Author Topic: What happens when Apple stops supporting a phone, still ok to buy one?  (Read 8361 times)

tooqk4u22

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Need to get a new phone and the prices on the iPhone 6 are good but I think that is because apple will no longer be supporting them.   What does this mean? Will the phone still work and be usable time to come or are they basically doomed to not work soon?

Would I be better off getting a new model?

BobbyTables

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I am in the same situation but with an Android phone. I bought a refurbished one that was about 1.5 years released when I bought it, a month later the manufacturer released what will be probably the last update.

I do not know much about the iOS specific policy but what this probably means is that the phone will work absolutely fine. Maybe a year or two from now new apps will come out that will not work on your phone. However, the biggest problem will be that when a vulnerability is found in iOS, your phone will remain vulnerable because it is not updated. For Android you can usually find patched versions online, not sure about Apple though.

Alfred J Quack

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The risk of a non-supported phone is basically 2-fold:
1. No more system updates means that any security holes found in the system will no longer be patched. An example of this is Windows XP but also Android 4.4, 5 and 6 if it isn't up to date with security, there are known security holes which are actively abused for phishing, man in the middle attacks (I insert myself between you and your bank and see the traffic between) and other attacks.
2. In future, app updates will require a minimum OS version which is beyond what is installed on the device. This means that eventually apps like Whatsapp and Facebook will no longer work on the outdated device. This is basically out of security concerns but also because a new version contains new functionality and supporting multiple OS versions is expensive for a developer.

DeepEllumStache

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I have an iPhone 6.

There are still software updates but Apple optimizes those updates towards newer phones. This is likely the last year I'll get updates though and some of them have been less than awesome for my battery life.

It's been a great phone. It originally got heavy usage, but it probably couldn't handle that level anymore. Now it works fine for light usage and a watchful eye on battery life. The ending of software updates will make me a bit more cautious of what I use it for as well since there could be a security hole. It also means that some of the apps will stop working.

If you're looking for a phone that does fine with light usage and the software update cycle isn't a concern for you, it is a great deal. If you need a phone that is guaranteed to not have weird battery issues or problems with your bank's app for the next few years, then you might want to find a different option.

robartsd

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One thing going for iPhone 6 is that iPhone SE with less capable hardware was still available new from Apple until last fall. I'm guessing that all currently supported models will be supported for the next version of iOS, but that will be the last version for models released before iPhone 7. In some ways iPhone beats Android because update support is much more predictable, on the other hand, Android app developers seem to support older OS releases than iOS app developers do.

Alfred J Quack

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One thing going for iPhone 6 is that iPhone SE with less capable hardware was still available new from Apple until last fall. I'm guessing that all currently supported models will be supported for the next version of iOS, but that will be the last version for models released before iPhone 7. In some ways iPhone beats Android because update support is much more predictable, on the other hand, Android app developers seem to support older OS releases than iOS app developers do.

Less capable? If I recall correctly, the SE has the same internals as either the 6 or 6s but in a smaller format.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_SE

Car Jack

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In my humble opinion, the only disadvantage to an older phone is that it may not be capable of running a newer app or work with a newer email system.

This past year, I had to replace my perfectly good 4s because our work email system changed and the old phone did not have the option to add it.  I got a new and improved phone.  A used 5s. 

I'll add that I NEVER update the ios ever.  My phone works fine.....I'd like it to continue this.  Back in my 4s days, beyond....from memory....ios 7.1, I think.....battery throttling did not exist.  So while my friends with new wizz bang new iPhones were slowing down like slugs, I was blazing fast with a battery that lasted forever.  And yes, I do yell at clouds.  Get off my lawn.

chemistk

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As others have said, the phone itself will continue to work for a long time. Apple's native apps will be just fine and you'll be able to do calls/texts/browsing/email probably for as long as the phone will last you. Some stuff will eventually become unsupported, mostly because the hardware can't keep up anymore. Planned obsolescence is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

How important is your personal information? Will you be using online banking apps? Paypal? Venmo? If you're planning on using your new (to you) phone for stuff that requires your personal security, I'd be supremely cautious about how you treat the phone.

Syonyk

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Need to get a new phone and the prices on the iPhone 6 are good but I think that is because apple will no longer be supporting them.   What does this mean? Will the phone still work and be usable time to come or are they basically doomed to not work soon?

It won't "stop working" in the typical sense, but it will be less and less useful over time as it can't run more modern OSes/applications.

My primary concern about out-of-OS-support hardware is the security side.  A few years back, I made the conscious decision to not run any hardware that was out of OS support.  You can, but it's a risk I'm not willing to take on my hardware.

Quote
Would I be better off getting a new model?

What do you use it for?

If it's an infrequently used device, that you rarely access the internet with, it's probably fine for a year or so out of OS support (you do get critical security patches for a while after OS support ends).  If you use it heavily, I wouldn't be comfortable running more than a few months past OS support.

markbike528CBX

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I have a iPhone 3gs.   Works fine as a phone and light browsing over WiFi.
I would not use it for financial reasons, mostly because I hate, hate the iOS interface you're forced to use vs the standard web interface, so two times the user training.

iPhone 6 will run current iOS 12 (with some application exceptions).
It will run 4G (LTE) phone, which isn't going away anytime soon (3G is still supported most places/networks).

I've found https://everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/specs/apple-iphone-6-a1549-4.7-inch-cdma-verizon-north-america-specs.html   ----useful for seeing what the minimum iPhone that  would be useable for my needs.


ketchup

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My primary concern about out-of-OS-support hardware is the security side.  A few years back, I made the conscious decision to not run any hardware that was out of OS support.  You can, but it's a risk I'm not willing to take on my hardware.
+1  I did the same.

And anyone that doesn't think there are a ton of 0day exploits waiting for the day support ends for a previous version of iOS, Windows, Office, etc. is just asking for trouble.

I keep my stuff up to date.  No more Windows XP/7, no more hokey old phones.  It's not worth my peace of mind.  It's part of why I went Apple in smartphoneland.  I have an iPhone 7 and it'll likely still be supported on current iOS for a number of years.

Same reason we're spending silly money replacing all our Cisco switches at work next year...

Syonyk

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And anyone that doesn't think there are a ton of 0day exploits waiting for the day support ends for a previous version of iOS, Windows, Office, etc. is just asking for trouble.

Yeah.  It would be interesting to see what markbike's 3GS has on it that's not supposed to be there.  The ad networks scare me, among other sources of evil on the internet.

Quote
I keep my stuff up to date.  No more Windows XP/7, no more hokey old phones.  It's not worth my peace of mind.  It's part of why I went Apple in smartphoneland.  I have an iPhone 7 and it'll likely still be supported on current iOS for a number of years.

Agree.  Apple maintains support for longer than other companies, and the updates are prompt.  There's no "Oh, yeah, well, an updated version was released, but... enh, the guy who maintains your phone is on vacation, so... maybe we'll get you the update in 6 months, unless we decide not to..." thing that goes on over in Androidland.  The Google/Nexus/Pixel/(whatever they're calling them this week) devices are OK, but still don't get nearly the same length of OS support that Apple regularly provides.

Now that (on the desktop side) all the devices are pure 64-bit EFI hardware, I'm hoping that we see quite long support there as well.

geekette

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Apple will probably announce which phones will be able to update to iOS 13 at WWDC on June 3. 

markbike528CBX

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Yeah.  It would be interesting to see what markbike's 3GS has on it that's not supposed to be there.  The ad networks scare me, among other sources of evil on the internet.

I'm interested also.  Would anyone describe or point me to the way to find out what is "not supposed to be there"?
Otherwise, I'll assume that Syonyk has had the "must upgrade or die" Apple kool-aid.   Really, where is the boogyman? Convince me please.
I have no password chain software, just a few non-Apple apps -JGFFT Viewer is my fave, a sound frequency analyzer.

As I noted no financial stuff is on the 3gs. 

I had been using a Mac G5 until January 2019, and I felt pretty safe, being a whole chip architecture back, and 9 MacOS revisions back.
Edit to get quotes right.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 12:13:30 AM by markbike528CBX »

frugaldrummer

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I have an iPhone 5, still running IOS 10. I haven't updated it out of fear it'll mess up the phone. However, I've recently run up against the first problem with this. Bought tickets for an event that were electronic tickets - BUT- had to have IOS 11 to put them on your phone in such a way that didn't require a good internet connection on your phone at the gate. Was able to work around but could have been a problem. I don't want a new phone because mine is nice and small and still has the regular type of headphone jack, which I use.

robartsd

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Yeah.  It would be interesting to see what markbike's 3GS has on it that's not supposed to be there.  The ad networks scare me, among other sources of evil on the internet.

I'm interested also.  Would anyone describe or point me to the way to find out what is "not supposed to be there"?
Otherwise, I'll assume that Syonyk has had the "must upgrade or die" Apple kool-aid.   Really, where is the boogyman? Convince me please.
I have no password chain software, just a few non-Apple apps -JGFFT Viewer is my fave, a sound frequency analyzer.

As I noted no financial stuff is on the 3gs. 

I had been using a Mac G5 until January 2019, and I felt pretty safe, being a whole chip architecture back, and 9 MacOS revisions back.
Edit to get quotes right.
He wasn't talking about userland apps. You could have 3rd party background processes installed using a security exploit without your knowledge. Most serious exploit would be accessing your personal data on the phone - since you don't use it for financial account access, next highest target is likely your address book. You also may have some extra trackers on the device (but ad networks have figured out ways to track most people without illicit device access anyway).

I personally use TenFourFox and leopard-webkit to have reasonably updated network apps on my PowerBook G4 without worrying all that much about OS security. Network access is always behind a NAT and almost always on a reasonably trusted local network, so I don't have to worry much about the base OS security as long as the network apps are good. I also use uMatrix to restrict scripts and other active content in my browser (helps with both performance and security). I'm happy to have my x86 based machines (currently a Core 2 Duo desktop and a notebook that more clunky as my PowerBook) on Debian stable (LXDE desktop environment). I initially chose Debian because PowerPC Macs were still officially supported when I was looking at Linux distros - but I didn't switch my PowerBook because the linux driver for my trackpad didn't support 2 finger scrolling (I use iScroll2 in Mac OS X).

Cassie

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I bought a android phone from a AT&T store and didn’t know it was a older version and it wasn’t cheap. 18 months later had all sorts of problems with it and they basically said you need a new phone. I bought it out of town and didn’t know it wasn’t a company store so they had no recourse.

Enigma

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https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/05/yet-another-iphone-slowdown-class-action/

Apple has been known to start throttling back the older phones.  Also pushing software that makes the phone appear to have less space.

markbike528CBX

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Yeah.  It would be interesting to see what markbike's 3GS has on it that's not supposed to be there.  The ad networks scare me, among other sources of evil on the internet.

I'm interested also.  Would anyone describe or point me to the way to find out what is "not supposed to be there"?
Otherwise, I'll assume that Syonyk has had the "must upgrade or die" Apple kool-aid.   Really, where is the boogyman? Convince me please.
I have no password chain software, just a few non-Apple apps -JGFFT Viewer is my fave, a sound frequency analyzer.

As I noted no financial stuff is on the 3gs. 

I had been using a Mac G5 until January 2019, and I felt pretty safe, being a whole chip architecture back, and 9 MacOS revisions back.
Edit to get quotes right.
He wasn't talking about userland apps. You could have 3rd party background processes installed using a security exploit without your knowledge. Most serious exploit would be accessing your personal data on the phone - since you don't use it for financial account access, next highest target is likely your address book. You also may have some extra trackers on the device (but ad networks have figured out ways to track most people without illicit device access anyway).

I personally use TenFourFox and leopard-webkit to have reasonably updated network apps on my PowerBook G4 without worrying all that much about OS security. Network access is always behind a NAT and almost always on a reasonably trusted local network, so I don't have to worry much about the base OS security as long as the network apps are good. I also use uMatrix to restrict scripts and other active content in my browser (helps with both performance and security). I'm happy to have my x86 based machines (currently a Core 2 Duo desktop and a notebook that more clunky as my PowerBook) on Debian stable (LXDE desktop environment). I initially chose Debian because PowerPC Macs were still officially supported when I was looking at Linux distros - but I didn't switch my PowerBook because the linux driver for my trackpad didn't support 2 finger scrolling (I use iScroll2 in Mac OS X).
I felt the need to upgrade from my PowerMac G5 (desktop) because some financial websites like Vandguard wouldn't accept TenFourFox( a Mozilla 45 build).
The 3gs phone is my first self-owned ( 2018)  cell phone.  It has minimal contact info on it. Location finding is OFF.
It works great for streaming internet radio ( KEXP, WACKEN, KAPA- Hawaiian)

Return to question, how do I determine what/if bad stuff is on it.

Syonyk

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I'm interested also.  Would anyone describe or point me to the way to find out what is "not supposed to be there"?
Otherwise, I'll assume that Syonyk has had the "must upgrade or die" Apple kool-aid.   Really, where is the boogyman? Convince me please.
I have no password chain software, just a few non-Apple apps -JGFFT Viewer is my fave, a sound frequency analyzer.

Apple doesn't expose anything in the way of APIs you could use to determine if it's running bonus background software.  It's one of the problems with iOS - while pretty robust, there's no way to tell if robustness has failed.

You can assume what you want about me, but I have solid technical reasons for refusing to run things out of OS support at this point (Meltdown, Spectre, Foreshadow, the recent load/store buffer issues, etc - admittedly Intel/x86, but that's the bulk of the machines I admin).  Practically speaking, staying in the realm of hardware support isn't a major factor in my budget, and the amount of time I've spent trying to keep older hardware up to date was significant.  You can make it work on most computers, but it gets increasingly time consuming.  It's cheaper to just buy something lightly used and not worry about it.

However, if you're on a 3GS, you're stuck on 6.1.6 or so - here's a list of vulnerabilities impacting 6.1.6: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/product_id-15556/version_id-204207/Apple-Iphone-Os-6.1.6.html

FireEye has a vuln that works on 6.1.6 to monitor everything going on: https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/02/background-monitoring-on-non-jailbroken-ios-7-devices-and-a-mitigation.html

And I'm sure there are others.  If you're comfortable running something vulnerable to that laundry list, fine.  I'm not.

Apple has been known to start throttling back the older phones.  Also pushing software that makes the phone appear to have less space.

I'm generally OK with that, as one impacted.  My 6S will crash if cold, and the throttling fixes it.  Even with a replacement battery, I still have problems below about 30% state of charge if I'm trying to use the camera.

Return to question, how do I determine what/if bad stuff is on it.

On that age of a device?  You exploit it yourself and see what you can find that's not supposed to be there.

Tris Prior

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iPhone 6 will run current iOS 12 (with some application exceptions).

Like, what exceptions? I have a 6 and I've been putting off and putting off upgrading out of fear that I'll end up with a brick. I don't even know which iOS I have on it, probably 10? My banking apps stopped working unless I upgrade, or else I would leave it be. I'm nervous about killing my phone with this upgrade.

markbike528CBX

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iPhone 6 will run current iOS 12 (with some application exceptions).

Like, what exceptions? I have a 6 and I've been putting off and putting off upgrading out of fear that I'll end up with a brick. I don't even know which iOS I have on it, probably 10? My banking apps stopped working unless I upgrade, or else I would leave it be. I'm nervous about killing my phone with this upgrade.

Per https://everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/specs/apple-iphone-6-a1549-4.7-inch-cdma-verizon-north-america-specs.html
"This model is fully supported by the last version of iOS 9 as well as the last version of iOS 10 with the exception of the minor Raise to Wake feature. It is supported by iOS 11 with the exception of the minor "Appointment confirmation" feature. It is supported by the current version of iOS 12, as well, with the exception of the Memoji, Camera Effects, ARKit 2, and Siri Suggestions features."

So basically, only apps introduced with the later iOS won't work, the iOS should run fine.

Penelope Vandergast

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Depends on what you want to use it for. Phone calls, photos, texting, and maybe a little map searching or email? Old phone is fine. I got my teenager an iPhone 4 for $20 on Craigslist and it's been great for almost 3 years. (Now of course teenager wants an app that doesn't work with their old OS, but. We'll see if that phase passes.)

I have an iPhone 5 that I bought for I think $75 or something. Works great, I use Ting. I don't have any interest in putting my refrigerator on the internet or whatever, and I don't do anything financial with it (I don't even have Facebook on the thing) so for me it's completely adequate. I'm actually thinking about going back to my old flip phone or getting some obsolete Blackberry to be honest.

Penelope Vandergast

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I should add that I got teenager a case for his phone that is also an auxiliary battery, so he doesn't have to worry about his old phone dying after a couple of hours.

markbike528CBX

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I'm interested also.  Would anyone describe or point me to the way to find out what is "not supposed to be there"?
Otherwise, I'll assume that Syonyk has had the "must upgrade or die" Apple kool-aid.   Really, where is the boogyman? Convince me please.
I have no password chain software, just a few non-Apple apps -JGFFT Viewer is my fave, a sound frequency analyzer.

Apple doesn't expose anything in the way of APIs you could use to determine if it's running bonus background software.  It's one of the problems with iOS - while pretty robust, there's no way to tell if robustness has failed.

You can assume what you want about me, but I have solid technical reasons for refusing to run things out of OS support at this point (Meltdown, Spectre, Foreshadow, the recent load/store buffer issues, etc - admittedly Intel/x86, but that's the bulk of the machines I admin).  Practically speaking, staying in the realm of hardware support isn't a major factor in my budget, and the amount of time I've spent trying to keep older hardware up to date was significant.  You can make it work on most computers, but it gets increasingly time consuming.  It's cheaper to just buy something lightly used and not worry about it.

However, if you're on a 3GS, you're stuck on 6.1.6 or so - here's a list of vulnerabilities impacting 6.1.6: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/product_id-15556/version_id-204207/Apple-Iphone-Os-6.1.6.html

FireEye has a vuln that works on 6.1.6 to monitor everything going on: https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/02/background-monitoring-on-non-jailbroken-ios-7-devices-and-a-mitigation.html

And I'm sure there are others.  If you're comfortable running something vulnerable to that laundry list, fine.  I'm not.

Apple has been known to start throttling back the older phones.  Also pushing software that makes the phone appear to have less space.

I'm generally OK with that, as one impacted.  My 6S will crash if cold, and the throttling fixes it.  Even with a replacement battery, I still have problems below about 30% state of charge if I'm trying to use the camera.

Return to question, how do I determine what/if bad stuff is on it.

On that age of a device?  You exploit it yourself and see what you can find that's not supposed to be there.

Thanks for the response Syonyk. 
Since you are an admin for many Intel/x86 users, I can well see your point of view. 
Given my uses, I don't care enough. The kool-aid comment was click/response bait, sorry about that.

I am curious on how to "exploit" my phone. It sounds kinky, therefore my curiosity.

I've looked at the CVEDETAILS, and note that most of the list affects pre-iOS 11 and 12, so even much newer devices are vulnerable also.
Edit to note link reading.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2019, 01:24:22 PM by markbike528CBX »

Syonyk

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I am curious on how to "exploit" my phone. It sounds kinky, therefore my curiosity.

Find a jailbreak that works on it.  You should be able to find one.

Then poke around and look for anything out of place.  A clean reference install would be helpful to compare against.

It's probably clean, but there have been plenty of remote exploits against earlier iOS versions.  The early jailbreaks were browser based - you literally go to a website, it breaks security on the device and installs the persistent jailbreaks.  That's not a good thing from a security perspective.

I deal with enough x86 boxes that I've been experimenting with ARM desktops for personal use.  They have separate issues, but at least aren't going to be leaking things through Javascript.  A strong physicalization effort helps with isolation as well (using physically separate machines for different tasks - Raspberry Pis are cheap enough to do this with fairly easily).

robartsd

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It's probably clean, but there have been plenty of remote exploits against earlier iOS versions.
I don't think I've ever heard of an iOS (or Mac OS X) exploit that worked without either physical access or user interaction with a questionable website/software; so I agree that markbike528CBX probably does have a clean iPhone 3gs (especially if he was able to refresh it to a known clean system when he acquired it). Still, it only takes one exposure - if prior owners were careless with visiting sites/installing software and a clean system was not restored, there is no telling what could be on it.

Syonyk

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I don't think I've ever heard of an iOS (or Mac OS X) exploit that worked without either physical access or user interaction with a questionable website/software; so I agree that markbike528CBX probably does have a clean iPhone 3gs (especially if he was able to refresh it to a known clean system when he acquired it). Still, it only takes one exposure - if prior owners were careless with visiting sites/installing software and a clean system was not restored, there is no telling what could be on it.

Here's the problem, though: What's a "questionable website"?  Any website that shows ads can be malicious, if the advertising provider isn't paying close enough attention.  There's quite a track record of advertising being used to serve malicious content, often without the advertising company's awareness.

There's been malware spread through generally reputable websites.  https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2016/03/large-angler-malvertising-campaign-hits-top-publishers/

Which of the following is questionable?

msn.com
nytimes[dot]com
bbc[dot]com
aol[dot]com
my[dot]xfinity[dot]com
nfl[dot]com
realtor[dot]com
theweathernetwork[dot]com
thehill[dot]com
newsweek[dot]com

They've all been used to deploy malicious code - through the advertising networks they used.  You don't have to go to some sketchy download site to get hit - and the browser on iOS 6 is positively ancient.

So if the browser is used, even if you only go to a handful of sites, it's possible that the device was exposed to malicious content.

Again, it's probably fine, but I still think it's a bad idea to use out-of-OS-support devices when connected to a network at all.

Syonyk

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Relevant rumors are that iOS 13 drops support for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone SE.

My 6S is in need of increasingly more work.  The replacement battery I got a year ago is junk and still won't power the phone if it's below about 30% state of charge and somewhat cold.  Plus the lens cover is shattered, which is non-trivial to replace.

ketchup

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Relevant rumors are that iOS 13 drops support for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone SE.

My 6S is in need of increasingly more work.  The replacement battery I got a year ago is junk and still won't power the phone if it's below about 30% state of charge and somewhat cold.  Plus the lens cover is shattered, which is non-trivial to replace.
I really hope this is wrong about dropping SE support.  It has the same guts as the 6S so they'd both probably go at the same time.  My dad, my sister, and my mom all have SEs since I told them Apple would support it for so long. :o)

Car Jack

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https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/05/yet-another-iphone-slowdown-class-action/

Apple has been known to start throttling back the older phones.  Also pushing software that makes the phone appear to have less space.

.....and the way to avoid that is to never update.  My iPhone 4s was blazing fast compared to all my office mates with wizz bang newer phones.  I refused to go beyond IOS 7.1.

Not only that....the battery outlasted everyone else easily. 

Syonyk

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.....and the way to avoid that is to never update.  My iPhone 4s was blazing fast compared to all my office mates with wizz bang newer phones.  I refused to go beyond IOS 7.1.

Not only that....the battery outlasted everyone else easily.

Sure, and you're a bit of bad advertising away from running God knows what on your phone.

If you're OK with a phone that's trivially vulnerable to remote exploitation, and can't run any halfway modern variety of application, that's a valid path, but I don't know why you'd do that instead of just having a flip phone at this point.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 04:17:08 PM by Syonyk »

markbike528CBX

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.....and the way to avoid that is to never update.  My iPhone 4s was blazing fast compared to all my office mates with wizz bang newer phones.  I refused to go beyond IOS 7.1.

Not only that....the battery outlasted everyone else easily.

Sure, and you're a bit of bad advertising away from running God knows what on your phone.

If you're OK with a phone that's trivially vulnerable to remote exploitation, and can't run any halfway modern variety of application, that's a valid path, but I don't know why you'd do that instead of just having a flip phone at this point.

Flip phones are hard to come by at this point, and they sometimes have even more outdated OS's.

I don't care about modern variety, just apps that I want, most of which were/are available for ancient OS's.
Gamma detector, sound analyzer( Fast Fourier Transform ), tone generator as geeky examples.

Syonyk

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My 6S is in need of increasingly more work.  The replacement battery I got a year ago is junk and still won't power the phone if it's below about 30% state of charge and somewhat cold.  Plus the lens cover is shattered, which is non-trivial to replace.

Well, finally got around to replacing the lens cover and battery.  It's... definitely a fiddly device to work on, but they have done some stuff right - the battery is held in with 3M "command strip" style adhesive that makes it easy to extract, and while the screws are tiny and the screen is hard to open, it is serviceable.  Once you're inside, it's pretty well thought out, if genuinely impressively engineered and more than a tiny bit overkill (I'm going to wager that Apple had to work out how to do high precision screw manufacture of that size, because they're radically smaller than literally anything else I've worked with).

But everything appears to be back operational.  While I was working on it, I removed enough dust from my headphone jack that the headphones seat properly again, and I scraped out the lightning connector as well.

Having done all that, presumably the "surprise" for iOS13 is that the 6S is no longer supported.

geekette

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Having done all that, presumably the "surprise" for iOS13 is that the 6S is no longer supported.
Per CNET, the 6S and SE will be supported.

Syonyk

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I saw that.  So the repair was worth doing, at least.

robartsd

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I saw that.  So the repair was worth doing, at least.
Yep, you should be able to stay on current iOS until September 2020.

Syonyk

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Or longer, if I'm lucky - but, yeah, I would expect iOS14 to probably drop 6S support.

Despite my "Apple Replaced Battery" from a year and a half ago being relatively recent, the improvement in battery life with the replacement battery is impressively massive.  I normally leave my phone in low power mode and I don't use it much.  I was struggling to get 2 days on it with the replaced battery, and would have random shutdowns at 30% reported.  It was just a crappy battery, even though the reported metrics seemed fine.  The iFixit replacement just went 4 days.  I ran it Sunday morning and it finally died out this morning (Thursday).  Normally I don't cycle it that deeply, but I wanted to let it calibrate.

Amusingly, the "1715mAh" battery, after a full calibration cycle, reports capacity as 1932mAh.  That's a nice bump over stock!

robartsd

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Or longer, if I'm lucky - but, yeah, I would expect iOS14 to probably drop 6S support.
True, some years Apple hasn't dropped support for any phones (iOS 5 in 2011, iOS 8 in 2014, and iOS 11 in 2017) so iOS 14 could end up being one of those versions. However, that would make A9 the first iPhone processor to be supported for more than 2 years after the last model using it was discontinued, so I think it is unlikely.

GuitarStv

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Does Apple still cripple older technology through software updates shortly before they launch new product, or have they stopped doing this?

robartsd

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Does Apple still cripple older technology through software updates shortly before they launch new product, or have they stopped doing this?
The only actual crippling that I am aware Apple has done in the past is reducing performance in efforts to extend battery life. If you know any other forms of crippling that Apple has done please share.

Syonyk

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True, some years Apple hasn't dropped support for any phones (iOS 5 in 2011, iOS 8 in 2014, and iOS 11 in 2017) so iOS 14 could end up being one of those versions. However, that would make A9 the first iPhone processor to be supported for more than 2 years after the last model using it was discontinued, so I think it is unlikely.

It's unlikely, but still within the realm of possible.  There's increasingly diminishing returns on newer technology, and Apple rarely drops OS support for things without a tolerably plausible sounding technical reason.  During the Intel transition (and then the 64-bit transition), you could tell what would get dropped by the firmware/capabilities.  Once everything got proper 64-bit chips and 64-bit EFI, support has been a good bit better, and you can shoehorn stuff in place a bit more easily if you want.  It's often things like ancient GPU drivers that cause trouble.

I think Apple also has to realize that people aren't upgrading their phones as often, so keeping longer OS support is one way they can differentiate themselves from Android devices.  "Sure, they're cheaper, but we support the phones far longer!" is a compelling argument for spending the money on Apple devices.  I won't consider anything but either an Apple device or a flagship Google device at this time for that reason, though Apple has been doing better recently.  And as much as their phones are a bit of a pain to get into, they've done (IMO) the right thing with the design, by making it easy(ish) to replace the screen and the battery.  Their newer phones open from the front, as opposed to from the rear like most other devices (and older iPhones), and the whole screen assembly just pops off.  The batteries are held in by stretchy adhesive strips now, which makes it far easier (and safer) to replace the battery than it is on devices with normal adhesive.  I've never enjoyed prying on lithium batteries to get them out of Android devices...



The newer devices are harder to get into, but it's about as reasonable as one might hope given that they are legitimately waterproof (IP68 rating on the newest ones - 2m deep in water for 30m).  I'm OK with that tradeoff, though I still don't understand their obsession with the pentalobe screws.

Does Apple still cripple older technology through software updates shortly before they launch new product, or have they stopped doing this?

Define "cripple" here - they do tend to push older hardware to or slightly beyond the limit in the last supported OS for things, but I don't have any reason to believe it's deliberate.

On the other hand, their whole "slow the phone down to avoid battery related shutdowns" thing was a technically brilliant solution that was handled very, very poorly.  Doing it to prevent random shutdowns (usually about the time you want to take a picture - camera modules and flashes are genuinely power hungry): Awesome.  Not telling customers you're doing it: Awful.  It does beat the alternative of phones randomly shutting down, and I appreciate that they did it, but to then not bother telling anyone you were doing it, and that it was just the battery... eh.  Yeah.  Not going to defend that one at all.

Otherwise, no, I'm not aware of any actions they've taken specifically make older hardware crappier to use.  It's just the same problems you get with newer OSes on machines that don't have the hardware guts for it.

GuitarStv

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Does Apple still cripple older technology through software updates shortly before they launch new product, or have they stopped doing this?
The only actual crippling that I am aware Apple has done in the past is reducing performance in efforts to extend battery life. If you know any other forms of crippling that Apple has done please share.

Yes, when Apple admitted that they had secretly crippled older phones through software updates to 'extend battery life' that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.


Though I was thinking more of Apple's long standing practice of designing OS updates that are not compatible with older hardware in order to cripple older devices.  Then conveniently releasing these updates right around the time new hardware is available to buy.

The last apple device that I purchased was an iPad 2, which became almost unusable due to slowness immediately after an iOS update.  An update that Apple then told me was impossible to uninstall.  It came out shortly before the release of a newer iPad.  That would be an example.  Or like when iOS 8 was released and people with older iPhones could no longer make phone calls or use their thumb scanner to unlock the phone after the 'upgrade'.

Or Apple's long standing fight against allowing users to repair their devices . . . (https://www.extremetech.com/computing/278261-apple-now-bricks-macbook-pros-to-prevent-third-party-repair, https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/complete-control-apple-accused-of-overpricing-restricting-device-repairs-1.4859099)
« Last Edit: June 06, 2019, 12:42:45 PM by GuitarStv »

MilesTeg

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Need to get a new phone and the prices on the iPhone 6 are good but I think that is because apple will no longer be supporting them.   What does this mean? Will the phone still work and be usable time to come or are they basically doomed to not work soon?

Would I be better off getting a new model?

You won't get security updates, which is only problematic if you believe in the fantasy that you can do things securely on a mobile device (or really, any general purpose device). Get the 6, don't use it to access financial or medical data, take/store naughty photos ;) or other things that necessitate good security. The latter is true regardless of what phone/tablet or other mobile device you buy. Always assume your mobile device is compromised; use it accordingly. There is no system that is fully secure, but mobile systems are particularly bad due to design choices, frequent connection to insecure networks, and hardware limitations (yes, even Apple/iOS is swiss cheese security wise).

The only way you can have a reasonably secure device is to have a dedicated device/system that is rigorously maintained and used ONLY for that purpose. For example, a VM, system-on-a-stick, or laptop that is only turned on/attached to a network for maintenance and for accessing your bank (or whatever). No other websites, no other applications, etc.

« Last Edit: June 06, 2019, 12:34:15 PM by MilesTeg »

ketchup

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Need to get a new phone and the prices on the iPhone 6 are good but I think that is because apple will no longer be supporting them.   What does this mean? Will the phone still work and be usable time to come or are they basically doomed to not work soon?

Would I be better off getting a new model?

You won't get security updates, which is only problematic if you believe in the fantasy that you can do things securely on a mobile device (or really, any general purpose device). Get the 6, don't use it to access financial or medical data, take/store naughty photos ;) or other things that necessitate good security. The latter is true regardless of what phone/tablet or other mobile device you buy. Always assume your mobile device is compromised; use it accordingly. There is no system that is fully secure, but mobile systems are particularly bad due to design choices, frequent connection to insecure networks, and hardware limitations (yes, even Apple/iOS is swiss cheese security wise).

The only way you can have a reasonably secure device is to have a dedicated device/system that is rigorously maintained and used ONLY for that purpose. For example, a VM, system-on-a-stick, or laptop that is only turned on/attached to a network for maintenance and for accessing your bank (or whatever). No other websites, no other applications, etc.
While I agree with your paranoia here in general, do you really think an up-to-date iOS device is less secure than an up-to-date Windows 10 PC?  All else being equal (you're not a dingus using the McDonald's Wifi (with either type of device) to check on your investments), I can't imagine them being much different from each other security-wise.

Syonyk

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Yes, when Apple admitted that they had secretly crippled older phones through software updates to 'extend battery life' that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

I think you're attributing malice where there was none.  The software changed the governor behavior if batteries showed signs of being weaker with age to prevent the device from suddenly shutting down when the battery voltage sagged.  I can tell you that Android devices definitely don't do this - they'd just crash in the same situation, and I replaced an awful lot of batteries for people because of exactly that (the Sony cells on the Nexus 5 were rubbish, LG and Panasonic cells were fine).

The question is then a matter of opinion: What's the right behavior if you detect a weak battery?  Keep the phone working, or let it crash?  Apple picked the former.

Now, I certainly think doing this silently was the wrong option, but I'm not convinced that they were sitting in their labs, twirling their mustaches evilly, thinking about how to get people to buy new phones.  I think it was far more likely a case of "Oh, hey, we've seen this in a few edge cases, we should cover it" - and the battery sagging was more widespread than realized.  They really should have put the whole battery notification thing into the system in the first place, but I don't think it was a malicious act.

Quote
Though I was thinking more of Apple's long standing practice of designing OS updates that are not compatible with older hardware in order to cripple older devices.  Then conveniently releasing these updates right around the time new hardware is available to buy.

Everyone does this.  I can't install Windows 10 on a 486 with 8MB of RAM, even though Windows 98 ran on it.

The original iPhone had a 32-bit, ~400MHz core, 128MB of RAM, and 16GB of storage.

The iPhone Excess has two 64-bit, 2.5GHz cores, four 1.5GHz cores, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage in the base model.

It's pretty hard to argue that they should be able to do the same things.

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Or like when iOS 8 was released and people with older iPhones could no longer make phone calls or use their thumb scanner to unlock the phone after the 'upgrade'.

Presumably those weren't intended features.  Software is hard.

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Or Apple's long standing fight against allowing users to repair their devices . . . (https://www.extremetech.com/computing/278261-apple-now-bricks-macbook-pros-to-prevent-third-party-repair)

I'll agree that they're making stuff harder to repair, but I don't think they're doing it simply to make things more difficult.  The T2 chip is actually quite impressive, from a security perspective.  I might even consider logging into one of my core accounts on someone else's modern Mac (in the guest account, after a fresh reboot and verifying that trusted boot was on), which is praise I've only formerly given to Chromebooks (they do trusted boot right, as far as I'm concerned).

I do think they've gone too far with the modern laptops in focus of Teh Almighty Thin, but that's partly based around the three years of "broken keyboards" they've released.  I replaced an aging 2008 MacBook Pro with a mid-2015, simply because I didn't want to deal with the newer ones.

You won't get security updates, which is only problematic if you believe in the fantasy that you can do things securely on a mobile device (or really, any general purpose device). Get the 6, don't use it to access financial or medical data, take/store naughty photos ;) or other things that necessitate good security. The latter is true regardless of what phone/tablet or other mobile device you buy. Always assume your mobile device is compromised; use it accordingly. There is no system that is fully secure, but mobile systems are particularly bad due to design choices, frequent connection to insecure networks, and hardware limitations (yes, even Apple/iOS is swiss cheese security wise).

The world would be a far, far better place if people across the board didn't feel the need to point cameras at their bits and pieces...

While I generally agree with you about absolute security, please recall that the early iOS devices could be jailbroken by a website.  That was the process to jailbreak the early ones - go to a website.  It'd pop the device, install Cydia (or whatever it was back then), and you could do what you wanted.  I'm pretty sure the current ones can't be popped like that by a website.  I hope. :/

In general, I trust Apple's mobile hardware (iPhones/iPads) more than I trust general purpose desktops.  They do less, and they can (as a result of design decisions) isolate tasks more, and they have a reasonably controlled, trusted boot environment.  Maintaining persistence on something like that is quite hard - not impossible, but you're looking at incredibly high value, rare exploits to do that.  And not everyone is quite that targeted.

In rough order of "trustedness," by my current reasoning: Chromebooks, Apple mobile devices, modern Apple hardware with a T2 chip, Google-issue Android devices, {Windows 10, Linux} hardware.  I trust my Windows/Linux desktops, but I sure wouldn't log into anyone else's.

For me, the concern is my primary accounts (Google-based).  I use physical 2FA tokens, but I also keep Google Authenticator on my phone, and it has access to my main Google accounts (for email).  SMS 2FA is an awful idea, but something with suitable access to my device could extract both the auth tokens for my main accounts and the state from the Authenticator app, which grants full access to just about everything.

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The only way you can have a reasonably secure device is to have a dedicated device/system that is rigorously maintained and used ONLY for that purpose. For example, a VM, system-on-a-stick, or laptop that is only turned on/attached to a network for maintenance and for accessing your bank (or whatever). No other websites, no other applications, etc.

VMs aren't secure.  And the host running them isn't secure if the VM is compromised - if you can get ring 0 in a VM, you can almost certainly get access to the host.

While I agree with your paranoia here in general, do you really think an up-to-date iOS device is less secure than an up-to-date Windows 10 PC?  All else being equal (you're not a dingus using the McDonald's Wifi (with either type of device) to check on your investments), I can't imagine them being much different from each other security-wise.

It depends on the Windows PC.  If it's running open boot, enh... yech.  If it's secure boot, it's probably OK, but I still wouldn't trust it that far.

I will say, iOS devices support always-on VPN connections, which are great.  It does "the right thing" with hotspots, as near as I can tell - bypasses the VPN to auth to the network, but doesn't let anything else talk until the VPN tunnel is established.

Outline is my current VPN of choice for mobile devices.

GuitarStv

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Yes, when Apple admitted that they had secretly crippled older phones through software updates to 'extend battery life' that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

I think you're attributing malice where there was none.  The software changed the governor behavior if batteries showed signs of being weaker with age to prevent the device from suddenly shutting down when the battery voltage sagged.  I can tell you that Android devices definitely don't do this - they'd just crash in the same situation, and I replaced an awful lot of batteries for people because of exactly that (the Sony cells on the Nexus 5 were rubbish, LG and Panasonic cells were fine).

The question is then a matter of opinion: What's the right behavior if you detect a weak battery?  Keep the phone working, or let it crash?  Apple picked the former.

Now, I certainly think doing this silently was the wrong option, but I'm not convinced that they were sitting in their labs, twirling their mustaches evilly, thinking about how to get people to buy new phones.  I think it was far more likely a case of "Oh, hey, we've seen this in a few edge cases, we should cover it" - and the battery sagging was more widespread than realized.  They really should have put the whole battery notification thing into the system in the first place, but I don't think it was a malicious act.

First they purposely designed a battery to be hard for a user to service it, then they realized that the battery life wasn't as good as expected so they snuck a fix in that would make it seem the batter life wasn't so terrible.

I agree that they probably didn't do this explicitly to cause crippling slow downs and sell new hardware - that was just an added bonus.


Quote
Though I was thinking more of Apple's long standing practice of designing OS updates that are not compatible with older hardware in order to cripple older devices.  Then conveniently releasing these updates right around the time new hardware is available to buy.

Everyone does this.  I can't install Windows 10 on a 486 with 8MB of RAM, even though Windows 98 ran on it.

The original iPhone had a 32-bit, ~400MHz core, 128MB of RAM, and 16GB of storage.

The iPhone Excess has two 64-bit, 2.5GHz cores, four 1.5GHz cores, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage in the base model.

It's pretty hard to argue that they should be able to do the same things.

You misunderstand me.

I have no problem with saying that a new OS won't run on old hardware.  That's not what Apple does.  Apple creates a new operating system that won't run on old hardware, and then releases it to the old hardware anyway.  Then the hardware becomes unusable.  This is certainly done with malice . . . I can't think of any other reason that Apple would refuse to allow downgrades.


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Or like when iOS 8 was released and people with older iPhones could no longer make phone calls or use their thumb scanner to unlock the phone after the 'upgrade'.


Presumably those weren't intended features.  Software is hard.

Except that wasn't due to the software.  It was due to not giving a fuck about testing older devices, which is part of a pattern of trying to get people to buy new things.  Apple has never released a new phone that couldn't make calls.


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Or Apple's long standing fight against allowing users to repair their devices . . . (https://www.extremetech.com/computing/278261-apple-now-bricks-macbook-pros-to-prevent-third-party-repair)

I'll agree that they're making stuff harder to repair, but I don't think they're doing it simply to make things more difficult.  The T2 chip is actually quite impressive, from a security perspective.  I might even consider logging into one of my core accounts on someone else's modern Mac (in the guest account, after a fresh reboot and verifying that trusted boot was on), which is praise I've only formerly given to Chromebooks (they do trusted boot right, as far as I'm concerned).

I do think they've gone too far with the modern laptops in focus of Teh Almighty Thin, but that's partly based around the three years of "broken keyboards" they've released.  I replaced an aging 2008 MacBook Pro with a mid-2015, simply because I didn't want to deal with the newer ones.

Apple explicitly does this because servicing their own devices is lucrative and gives them the opportunity to sell new hardware.

Getting apple to service a device costs dozens to hundreds of times more than getting an independent shop to do it.  They've been caught on camera multiple times lying and saying that replacement hardware is required (as shown in my second link).  They also have lobbied extensively to legally prevent independent shops from getting access to replacement parts and manuals required to perform repairs.

None of that is related to improving anything for the consumer.

Syonyk

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First they purposely designed a battery to be hard for a user to service it, then they realized that the battery life wasn't as good as expected so they snuck a fix in that would make it seem the batter life wasn't so terrible.

I agree that they probably didn't do this explicitly to cause crippling slow downs and sell new hardware - that was just an added bonus.

The 6 and 6S were the first of their waterproof experiments - and the first of the devices where it is easier to replace the screens.

They're certainly not as easy to replace the batteries on as some other devices (with user serviceable batteries) or some of the Nexus/Pixel devices, but it's not particularly hard to change the battery either.

Lithium batteries are hard to get right.


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I have no problem with saying that a new OS won't run on old hardware.  That's not what Apple does.  Apple creates a new operating system that won't run on old hardware, and then releases it to the old hardware anyway.  Then the hardware becomes unusable.  This is certainly done with malice . . . I can't think of any other reason that Apple would refuse to allow downgrades.

Because one of the major ways you bypass security fixes on hardware/software is downgrade attacks.  "Oh, this version isn't trivially exploited?  Cool, let's just install that old version that is, I'll exploit that."  It's the right answer from a security perspective.

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Except that wasn't due to the software.  It was due to not giving a fuck about testing older devices, which is part of a pattern of trying to get people to buy new things.  Apple has never released a new phone that couldn't make calls.

I haven't seen the postmortems on that, so I have no idea how it shipped.  I'm pretty sure "We literally never ran this on an iPhone 8" was not the cause, though.

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Apple explicitly does this because servicing their own devices is lucrative and gives them the opportunity to sell new hardware.

The T2 chip genuinely improves device security.  That it makes things harder to repair is almost certainly a side effect, not the reason for putting it in.  I can make an unrepairable device a whole lot cheaper simply by using high strength adhesive to glue everything together.

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None of that is related to improving anything for the consumer.

"Not running persistent malware from China/Russia/Iran" is an improvement for the consumer.  "Not having someone who steals your laptop be able to get anything of value from the drive" is of value to the consumer.  "Being impossible to extract disk encryption keys from system RAM because they're not in system RAM" is valuable to a lot of people.

If you don't care about security, then this stuff is of no value.  From a security perspective, Apple is doing a lot of things right.

Though those keyboards are pretty miserable...

GuitarStv

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First they purposely designed a battery to be hard for a user to service it, then they realized that the battery life wasn't as good as expected so they snuck a fix in that would make it seem the batter life wasn't so terrible.

I agree that they probably didn't do this explicitly to cause crippling slow downs and sell new hardware - that was just an added bonus.

The 6 and 6S were the first of their waterproof experiments - and the first of the devices where it is easier to replace the screens.

They're certainly not as easy to replace the batteries on as some other devices (with user serviceable batteries) or some of the Nexus/Pixel devices, but it's not particularly hard to change the battery either.

Lithium batteries are hard to get right.

Software is hard.  Batteries are hard.  Servicing a device is hard.  A consumer therefore should have no expectations that an Apple product continues to work as it was sold after software updates, can be repaired when it's broken due to Apple's continued lobbying against parts and information being made available, or that Apple will even tell the truth when devices are brought in to Apple technicians?  Sounds like nonsense to me.

Lithium batteries might be hard to get right.  Just as with your 'software is hard' argument though (where the problem wasn't software, it was testing), it doesn't address the point.  Gluing a battery into place is something I think we can all agree is a poor design decision that's certainly not 'hard'.  It might be cheaper, but it's certainly a conscious decision to make things worse for older devices where the battery will need replacement.



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I have no problem with saying that a new OS won't run on old hardware.  That's not what Apple does.  Apple creates a new operating system that won't run on old hardware, and then releases it to the old hardware anyway.  Then the hardware becomes unusable.  This is certainly done with malice . . . I can't think of any other reason that Apple would refuse to allow downgrades.

Because one of the major ways you bypass security fixes on hardware/software is downgrade attacks.  "Oh, this version isn't trivially exploited?  Cool, let's just install that old version that is, I'll exploit that."  It's the right answer from a security perspective.

You're right of course, crippling a device so that it's unusable is fantastic for security!  Because the user is unable to continue to use the device there is a ZERO CHANCE of it being involved in an attack.

Of course, you're ignoring the fact that the software crippling these devices is typically completely separate software than that used to fix security holes.  There's no need to bundle them together.

You're also overlooking the fact that the downgrade is a symptom.  Nobody would have reason to downgrade their 'upgrade' if it their device still worked properly after the new software was installed to begin with.  Which leads back to the problem of Apple purposely releasing software for older hardware that doesn't support it.



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Except that wasn't due to the software.  It was due to not giving a fuck about testing older devices, which is part of a pattern of trying to get people to buy new things.  Apple has never released a new phone that couldn't make calls.

I haven't seen the postmortems on that, so I have no idea how it shipped.  I'm pretty sure "We literally never ran this on an iPhone 8" was not the cause, though.

Fortunately, seeing postmortems isn't necessary at all to make that determination!

If they had run their iOS update on older hardware, the older iPhones that weren't able to make calls after upgrade would have been caught and addressed.  Or addressing the upgrade would have been deemed too expensive and it wouldn't have been pushed to those models of phone.



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Apple explicitly does this because servicing their own devices is lucrative and gives them the opportunity to sell new hardware.

The T2 chip genuinely improves device security.  That it makes things harder to repair is almost certainly a side effect, not the reason for putting it in.  I can make an unrepairable device a whole lot cheaper simply by using high strength adhesive to glue everything together.

Let's say for a moment that I agree with you about that one isolated case (I don't, but just for arguments sake).

How about designing a new screw head so that it would be more difficult for independent shops (or individuals) to take apart devices?  How about suing people who make repair information about Apple devices public?  How about working with DHS to seize replacement iPhone screens shipped to non-Apple repair people?



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None of that is related to improving anything for the consumer.

"Not running persistent malware from China/Russia/Iran" is an improvement for the consumer.  "Not having someone who steals your laptop be able to get anything of value from the drive" is of value to the consumer.  "Being impossible to extract disk encryption keys from system RAM because they're not in system RAM" is valuable to a lot of people.

If you don't care about security, then this stuff is of no value.  From a security perspective, Apple is doing a lot of things right.

Though those keyboards are pretty miserable...



You have failed to address the comments immediately before that out of context quote:

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They've been caught on camera multiple times lying and saying that replacement hardware is required (as shown in my second link).  They also have lobbied extensively to legally prevent independent shops from getting access to replacement parts and manuals required to perform repairs.

None of that is related to improving anything for the consumer.



« Last Edit: June 07, 2019, 07:46:59 AM by GuitarStv »

Syonyk

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I didn't comment on their stores making false claims about hardware because I have nothing to say on it.  I'm not even going to try to defend it.

Though it's hardly limited to Apple.  Try taking a brand new, out of the box computer to Geek Squad and see what they want to fix.

Gluing a battery into place is something I think we can all agree is a poor design decision that's certainly not 'hard'.

It depends on how it's done.  Apple (with the 6+ models) are using removable adhesive strips that aren't particularly difficult to remove, once you get into the phone.



They work like the 3M Command adhesive strips that you can pull - they stretch and normally come out freely, allowing you to remove the battery without having to heat and pry.

This is in the context of (in the 7+) legitimately waterproof phones.  An older style user-replaceable battery makes for a phone that's pretty well impossible to waterproof - so, pick which you value more.  I do think going waterproof is the right answer, though you seem to disagree.

I'm not a giant fan of the way the tech industry is going with making things smaller and harder to repair, but I'm also not blind to some of the improvements they've been making.

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You're also overlooking the fact that the downgrade is a symptom.  Nobody would have reason to downgrade their 'upgrade' if it their device still worked properly after the new software was installed to begin with.  Which leads back to the problem of Apple purposely releasing software for older hardware that doesn't support it.

I've used iOS devices to their end of life software, and I can't agree that it's purely the software - they hit the same resource limits that anything else does, and start struggling as applications, websites, etc, demand more resources.

Though some iOS releases are better than others on the performance with older devices front.

I'm not trying to defend them actually screwing up devices so they don't make calls, by any means.  But weird stuff ends up happening at scale that you can't always find in testing.

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How about designing a new screw head so that it would be more difficult for independent shops (or individuals) to take apart devices?  How does suing people who make repair information about Apple devices public?  How about working with DHS to seize replacement iPhone screens shipped to non-Apple repair people?

Again, I'm not defending their pentalobe or tri-wing screws.  They're at least easy to find drivers for now.

And I don't know any details of them working with DHS to seize screens.  Presumably they weren't OEM screens, but I simply don't know any details of that, so I have no opinion on it.

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So who makes a phone you consider acceptable?
« Last Edit: June 07, 2019, 07:57:50 AM by Syonyk »