I don’t want a new phone, but I’m probably buying one • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by lapcat » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:52 PM UTC

ericpauley wrote: post #136

lapcat wrote: post #119

I was quite satisfied with my iPhone 7 (2016) and didn't experience any problems with it, unlike the article author. However, iOS 16 doesn't support iPhone 7, so I had to buy a new iPhone SE (2022), which was the cheapest model available. The 2 phones are mostly identical, and indeed it's difficult to distinguish them if set side by side.

Out of curiosity, why did you need to upgrade for iOS 16? 15 will likely be receiving security updates for a while longer.

I make apps for iOS, so I need to run the latest.

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

#172

Post by worble » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:52 PM UTC

serf wrote: post #88

maccard wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 and 8 are both EOL by Microsoft. I don't think it's unreasonable of valve to drop support for OS's that Microsoft aren't maintaining, and the hardware requirements for 7 and 10 are the same today according to MS [0][1]. For a while you could officially upgrade to win10 for free, and it seems that even now, it still works 5 years after they stopped offering upgrades, and 3 years after win7's end of life. I'm…

>Windows 7 and 8 are both EOL by Microsoft. I don't think it's unreasonable of valve to drop support for OS's that Microsoft aren't maintaining it's not unreasonable until you realize that Valve offers no other method for audiences that may be stuck with older machines to play the games that they purchased, which at the time of purchase they had completely met all of the system requirements. A basic game should not h…

Can SteamCMD be used to download games? Or is it a hardcoded list of server side software?

At any rate, most of these users would be far better off moving to a linux distro than staying on a decaying OS, that's how I've kept most of my old laptops and such alive.

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

#173

Post by neurostimulant » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:52 PM UTC

patwolf wrote: post #82

It's not just phones. Yesterday I tried to dust off a MacBook Air from 2012 so that the kids could play some games. It was used regularly up until 3 years ago, but now pretty much all software is broken, and it won't let me upgrade anything. Hopefully there's a Linux distro that will work on it.

Manjaro runs great on my MBP 2012. Or you can turn your MacBook Air into a "hackintosh" and install the latest macos on it using OpenCore Legacy Patcher [1]. Just be aware that recent version of macos relies heavily on hardware acceleration (video playback, cryptography, etc) and will fallback to CPU on older unsupported hardware, which is slow and deplete your battery fast.

[1] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

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

#174

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

datadeft wrote: post #92

vanilla_nut wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you cannot. Apple does not give you the freedom to use old versions of software. You can't downgrade your iOS version. You can only upgrade apps, and iOS only lets you download the latest available version of an app for your version of iOS. Need to do a device reset? If you have managed to keep any apps on old versions, you'll get upgraded now. And you can't even save APKs and sideload because of Apple's develope…

This ship has sailed when people accepted that everything lives in the cloud and companies can dictate what you can, can't and must do with your own property. The last thing they cannot take away and cannot control is offline physical goods, like books for example.

See my other comment about the ability for any iOS device back to the original iPad to be able to download “the last compatible version”.

But to your point, even on a 1st gen iPad - at least the last time I tried a couple of years ago - you can still play music you bought from Apple using the Music app. As far as I know, iTunes still supports every iPod and iOS device ever made.

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

#175

Post by tunnuz » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

Jaxan wrote: post #12

tunnuz wrote: post #6

I feel your pain. I also had to give up my 2017 iPhone SE, too bad. The good thing is that I managed to change the battery myself at least 3 or 4 times, effectively extending its lease. I have since then picked up an iPhone 12 mini, which is only slightly larger and I love it.

What’s wrong with the old SE? I still use mine daily. (Indeed I had to replace the battery too.)

Some form of "moisture" managed to get inside my camera lens, and taking photos is the thing I do most on my phone.

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

#176

Post by londons_explore » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #107

londons_explore wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is caused by the emmc storage inside getting slower due to wearing out. emmc firmwares are universally crap at wear levelling, so after a few years use a card that could read/write data at 200 Mbytes/sec before might now be as low as 2 Mbytes per second for reading the most read/written sectors. The effect is compounded by the fact that modern apps are larger, taking up more RAM and flash storage. That in turn m…

Is there an app that can tell me the wear stats from the storage device? A bit of googling tells me that a service called storaged processes them, but I can't immediately find an app that does this.

I don't think either android or iOS expose this info to apps.

You might be able to get it from a rooted device - although if it is emmc based storage, then there isn't even a standard way for the OS to know - it depends on the manufacturer of the device using proprietary calls (if it collects stats at all).

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

#177

Post by eddieroger » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #99

nehal3m wrote: post #73

At some point you're better off switching to a dumb phone for phone calls and a tablet with a data-SIM for everything else.

I tried doing that a couple years ago. The problem with dumb phones (or at least the problem when I researched this several years ago) is that it’s a niche market with high enough demand that all of the products are low-effort, low quality and exorbitantly priced for what you get.

I won't argue low effort, but I just went to my carrier's site (Verizon), and I can get a "basic" flip phone for $80 unsubsidized. The high end of the range, a ruggedized Kyocera, was $240. I don't think this is unreasonable for a range of devices that have much lower market desire than they did 15 years ago. At $80, I'd call that a disposable travel phone.

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

#178

Post by frodetb » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:54 PM UTC

janandonly wrote: post #43

This hit home hard for me: > You decided that you wanted to use some framework/feature/API and save developer time. Which is odd. Because consider how much time you spend trying to not harm the environment in your free time: shopping for sustainable products, bringing your reusable cup, recycling. And then think of the minutes you save with new programming stuff compared to the number of iPhones discarded because of…

Me too, and I was disappointed to see this comment section mostly full of people either blaming the author or explaining why their experience actually makes sense.

It's like a positive feedback-loop (though I guess morally negative) between manufacturers, developers, and users, all three dragging/pushing on the other to roll down the hill of faster hardware and heavier apps, none of them really in control or able to stop, and therefore also not directly to blame. The upgrade-train to Waste City has no breaks. Still, it seems to me at least that the manufacturers are the only ones strictly happy about the situation.

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

#179

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

l72 wrote: post #150

terhechte wrote: post #8

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…

Really? My ipad became e-waste because HBO, Hulu, and Netflix all released new versions of their apps for the new version of iOS, and then decided to cut the old versions off from their services. The old versions all show an error telling me to upgrade to a new version, which I can't do. The sole purpose of this ipad was for media consumption. I then thought I would use my ipad as a Shopify POS terminal for my side b…

You can still buy apps on iTunes for Windows can’t you and then download the “last compatible version”.

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

#180

Post by vbarrielle » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 12:55 PM UTC

I think the blame can be put on the closed ecosystems of phones. On laptops and desktops, with the possibility to install any OS, it's more often possible to meet the requirements of up-to-date frameworks using the same hardware. My laptop is from 2010 and is still running everything I want, it's up to date and responsive. With the current hardware of phones, and even their hardware of 6 years ago, I don't see any reason why they should be changed, other than being closed platforms where one cannot control the OS.