We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices • Hacker News Board

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#121

Post by scintill76 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 7:58 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #107

bozhark wrote: post #100

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

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.

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#122

Post by refracture » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:17 PM UTC

fartcannon wrote: post #86

refracture wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They were sued and _lost_.

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#123

Post by astrange » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

CommanderData wrote: post #79

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.

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#124

Post by refracture » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:43 PM UTC

sgjohnson wrote: post #15

woolion wrote: post #2

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 compa…

> 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)

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#125

Post by fartcannon » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:48 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #104

fartcannon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was pretty straight forward. Which is why they lost the suit.

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.

Sure, still, planned obsolescence.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#126

Post by fartcannon » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:49 PM UTC

refracture wrote: post #122

fartcannon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were sued and _lost_.

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 unt…

Yes, more evidence of planned obsolescence is good.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#127

Post by fartcannon » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:51 PM UTC

thebruce87m wrote: post #111

fartcannon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They didn’t say that’s what they were doing. Now they do. The feature still exists today on brand new phones.

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#128

Post by fartcannon » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

ben174 wrote: post #55

robin_reala wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 li…

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.

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#129

Post by fartcannon » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 8:57 PM UTC

thebruce87m wrote: post #112

pessimizer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

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.

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.

Re: We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

#130

Post by 0x0 » Thu, Jun 09, 2022, 9:01 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #107

bozhark wrote: post #100

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

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.

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