation makes these effort just a technocrat exercise
| (very cool for sure), but I can't see anything more than that
| hatware wrote:
| The point is that people in their free time, can break into
| systems that cost millions in design to keep those people out.
|
| For me, the homebrew community is the reason why I have a
| career in technology in the first place. Breaking into things
| you're not supposed to is fun, and teaches a lot of practical
| knowledge.
| MisterTea wrote:
| I understand your gripe but think of it like this: manufactures
| like apple make locked down devices which are now able to be
| unlocked. This reduces e-waste while showing manufactures that
| we want more freedom and will do as we please with OUR
| hardware.
| Klonoar wrote:
| This doesn't meaningfully reduce e-Waste. The average iPhone
| user is conditioned to trade in their phone with already
| decent recycling programs being their destination.
| fn-mote wrote:
| IMO, the main (only?) reduction of e-waste comes from
| reselling the old phones on the secondary market. Re-use is
| much more effective than recycling. Until the bitter end.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It excites skilled hackers, which is good for the health of the
| overall community. Every platform has some poorly documented
| nooks and crannies and doesn't want to be _fully_ opened up.
| This is practicing those skills in the most hostile
| environment.
|
| Plus, it gives us backup plans, if Intel and AMD are hit by
| meteors.
|
| And maybe they'll keep a couple iPads out of the landfills.
| zekrioca wrote:
| I respect that you are an utilitarian, so I understand your
| point. But you shall also respect others' non-utilitarian
| hacker-ianisms, and let them hack whatever device they want to,
| including "non-useful" iDevices.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Isn't that one of the "true" mantras of hacking ("hacker news")
| ?
|
| Doing hard things just for the sake of it
|
| > A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who
| uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an
| obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means.
| synapse26 wrote:
| I see these as more art and a statement about Linux's
| ubiquitousness rather than anything especially meaningful.
| There's probably not a lot of people who want to run Doom on a
| lamp, but people did that anyway.
| nathanwh wrote:
| From TFA, "Now it was just a matter of what I like the most,
| hacking on Linux". This isn't a product for users, it's one of
| this persons hobbies.
| nsonha wrote:
| The alternative is all those old devices becoming garbage I
| mean recycled so they said. And then you go on buying a Pi or
| some cripled computing machine to run your home automation.
| [deleted]
| CommanderData wrote:
| I'm so excited. I want to use an old Ipad that has a failing
| battery as a home automation screen.
|
| Poor iOS APIs mean developers can't create good kiosk apps to do
| simple things like control system settings, lock screen and so
| many more things that I resorted to an Android tablet.
|
| This is finally going to make it possible and turn junk into
| gold.
| astrange wrote:
| You can certainly create a kiosk app on iPads using eg
| autonomous single app mode. Deploying back to an old iPad may
| be a pain.
| CommanderData wrote:
| Full screen kiosl browser for Android has many features I'd
| consider crucial for the type of task I'm considering.
|
| I did some reasons some months back and many features just
| aren't possible in iOS.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > This is finally going to make it possible and turn junk into
| gold.
|
| Hearing many people say this. I may write it up from a e-waste
| POV as a big win for the environment.
| metadat wrote:
| > This is finally going to make it possible and turn junk into
| gold.
|
| I am also hopeful, but last week when I checked the
| compatibility matrix, my 3rd generation A5 iPad was _" wayyy"_
| too old and not supported. Only A7 chips or newer, iirc.
| bozhark wrote:
| Anyone remember getting android on early iPhones?
|
| Blew my first gen up, well the battery at least, with the dual OS
| running together.
|
| Good times
| grishka wrote:
| Running a chunk of Android userspace on top of the Darwin
| kernel feels like a better idea if you want Android on an
| iPhone. You'll have to shim Android APIs to iOS ones and
| implement an ELF loader/linker for apps that use native
| libraries, but that's it. Should also be portable across all
| (jailbreakable) devices.
| als0 wrote:
| > but that's it.
|
| That's a heck of a lot of APIs and daemons to shim. And then
| you've got to do all of that again if you want to run a newer
| version of iOS or Android.
| scintill76 wrote:
| Uh, ELF is the least of your concerns. I imagine there are
| native libraries making Linux syscalls.
|
| I've been toying with ideas about similar approaches to get
| alternative/updated OS's on iDevices -- use stock kernel for
| all its device drivers for the proprietary HW, then put a VM
| on top running Linux or whatever. Sadly I don't think I'll
| have the time for such an ambitious project.
| 0x0 wrote:
| I think you underestimate this quite a bit. Even running
| android things on desktop linux would be a feat since the
| android kernel has several significant android-specific
| additions such as binder IPC. And even the user-space android
| API surface is _vast_
| fareesh wrote:
| I remember being in an IRC regularly 10-12 years ago where there
| was a community that was semi-active about a project to port
| android to the iPhone created by David Wang (planetbeing). There
| were a few builds going around at the time which I tried out.
| This video had gone somewhat viral at the time which is what
| sparked my interest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJj0kHQgC9w.
| It seems like that project eventually became "Project Sandcastle"
| and the whole topic has seen some kind of recent resurgence from
| the looks of it.
| captainkrtek wrote:
| Have similar memories on IRC rooting Android devices, lots of
| fun times and great memories
| soared wrote:
| Around the same time there were projects to put Nintendo (game
| boy?) games on ipods as well.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Do you mean emulators? That's how I played Tetris on my iPod
| Touch.
| zeckalpha wrote:
| And Linux on Game Boys!
| reaperducer wrote:
| I suspect you're being downvoted because there are people who
| are too young/don't remember that there were a number of
| games available for the iPod from big gaming companies. Yes,
| the clickwheel iPod.
|
| The 17-year-old iPod Video cranking out tunes on my desk
| right now has a really good version of Tetris on it, and one
| of the best ports of Ms. Pac-Man ever. Once you get used to
| navigating the maze with the wheel, it's a great game.
| extrememacaroni wrote:
| wow that brings back memories. back then android was truly
| hideous compared to iOS, unless aided by 3rd party launchers.
| fareesh wrote:
| It was ugly for the longest time but ahead on several
| features. I remember the iPhone not having copy and paste for
| what felt like ages. A lot of the good stuff was on Cydia.
| zekrioca wrote:
| In the video he browses to an old website
| (http://galiaxy.net/), and it displays a design website from
| Alisa. Is "Alisa" the same as Alyssa Rosenzweig from Asahi?
| That would be an interesting coincidence :)
| steeve wrote:
| David Wang is actually the cofounder of Corellium !
| fathyb wrote:
| I remember flexing my iPhone 3G dual-booting iOS and Android
| back in high-school. The project was named iDroid:
| https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/IDroid
|
| It taught me to create custom ramdisks and kernels for
| iDevices, which eventually landed me my first job as a digital
| forensics SWE.
| fareesh wrote:
| yep that's the one
| woolion wrote:
| Although it's always good news to have Linux on more device, in
| the case of Apple I find it a bit problematic. That means you
| encourage Apple getting a huge cut on device sale. Or further
| justify the high prices of second-hand device because now you can
| 'give them a second-life' (to counter Apple's in-house planned
| obsolescence program).
|
| It's not just about freedom. Apple's walled-garden means you need
| in every company some "Apple guy" that owns an iPhone, iPad, etc
| to test Safari quirks. It really feels like an under-handed
| racket.
| refracture wrote:
| The only thing I could imagine Apple doing with regards to
| seeing Linux running on their mobile hardware is further
| engineer ways to prevent it.
|
| I'm personally hoping Apple A5 devices are able to run Linux
| too as my iPad 2 is 11 years old, has a great battery and is in
| good condition but hasn't seen a software update in years.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > to counter Apple's in-house planned obsolescence program
|
| Apple does not do planned obsolescence. iPhone 6S is going to
| be be supported for 8 years total. (It's not going to receive
| feature updates anymore, as iOS 16 won't support it, but it
| also means that iOS 15 gets another year of support)
| fartcannon wrote:
| The updates that downgrade the battery life without having
| user replaceable batteries is planned obsolescence.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Batteries are consumable, and there's not a shred of
| evidence that Apple is purposefully downgrading battery
| life with updates.
| fartcannon wrote:
| jasonlotito wrote:
| This is only half true. There were sued for this, but you
| can sue anyone for anything so that hardly matters.
|
| The assertion you are making has not been proven, and the
| link in your article backs this up. Quite the opposite.
| Your claim is false.
| fartcannon wrote:
| They were sued and lost. Thus: guilty.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| There's no guilt involved in civil cases.
| refracture wrote:
| To be clear it's not that they 'downgraded' battery life,
| it's that it throttled power draw (and by extension
| performance) if the phone determined that the battery
| could no longer reliably power the device at peak draw.
|
| Apple's failure to communicate this and give users the
| option to set power draw back to full (with an
| explanation of consequences) is exactly why they got sued
| and deserved to lose. It's up front and made clear in the
| battery settings menu, but it really should not have
| required a law suit to make that happen, they've nobody
| but themselves to blame for the perception that they were
| just being greedy and trying to coerce people into new
| phones by hobbling existing ones.
|
| I will say on the user experience side I did appreciate
| that in the aftermath of this we were able to get a new
| battery in an affected iPhone 6S for free straight from
| the Apple store. Got some serious mileage out of that
| phone.
| fartcannon wrote:
| They were sued and _lost_.
| refracture wrote:
| Yes, that has been established. I wasn't suggesting
| otherwise; to the contrary I think they deserved it. They
| made major changes to the performance characteristics of
| these devices without disclosing what they were doing or
| why.
|
| Honestly if you want a bigger bone to pick with Apple
| regarding performance slaughter you should look at EOL
| iOS devices that capped out at iOS 9. The iPhone 4S was a
| great little handset until Apple destroyed it with iOS 9.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Yes, more evidence of planned obsolescence is good.
| neilalexander wrote:
| It's hardly like updates are being released deliberately to
| worsen battery life. The more features that get added, the
| more CPU cycles are used therefore battery power is
| consumed more quickly. This should be a surprise to no one,
| little less a technical audience like HN. Even the battery
| throttling saga a couple years ago was largely with good
| intentions (in that it's better to run the phone a bit
| slower than it is for it to power off at random due to
| voltage drops).
|
| Apple can be accused of an awful lot but their support
| story for older devices is better than any other phone or
| tablet manufacturer out there bar none.
| fartcannon wrote:
| They were sued and lost for exactly this reason.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-
| pay...
| robin_reala wrote:
| The technical explanation was that CPU speed scaling
| spikes would exceed the old battery's ability to supply
| power, causing the phone to reset. Apple's decision was
| that a slower phone was a better user experience than a
| phone that randomly reset when you tried to do something
| that required a high CPU frequency.
|
| The upshot of that is that, yes, your phone got slower as
| it aged due to a software update. The battery life
| certainly didn't suffer (if anything it would have
| improved it slightly). But it's a little bit more nuanced
| than "planned obselescence".
| fartcannon wrote:
| No, it was pretty straight forward. Which is why they
| lost the suit.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Sure. They should have been upfront about it, and they
| should have offered a switch to disable the behaviour.
| They were rightly punished for it.
|
| But if we're going to be correct about things, it was
| phone speed that took a hit, not battery life.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Sure, still, planned obsolescence.
| robin_reala wrote:
| I'd probably agree with you were it not for the fact that
| the "planned obsolescence" happened 18 months after the
| release of the iPhone 6S, but they then went on to give
| it a further 5.5 years of software updates. Maybe someone
| at Apple didn't get the message?
| fartcannon wrote:
| Well they got sued for using planned obsolescence and
| lost. So theres not much to argue about, is there?
| ben174 wrote:
| And any way you look at it, it's clear that Apple wasn't
| just trying to cripple old phones in an attempt to sell
| the newer models. They were doing their best to prolong
| the life and/or maintain a decent experience for the
| phones that had become outdated.
| fartcannon wrote:
| No, its clear they are trying to be tricky with their
| planned obsolecense. They lost a lawsuit about it. They
| were found guilty of doing exactly that.
|
| If they made the batteries easily user replaceable, then
| you'd have a point. But they don't, and you couldn't
| disable that function so it falls under planned
| obsolescence.
| neilalexander wrote:
| You keep parroting the term "planned obsolescence" over
| and over again in every comment but I do not think you
| understand what it actually means. Planned obsolescence
| is when the device becomes useless after a given amount
| of time. So to use the battery example, arguably a phone
| that ends up misbehaving or shutting down unexpectedly
| due to a failing battery without any mitigations is
| "useless" -- it ceases to function as a useful phone or
| emergency device if that happens.
|
| That's not a trait specific to iPhones though -- the same
| thing will happen on most battery-powered devices these
| days. It's just that someone decided to pick a fight with
| Apple about it, hence a lawsuit was born. There's nothing
| remarkable about this case otherwise -- it could have
| just as easily been any other phone manufacturer.
|
| In this example, the mitigation Apple chose (and
| admittedly very badly communicated at the time) was to
| reduce the frequency with which these shutdowns happen by
| dropping peak performance a bit and reducing the peak
| power draw as a result. That action actually prolonged
| the device's "usefulness" for its intended purpose as a
| phone and emergency device, even if it negatively
| affected auxiliary functions.
|
| In any case, if the phone slows down a bit, you might
| think "okay, it may be time to replace the phone soon"
| and you like to use this as your excuse for it being
| planned obsolescence. What you're conveniently ignoring
| is that if the phone shuts down at random, you are
| probably going to think "well, damn, I need to replace
| the phone _now_" because a non-technical person will not
| likely to draw the conclusion that the battery was at
| fault, they're much more likely to believe there's a much
| deeper and unfixable fault.
|
| Finally, while the batteries indeed are not user-
| replaceable, they are still replaceable. Any Apple Store
| will do it for you (many even on a walk-in basis) and
| it's not even expensive to have done. Many other third-
| party shops and service centres also have the capability
| to do the same.
| fartcannon wrote:
| They lost a lawsuit about it. They were engaging in
| planned obsolescence.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Yeah. They were engaging in planned obsolescence by
| prolonging the lifespan of their devices.
|
| Epic.
| neilalexander wrote:
| At this point I'm convinced you are merely trolling, so
| I'm engaging no further.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Which is why they were sued and _lost_?
|
| The mental gymnastics you people use is nuts. I guess
| this is part of Apples PR, is it? Deny history?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| They didn't say that's what they were doing. Now they do.
| The feature still exists today on brand new phones.
| fartcannon wrote:
| That 'feature' is planned obsolescence. They're degrading
| your phone, without an easy way to fix it (user
| replaceable batteries). You will dislike the experience
| and be encouraged indirectly to buy a new one. Planned
| obsolescence.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| When they originally brought out the feature, it
| supported the new phones but the OS update was also made
| available for older models that were outside of warranty
| since Apple continue to support their hardware years
| after release. Simply doing nothing and letting the
| batteries in the older models degrade further would cause
| them to reboot more and become unusable. Surely this
| would drive sales more? Isn't supporting device that are
| out of warranty the opposite of planned obsolescence?
|
| My wife and I both had iPhones when batterygate happened.
| Turns out her battery was degraded and mine was fine. She
| never did get her battery replaced, she was quite happy
| with the (reduced) performance she had. If it had been
| randomly rebooting it would have forced her to buy a new
| model. Instead she just waited until her next upgrade
| cycle and didn't care, despite me telling her to get it
| replaced.
|
| The battery is a consumable part. For my (second hand)
| iPhone 11 Pro Max it's a PS69 charge to get a new
| battery. After multiple years of use and two owners this
| isn't unreasonable, not that it needs it of course (yet).
| I'll still get years more of use out of this phone, and
| multiple more OS upgrades, all while other manufacturers
| pump and dump the next version of their handsets. We
| should be forcing every manufacturer to support handsets
| for 5 years minimum to save on e-waste.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Its a circle of planned obsolescence. Battery gets old,
| so they degrade phone performance. There's no way for you
| to change that. They get sued, lose, and maliciously
| comply by making a switch that maybe causes your phone to
| reboot randomly. Its all formulated to think, 'I need to
| replace this'.
|
| Phone manufacturers should be forced to unlock their
| phones, release drivers and provide user replaceable
| batteries. Then you can say Apple isn't trying to force
| you to upgrade.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Hacker News in 2022 is a strange place, it's hard to
| engage with people who already have their opinion of
| Apple decided before they've heard how they've messed up
| _this_ time. The notch was particularly funny, watching
| everyone 's incredulous reaction while people immediately
| went to damage control with the "but it's still 16:10!!!"
| addendum.
|
| This goes to everyone: Give up. All of these companies
| suck, the only thing their money buys them is better
| marketing. It's not worth your time being their PR lackey
| for them.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Microsoft's CEO admitted that they have been gaming
| Hackernews for a while, so it's highly likely the other
| big brands do the same.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Citation on that admission?
| robin_reala wrote:
| I was intrigued by that as well, so I did some digging
| and turned up the transcript of the "Microsoft Fiscal
| Year 2019 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call":
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/Investor/events/FY-2019/earn... . If you search
| through that for "Hacker News" you'll find Satya saying:
|
| _In fact this morning I was reading a news article in
| Hacker News, which is a community where we have been
| working hard to make sure that Azure is growing in
| popularity and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we
| have made a lot of progress. In some sense that at least
| basically said that we're neck to neck with Amazon when
| it comes to even elite developers as represented in that
| community._
| pessimizer wrote:
| Apple was intentionally and silently slowing down aging
| iDevices to make it seem like they had just become
| obsolete under the higher requirements of newer software,
| rather than just having dying batteries. While the person
| you're responding to is mischaracterizing what happened
| to some extent and implying that it is still happening
| (they may still be throttled to protect from sudden
| shutoffs, but everybody knows now), you're
| _propagandizing_ about it.
|
| If they had the users' interests in heart at all, they
| could have thrown a modal that explained that the
| batteries were dying, and asked if the user wanted the
| phone to be throttled to avoid incidents of sudden power
| loss. If Apple had done this, they would have immediately
| lost sales and had complaints about expensive and
| inconvenient battery replacement, so they chose not to.
| This was the result of nothing but greed.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| They weren't slowing down ageing devices, only handsets
| that had degraded batteries. It's an important
| distinction. The change that they made is now when your
| battery degrades you can choose to get peak performance
| at the risk of reboots.
| fartcannon wrote:
| If you could easily change the battery, there'd be no
| problem with this function. As it stands, the glued in
| battery is also planned obsolescence.
|
| There's quite a bit of it, isn't there? If your battery
| doesn't die, the software will cripple your phone. If you
| choose not to let it, you'll exepreince random reboots.
|
| Its all a big elaborate plan to make you upgrade.
|
| They're smart folks at Apple. They'll try something even
| more sneaky next time.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I can easily change it. I simply pay them PS69 and get it
| changed. Maybe I've found the loophole? Or maybe they're
| really bad at planning obsolescence?
|
| To me this is no different than when I pay for new parts
| for my car. Could I do it myself? Maybe, but I'll happily
| pay someone who knows what they're doing to do it
| properly. If a bush wears down is that planned
| obsolescence? Should I be outraged after 60,000 miles
| that I have to replace it?
|
| I'm actually old enough to have owned phones with
| removable batteries. Guess how many times I changed a
| battery? 0. All the way from the 3210, t68i, P900, Note
| II and a bunch I've forgotten and I've never needed to
| change a battery. I've had maybe 4 Apple phones with non
| removable batteries and never needed to either.
| fartcannon wrote:
| That 69 dollars happened AFTER the lawsuit (a petty
| reaponse) and is yet further example of planned
| obsolescence! Pay 70 bucks, or put 70 bucks towards a new
| phone.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| A quick Google shows you that the price of battery
| replacements has always been around the same price:
|
| https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/apples-iphone-battery-
| repl...
|
| "In the US, for example, the battery replacement price
| went from $80 to $30."
|
| https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/battery-
| powe...
|
| Price now in the US: $69
|
| I think I've come to the conclusion that you use the term
| "planned obsolescence" incorrectly.
| refracture wrote:
| I'm hoping for two years since that's what the iPhone 5s got
| with iOS 12 after 13 dropped support for it, but it may just
| be a matter of policy for them to target 8 years since it was
| the 8 year mark when the final update for 12 went out last
| September.
|
| This topic has become an amusing barometer for people who
| don't actually know anything about Apple products but love to
| knock on them.. there's plenty Apple does to get upset over,
| but this is always the one topic ignorant people bring up.
|
| When the battery went bad on my 6s which was already several
| years old Apple replaced it for free. That's above and beyond
| the $30 program they started after their misshap handling the
| CPU throttling to prevent power loss on worn batteries.
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| Let's say I have an iPhone 6 that stopped receiving updates.
| What do you suggest I do with it:
|
| - landfill
|
| - install Linux
|
| - something else?
| rvz wrote:
| > - something else?
|
| Recycling it would benefit the planet more right?
| robin_reala wrote:
| - The back camera is probably better than your current webcam
|
| - It can make a good pet or baby monitor (several apps that
| do this have extremely long support schedules because they
| know people will reuse old phones)
|
| - If you're going to dispose of it, return it to Apple for
| recycling rather than landfill
| Klonoar wrote:
| Recycle it with Apple.
|
| I don't understand this desire to keep arbitrary old devices
| around. I only do it for as long as I need a device for
| testing (iOS dev).
|
| They simply have no value past this.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Use as an iPod, it's got a headphone jack which is rather
| nifty, also still works fine as a basic phone, you can have
| the battery replaced quite cheaply.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| And what do I do with my new phone? Just leave it there
| while I use the older iPhone? No. Realistically you'll use
| the new phone. The old iPhone is still not going to be
| used. So what do we do with them now? We install Linux or
| we just trash it?
| turtlebits wrote:
| Sell it or repurpose it, just like anything that gets
| replaced (fridge, blender, car, etc..)?
|
| Just because your old device doesn't support linux
| doesn't mean it's a brick. (Surely you were aware before
| you bought the device that it doesn't support linux).
| scarface74 wrote:
| You need a lot more "Android guys" to keep Android usable on
| old phones when the manufacturer drops support in a year..
| usrn wrote:
| What? These devices would be running Firefox not Safari.
| gruturo wrote:
| > (to counter Apple's in-house planned obsolescence program)
|
| iPhones are famous for being supported A LOT longer than almost
| any other phone. There are manufacturers which abandon you
| after the 2nd year, and if you buy a model near the end of its
| sale period, that can mean as little as 13-14 months on a brand
| new phone.
|
| Some iPhones have been, are, or will be supported for 6, 7,
| even 8 years - which is ridiculously good in comparison, and
| often the reasons for dropping a model are quite clear (only 1G
| of RAM, would swap/OOMkill like crazy, or lack of a 64-bit
| CPU).
|
| You could debate some of these reasons, you could debate when
| none are provided, you could argue about why a certain model
| had so little RAM to begin with, and of course there have been
| poorly handled issues like batterygate or certain iOS versions
| being brutally slow on old models (though it's been years since
| it last happened).... but frankly, this is an odd choice of a
| hill to die on.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| I am still using my 2012 ipad with iOS 9 to watch youtube and
| Plex
| captn3m0 wrote:
| Running iOS8 on my iPad 2 to read books and comics.
| mobilio wrote:
| I'm still using iPad 2 for ebooks too.
| jraph wrote:
| The iPad 2 is a perfect example.
|
| It is good some people still find use for it. However, it
| is a device that would be perfectly capable of being used
| to surf the web... but Apple stopped releasing updates
| for Safari and forbids alternative browser engines for
| iOS. The web is essentially broken on it, and I'm not
| even talking about the security issues that it probably
| has as a consequence..
|
| I'd say it is exactly the example of a device that is
| today unusable for many things its hardware could handle
| just fine for no good reason, and therefore obsolete for
| many people.
|
| Obsolete because of its closed nature. This obsolescence
| was planned. Maybe not intentionally to make you buy a
| new one, but still bad and the consequences are the same.
| Many people probably replaced their iPad 2 with a new
| tablet for exactly this reason. Or bought a new tablet
| even if they still use their iPad 2 for the uses cases
| the iPad 2 is not capable of handling anymore. Apple
| should be legally forced to enable third parties to
| support this hardware.
|
| Next time you consider buying closed hardware (not just
| Apple, and Android tablets are certainly problematic
| too), think about the iPad 2. Closed => Waste.
| captn3m0 wrote:
| I won it as a prize, and considering how it's still being
| used a decade later - it's certainly not a waste yet.
|
| I'm hoping to get Postmarket running on it, if this Linux
| port works out.
| jraph wrote:
| To be clear, I find it pleasant to read your comments
| about still finding use for such devices and I was not
| specifically writing to you personally. That was a you
| for the random reader of my comment. Actually, you
| specifically are not even in the target of my comment,
| since you still use your old device.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| There will be millions of no-longer-supported Apple units out
| there, it makes sense to give them a second life with Linux
| rather than throwing them in a landfill.
|
| And linux on it would not run Apple apps, it would run Firefox
| or Chromium.
| rtpg wrote:
| So loads of people have testified that using old Androids as
| long term computing devices just doesn't work cuz the
| machines can't deal with being on all the time.
|
| I wonder if iPhones and the like are any different on this
| front. Would you be able to build up a little serve farm of
| these things?
| alistairSH wrote:
| That's kind of weird, since phones are generally on all the
| time when being actively used. I guess it depends on what
| active/sleep "modes" are available - ie can Linux on Apple
| run processes with the screen asleep or whatever. As long
| as it's plugged in, it should be workable, maybe.
|
| But, in my mind, you wouldn't try to build a server farm
| out of 5+ year old iPads. Instead, you'd continue to use
| them as consumption devices. Read books, browse web, ie all
| the things most iPads are doing when new.
| rtpg wrote:
| I believe what people have said is that the components
| can't handle continuous use (instead of basically idling
| on user input). Even when being in use for the most part
| these machines just are rendering some textures onto the
| screen and the cpu is not doing much
| newswasboring wrote:
| Oh damn. That sort of explains why my phone gets super
| hot when I try to solve a project euler problems on it. I
| never thought about this.
| alistairSH wrote:
| That wouldn't surprise me. Could still be fun for
| tinkering and light consumption.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I believe what people have said is that the components
| can't handle continuous use
|
| That could be worked around by using the existing Linux
| featureset to manage hardware utilization. Especially if
| CPU/GPU use turns out to be the main issue (as opposed
| to, e.g. powering the display and radio components).
| usrn wrote:
| The Android userspace is absolutely god awful and makes
| those projects hard. This would be running straight
| GNU/Xorg/wayland.
| woojoo666 wrote:
| I think they are just saying if you buy an Apple device to
| install Linux on it, you are still supporting Apple
| (including their walled garden approach). Not to mention
| Apple is constantly fighting against these sorts of hacks so
| you'll always be playing mouse in their cat-and-mouse game
| jraph wrote:
| I completely agree with this line of thinking. That would
| almost makes me against this kind of projects. However,
| thinking about the consequences completely flips the coin
| for me:
|
| - without these projects, Apple will still continue doing
| whatever they are doing
|
| - I don't expect many people to actually buy a new iThing
| because of these projects. Maybe they'd buy second hand
| iThings on which Linux is guaranteed to work. So Apple is
| not making new money with this
|
| - Yes, they may save some devices from the landfill
|
| - it might show Apple that yes, opening their devices a bit
| may actually increase their sales (but I would not count on
| it)
|
| If I ever need a tablet and these projects work out without
| too many drawbacks, I'd actually probably consider getting
| a second hand iPad and install Linux on it. At this point
| I'd rather avoid both Android and iOS. I'd probably look
| into Pine64's (and other such manufacturers) devices first
| though.
|
| I hope these projects will help save 2 old iPad 2 sleeping
| somewhere in my family. These otherwise perfectly capable
| devices are worthless now just because of one thing: the
| old version of Safari combined with the fact that Apple
| forbids browsers with alternative browser engines on these
| devices. That's so dumb.
|
| And I'd probably prefer using existing devices than buying
| new ones if possible.
|
| So, yes please, port Linux to the Apple devices!
| tmikaeld wrote:
| I'm all for open hardware, but objectively, it's either
| landfill or Linux, I'd rather see it come to use than
| become useless.
| northisup wrote:
| so _this_ is the year of the linux desktop?
| zeckalpha wrote:
| > Diving into the XNU source
|
| Uh oh
| srndsnd wrote:
| While only semi-related, this reminds me a lot of iPodLinux, a
| project from around 2006/2007. I'm on the younger side, and this
| project was my first real introduction to the possibilities of
| computing. It let my grayscale iPod Classic play videos and Doom,
| which at the time, was mindblowing to me and my middle school
| classmates. In the process I was fortunate enough to actually
| learn a thing or two about Linux and computers in general.
|
| While they're not always the most practical, they can definitely
| encourage the hacker ethos in people who wonder what their
| devices can do that Apple might hide outside their walled garden.
| dazhbog wrote:
| Oh man, the iPodLinux project was the first thing I ever
| compiled. It took me so long to figure out how to do it, as I
| was typing Unix commands in Windows and it wasn't working. Best
| time ever as a smelly teenager pretending to hack stuff.
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| Same! iPodLinux was my introduction to Embedded Systems, and
| that's now my actual job :-)
|
| I was only a teenager at the time as well, yet read the whole
| forum as a moderator. It was always fascinating to learn what
| new hacks people had made to let the iPod do everything it's
| capable of!
|
| It's so nice to see Linux becoming available for the iPhone and
| iPad too.
|
| Now the iPod is discontinued, I wish Apple would release its
| intellectual property (schematics, board views), so I can
| repair the old ones. The screen's a bit glitchy on my 1st gen,
| and I'm not sure how to fix it.
| [deleted]
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| iPodLinux (and the semi-related iPodWizard and iPodWiki
| projects) were some of the best years of my childhood. I loved
| all the time I spent customizing my iPod and helping others do
| the same.
| randomrubydev wrote:
| We will finally see a mobile device running a PS3 emulator RPCS3
| soon...
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| Others have already spoken about this amazing achievement so I'm
| not going to repeat it, but I will say that the flashing cursor
| animation in the nav bar is horribly distracting whilst reading,
| if author reads this, please consider removing it.
| dripton wrote:
| UBlock Origin, right-click on the annoying thing, Block
| Element, done.
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| Cheers!
| jagger27 wrote:
| This is really all about the iPads to me. Having that "magical
| piece of glass" run free software for years to come is an
| absolute win.
| xalava wrote:
| What is the benefit compared to a rooted android tablet?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| There are a lot of iPads.
| ryandrake wrote:
| As someone who owns an OG iPad 1, the benefit of potentially
| being able to run Linux on it is I already have an old iPad
| but I don't have a rooted Android tablet. Currently, due to
| Apple refusing to support it with software updates, and
| providing no other means for me to update it myself, the iPad
| is kind of useless.
| prvc wrote:
| Way easier to create software for it, and with more
| flexibility, for starters.
| [deleted]
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Not sure this applies here since the OP seems to be only for
| certain hardware, but...
|
| I'd have bought an android tabled years ago if I had found
| something that seriously competes with the iPad Pro 12"
| versions.
| jagger27 wrote:
| iPads are just straight up good hardware, externally and
| internally.
| stuntkite wrote:
| I am so stoked on these recent developments. I have piles of
| useless iPhones and I know people that have huge stashes. I can't
| wait to waste months trying to get the lidar working on
| something. It really disgusts me that old phones are bricked.
| Getting a high powered SBC with an actual 5G modem alone is
| amazing.
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