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

kooslooijesteijn.net

201–210 of 300 posts

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

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember back in 2002 where if you connect an unpatched windows machine to the internet, it would only be a few minutes before it got infected? Well running unpatched stuff is no longer like that. I bet you could use a 2013 iDevice for a whole year and not get exploited once. Exploits are mostly against the rich and famous now, and not so much against regular joe.

> Remember back in 2002 where if you connect an unpatched windows machine to the internet, it would only be a few minutes before it got infected? Was that actually true, or just an urban legend? I've heard this a lot back then, but never actually saw it happen.

It was true (well perhaps more like 10 minutes). You had to connect your machine straight to the internet (ie. through a dialup modem), not via a router.

Also, some ISP's blocked ports which protected you somewhat.

It was certainly quick enough that there was no way to get the updates installed before the machine would bluescreen (many of these exploiters didn't care much for the stability of your machine...)

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

#202
post #70
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just not always a possibility especially if you use apps that connect to online services, this is something that has quite recent come up again as Steam is ending support for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 in nine months which have caused some uproar in that community. I am surprised that the post about that have not gained any traction on here [0] since to touches the same topic as this one [0]: https://news.ycombinat…

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…

> I don't think it's unreasonable of valve to drop support for OS's that Microsoft aren't maintaining

I don't see anything reasonable in turning perfectly good hardware into e-waste. I don't expect anybody to put effort into continued support for old stuff, but I do expect them to not break stuff that used to work. With Valve/Steam specifically you also run into paradoxical situations where they sell you old games on Steam, but those old games only run on old Windows version on which Steam itself does no longer runs.

That said, Valve is among the least problematic offender here, they put a ton of effort into Linux support for Windows games, they allow developers to keep selected older versions of games available and they have forums that make it easy to find workarounds. So most of the time, there is some way to get things to work, even if it's a bit more labor intensive than it should be.

But generally speaking, the whole software industry needs to get their shit together and figure out how to keep old stuff around and working. If I buy something digital, it should be at least available for as long as the company that sold to me exists. That's really not too much to expect. It's embarrassing how billion dollar companies are unable to just move their digital goods into a permanent archive once they lost interest in actively working on it.

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

#203
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, if you use your phone daily, I recommend getting the battery replaced every 2-2.5 years. Another thing that people forget to do... please restart in once in a while.

How silly is that? Remember how people laughed at Windows users and the Windows OS? That you have to reboot daily or else it slows down? Well, these days, my Samsung flagship actually pops up a notification every once in a while, reminding me to please reboot the phone to ensure smooth operation. There's even an option you can turn on to make it automatically reboot every night! (I imagine that option doesn't automag…

Now that is a proper "Do Not Disturb" implementation. Like unplugging the landline from the wall!

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

#204

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…

[deleted]

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

#205

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…

> "I still own a iPad 3 with the same, old, software stack from 2013. It still works, I can do things."

I've got an iPad 2 which I purchased on the day of release! It's still in great shape and runs well. The original battery still holds a good charge. Still connects fine to modern WiFi networks and my Bluetooth devices.

I still use it for classic iPad gaming, but besides that unfortunately it increasingly struggles to "do things" because the ancient Safari is losing its ability to load/render modern websites properly. If only there was a way to get a more modern web browser on it (maybe there is, with jailbreaking?) then it'd be way more useful.

Side note: I like my iPad 2 but I've long since vowed to never buy another iPad until Apple supports multiple user accounts in iPadOS.

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

#207
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it isn't true, the replacement is the $599 iPad Mini 6 which is in a completely different class of tablet. Even the $300 iPad would outclass it by a mile. Mini 6 has regularly been on sale for $499 as well since it is now long in the tooth already.

Size, not specs. If I want a mini with cell, it's 800 eur, which might be 600 moneys where you live, but VAT is included here. Actually, 64GB mini with Wifi+Cellular is 869 eur in Ireland, just checked there. When I bought my original mini, it was the cheapest new iOS device with a cell radio.

The original iPad mini 2 with cellular was $529 when introduced ten years ago, not $300. The current iPad mini with cellular was $649 when introduced one and a half years ago. Both of those numbers are the actual US Dollar prices for both products. Your pricing information is not correct.

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

#208

The analysis of phone lifetimes based on software support is dubious. Apple generally supports groups of devices together that are similar hardware. Given iPhones 12-14 are virtually identical I’d expect these will all lose support around the same time. Generally, this article is apple hate on steroids!! Apple is still releasing security updates for a 7-year-old device; name a mainstream android phone that’s doing th…

5+ years is only good in the context of the poor Android support model. We’re throwing away hardware which is still perfectly good because a company cannot profitably support the older models. It’s a major problem, and a huge waste of resources.

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

#209

>Buys apple phone >Shocked at cost of keeping up with normal industry progress I always think I'll never be surprised again by the sheer scale of compartmentalization of knowledge some people in this industry are capable of.

the problem is the gated app stores and forced updates

I use a laptop from 2016 with no problem at all really for programming for example

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

#210

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…

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…

5G isn't an actual advancement however. For most of where I live, in a major US city the effective bandwidth is either 0 kbps or 0.1 kbps. Why would anyone choose a technology that doesn't have any actual function?

If I use LTE at least I have some usable bandwidth.

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