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I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

kooslooijesteijn.net

31–40 of 300 posts

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#31
This might be a good opportunity to mention oldversion.com. It helped me out of a jam a couple of times. And I haven't verified it, but it seems to me like oldversion was around way before everything was being uploaded to archive.org. If you're into vintage software or older versions of current programs, check it out.

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#32

  > Starting some apps takes really long, like 10–20 seconds. I think it’s because today’s apps require more RAM than their older versions.
is it that? i seem to remember something about flash chips wearing down over time and get less and less performance... could it be that instead?

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#33

I'd like to see "right to downgrade" put in to law, if I buy a product I should have the option to have it run older firmware, or play an older version of a game I bought.

So should we force product owners to support multiple older versions of clients, even though the backend is progressed? Who will pay for this extra cost, the users who don't upgrade their devices? I don't think so.

Do every rule has to be written, or does writing them into law makes it logical every time? App owners can add "we only support client versions which is max 6 months older than current stable version" to their EULA and it is also fine (while being worse than current situation) then?

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#35

If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things. I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort so that I can run their apps on my old device. It is not just the overhead of supporting multiple different OS versions with different technologies, it i…

They're referring to developers updating application servers, meaning the client software is no longer able to operate correctly. If your client software doesn't require internet access for example it's probably fine. For all the other apps it's a problem.

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#36
On a similar note, I have a Motorola G8+, Android 10. It has 4GB of RAM, plenty of free space in storage, and the CPU isn't actually that bad still. The battery is in good condition. A brand new phone doesn't necessarily have any better stats.

For some reason, it is slow. As in, it will still usually run apps at full speed, the framerate in a flight sim is just as high as before etc, but then it will just freeze up for seconds at a time, or suddenly do something really slowly for a while. Sometimes it will fail to respond to the power button short-press to turn the screen on, but if I try again a minute later it will be fine.

I have experienced this with multiple Androids over time. My previous phone got so bad that it sometimes wouldn't actually respond quickly enough to be able to answer a phone call, which is when I got the new one.

What causes this? Is there some build-up of junk lying around in the system that I could press a magic button and clear out, without having to reinstall all my stuff from scratch?

I could buy a new phone. But given a new one wouldn't have much more resources than my current one, it very much feels like the wrong workaround for a problem that shouldn't exist.

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#38
My friend recently was forced to upgrade his phone by ... our local rail company Transport for Wales. Their smart ticketing app dropped support for his old handset with their latest update. The app is essential if you want a flexible season ticket (a substantial saving over the regular fares) so upgrading was an obvious choice for him ... so much for sustainable transport though :(

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#39

If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things. I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort so that I can run their apps on my old device. It is not just the overhead of supporting multiple different OS versions with different technologies, it i…

It's one thing if you already have the app and just stop updating it. My experience with the iOS App Store has been that if you only just now heard of the app and your phone's too old, you can't even download the version that works for your phone. That is what ends up forcing an upgrade. That people's phones can't run the newest version of an app, and aren't allowed to get an old version as a substitute.

Apple has every incentive to make sure old devices become unusable. It pushes people to buy new devices.

The effect may be indirect - someone in a poor country with a 6 year old iDevice finds it becomes unusable, so they want to buy a 3 year old iDevice... And they're buying that from someone who has a 3 year old iDevice who sees that for not a lot of extra money they can buy the newest one.

Re: I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one

#40

If they want to use an old phone, they can just stop updating their apps and not installing new apps. I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things. I just don't expect todays developers to make a herculean effort so that I can run their apps on my old device. It is not just the overhead of supporting multiple different OS versions with different technologies, it i…

The problem is that in current app stores, there are no easy way to find apps that match your hardware requirements. If I want a fitness app that I didn't think of installing when I got the device 5 years ago, I can't easily look for one designed for 5 year old phones on the App Store. Or an app that developers forgot to update/bloat for the last 5 years.

Also, sometimes you don't have the choice. The app for the public transportation in my city is quite heavy but there is no alternatives except queuing for a paper tickets. And I would bet that most users would be absolutely fine with a leaner/faster app.

So sure, you have to keep up with the time but to me, it feels more and more like a wasteful flight forward anyway.

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