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Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

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Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still pretty embarrassing when Microsoft maintains backwards compatibility for decades.

That backwards compatibility has also infamously been a ball and chain on Windows development. It doesn’t come without tradeoffs.

Providing backwards compatibility for decades has some serious tradeoffs. Breaking apps that were using the most up-to-date APIs three months ago is simply amateurish.

It's clear that Apple has no respect for developers on their platform.

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#282
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $20k phone Is this what some of Blackberry phones would have been if they continued their earlier legacy and designed phone lineups that appeal to reach people (hardened device, durable, privacy, "non-trackable", can connect to any cellular network and satellite internet.. etc)?

Vertu was originally using Blackberry OS, but now is based on Android.

They did not use an OS from Blackberry / RIM.

Vertu emerged from Nokia when they were at their peak - Frank Nuovo was the key designer there, and it was one of his projects.

From memory the original versions (Vertu Signature, Vertu Ascent, … ) used one of the Nokia feature-phone OSs as the base - maybe Series 30 or Series 40? - or they might have used one of the Symbian OS’es (Series 60).

They definitely used a Symbian OS in subsequent Vertu devices, before switching to Android later on.

They were incredibly well made devices, but ridiculous.

Source: I worked at Nokia for a while in a non-engineering role. I spent some time with a Vertu Ascent, and had access to the Vertu stores in Asia.

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#283
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not embarrassing, its a deliberate strategy to keep the platform moving forward.

Backwards comparability doesn't prevent forward movement. Moving forward is an overused tagline from every meeting ever anyway. If we move along a path does the path behind us crumble into the abyss? I see this as Apple breaking the app. Demanding and nudging users to auto-update the iOS, the consequences being the OS fails to run what it previously could run.

Apple literally removed chunks of the processor that was needed to run 32 bit software to make room for more forward looking features.

Backwards compatibility would mean that MacOS should still have support for 32 bit apps? PPC apps? 68K apps? Should they have ported Carbon to 64 bits? Should they have kept support for QuickDraw from the 80s? QuickDraw GX from the 90s?

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#284
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s crazy for any company to want more than 3 months to support a new OS. This specific situation is unfortunate, but I’d expect many other companies to have a mildly broken app for a few months. In particular, the punch hole gimmick was kept a secret and I’d expect apps who expected no touch target in that area to have to rethink a bunch of assumptions.

Out of ignorance I ask: Why aren’t there LTS versions of iOS? As a long time iOS user each year brings a bit of change with improvements just barely better than regression. Under the hood, what changes so much as to consider it a major upgrade with breaking changes? The MS pattern of deep support of legacy API for applications seems too extreme in the other direction. However iOS has long sense reached a point of mat…

There is, once your phone can’t support the latest version of iOS, you are de facto on the LTS version where Apple will provide security patches as needed for years. iOS 12 just got a security patch for the iPhone 5s (circa 2013) last month.

How does it benefit consumers, developers, or Apple to support older OS’s on phones that can support the newest version?

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That backwards compatibility has also infamously been a ball and chain on Windows development. It doesn’t come without tradeoffs.

Providing backwards compatibility for decades has some serious tradeoffs. Breaking apps that were using the most up-to-date APIs three months ago is simply amateurish. It's clear that Apple has no respect for developers on their platform.

As mentioned in other comments, it's very unusual for undeprecated APIs in iOS to break badly from one release to the next, at least the time I've developed for the platform. Usually if something is that broken it's because the app in question was using an API that was deprecated years ago despite repeated warnings.

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#286

Medtronic sends emails to their customers also, for both iOS and Android it is recommended to disable OS upgrades, as they will not update their Minimed Mobile app yet [1]. I imagine they need to test / get FDA clearance first or something similar, since it's a medical app. But... people will forget to re-enable the updates afterwards, of course. The email is send every year, with every update of the OS. [1] https://…

Apple tends to ask people to reconfirm system settings now and then after iOS upgrades. Does iOS ask about automatic upgrades occasionally?

No

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#288
post #60

What I find really amazing is that we have here an incredibly elite service that the vast majority of people will never be able to afford, and yet its elite clients are dependent on essentially the same mobile devices that everyone else is. You can spend ~$2k on a phone, and it will be the best phone you can buy. There's no $20k phone that will be any better. It's like flying in first class and then having to queue u…

And the $2k phone is only marginally better than a mid-tier 500-700 dollar device lol

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#289

This is one of the most exclusive banks in the world, counting the British Royal Family among their notable clients, and they can't even be bothered to keep their mobile app up to date. Pretty much sums up what rich people think about technology: make it sexy and powerful but I don't want to hear about ongoing maintenance costs. According to Wikipedia, new clients needed £500k in disposable funds to set up an account…

> This is one of the most exclusive banks in the world Not particularly exclusive, bought by NatWest in 2000 and then taken over by Ernst & Cie. So its little more than a brand-name these days, you can effectively buy your way in. If you want truly exclusive, you have to cross the road and walk a bit further down the Strand to Fleet Street. Regarding Private Banks and the online world, yes they tend to be a bit furth…

Yep - if they're your bank, you're not checking in the supermarket to see if you're about to hit your overdraft.

Re: Bank tells customers to disable updates and not upgrade to iOS 16

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and having security issues Security fixes should always be backported, because there will always be people stuck at a version of the OS for one reason or the other (it is guaranteed if you serve millions of people). Blaming users for not upgrading, or forcing developers to upgrade is NOT how it should be done.

So should Apple have kept compatibility with 32 bit apps? PPC apps? 68K apps? Apple does release security fixes and released one for the 2012 circa iPhone 5S last September. But once it dropped support for all 32 bit apps, it didn’t have to carry it forward to new Macs and was able to remove support from the processor itself.

Why not? Given Apple's growth, they can hire a person for every release of their OS and keep them working on backports of security issues without problems.
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