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We got Linux on the iPhone, iPad and other idevices

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

#131

Post by thebruce87m »

fartcannon wrote: post #127
thebruce87m wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 £69 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.

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

#132

Post by CommanderData »

astrange wrote: post #123
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.

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.

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

#133

Post by MarioMan »

brk wrote: post #66
simion314 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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 "spe…

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.

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

#134

Post by breakfastduck »

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.

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

#135

Post by MarioMan »

nerdponx wrote: post #39
bogwog wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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.

> 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...

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

#136

Post by neilalexander »

fartcannon wrote: post #128
ben174 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#137

Post by thebruce87m »

fartcannon wrote: post #129
thebruce87m wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

I can easily change it. I simply pay them £69 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.

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

#138

Post by robin_reala »

fartcannon wrote: post #125
robin_reala wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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

#139

Post by apocalyptic0n3 »

srndsnd wrote: post #95

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 co…

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.

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

#140

Post by zozbot234 »

rtpg wrote: post #40
alistairSH wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

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

> 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).

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