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

kooslooijesteijn.net

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

#261

Post by erk__ »

worble wrote: post #172
serf wrote: post #88

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 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.

SteamCMD can download any game, I used to use it at uni to download games to transfer at home since my internet was very slow.

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

#262

Post by windex »

With AI enabled programming coming in etc, I expect many apps will start getting faster as code gets refactored to not use bloated thirdparty frameworks etc. Older devices, and electronic waste should reduce with the possible optimizations of apps. I maintain my devices well and have pristine devices I still use from 2010, but the apps make it run like molasses.

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

#263

Post by joshspankit »

Reason077 wrote: post #257
joshspankit wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn’t argue that a hammer “had a pretty good run” and needed to be replaced if the head detached. Nor a car with a flat tire. Nor a road when a pothole appears. The point I’m making is that when the devices are made there are future issue that are both known and reasonable (battery will wear out, network-based security vulnerabilities will be uncovered, etc), but we all recognize that those can be solved (user…

> "You wouldn’t argue that a hammer “had a pretty good run” and needed to be replaced if the head detached." If I'd used that hammer every day for many years and it had finally given out? If re-attaching the head wasn't going to give as good result as buying a new hammer? Sure I would. > "For example: running photo recognition in the background on a device that does not have the resources to do it without affecting t…

> If re-attaching the head wasn't going to give as good result as buying a new hammer?

The way hammers have been made in the past, you could almost trivially make a new wooden handle and attach the head to it bringing it to just as good as new or even better (if you sourced stronger wood).

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

#264

Post by joshspankit »

pwinnski wrote: post #256
joshspankit wrote: post #248

Something I have not seen yet: Apple has a significant part in this. To keep an app on the app store, the dev has to pay the yearly fee, and keep up to date with Apple’s requirements (which they legally agree to do through agreeing to the updated TOS). To keep up to date with Apple’s requirements they must (sometimes) make a minor edit to their code and upload the new version. To upload the new version they must use…

This is all true, and the interesting thing to me is that I don't think it's intentional. That is, it seems to be the natural result of steady innovation without special effort being made to keep things stable for those who want to avoid innovation. Should they make that extra effort? Sure, arguably they should. Apple's philosophy has always been to look forward, not back, though, and things like supporting 32-bit co…

You might be right about it not being intentional (putting aside the argument that lack of choice is itself a choice), but I would argue that putting in the effort is their responsibility as a part of the larger goal of sustainability.

In this case Apple says they want their products to be completely sustainable, and yet they are choosing profit over sustainability by putting fences on either side of the circular treadmill.

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

#265

Post by joshspankit »

vbarrielle wrote: post #180

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 re…

Anyone remember when hardware manufacturers and media companies were separate?

I think we took a dark turn when Apple started signing the legal agreements needed to distribute copyright media to people who bought Apple hardware.

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

#266

Post by joshspankit »

londons_explore wrote: post #176
mnw21cam wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The underlying “now” test seems reasonable: load a bunch of data off the storage and see how long it takes. You could even theoretically read all data and uncover slow sections (if there is such a thing).

Writing would be harder of course.

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

#267

Post by pwinnski »

joshspankit wrote: post #264
pwinnski wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true, and the interesting thing to me is that I don't think it's intentional. That is, it seems to be the natural result of steady innovation without special effort being made to keep things stable for those who want to avoid innovation. Should they make that extra effort? Sure, arguably they should. Apple's philosophy has always been to look forward, not back, though, and things like supporting 32-bit co…

You might be right about it not being intentional (putting aside the argument that lack of choice is itself a choice), but I would argue that putting in the effort is their responsibility as a part of the larger goal of sustainability. In this case Apple says they want their products to be completely sustainable, and yet they are choosing profit over sustainability by putting fences on either side of the circular tre…

I largely agree. I guess I would just say that every decision comes at a cost, and maintaining compatibility usually comes with a small performance cost, exactly the sort of cost Apple least wants to pay on their new devices.

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

#268

Post by joshspankit »

seqizz wrote: post #33
traverseda wrote: post #7

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 t…

Just like anything physical, you could simply have a “go ahead and do it, but you get no help from us” policy. When the ecosystem is open enough there is a community of people who learn what they need to. For reference see: car racing.

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

#269

Post by maccard »

grumbel wrote: post #202
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…

> 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…

> I don't see anything reasonable in turning perfectly good hardware into e-waste.

Nobody's doing that. There's a free upgrade from both Windows 7 and Windows 8 to Windows 10, and the hardware specs from MS are the same for all three OS's. For anyone who doesn't want to install Windows 10 on their devices, Steam is officially supported on Ubuntu. If you want to continue to play games on your windows 7 device, you have the option to download those games right now, and archive them in whatever way you see fit to continue to play them on your device.

> If I buy something digital, it should be available for as long as the company that sold to me exists.

Hard disagree here. You spending $20 on something doesn't entitle you to a perpetual access to a version of something under your terms. You have the option to access the game still on your hardware.

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

#270

Post by NikolaNovak »

whynaut wrote: post #226
NikolaNovak wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principle but reality is more complex. I am an android / windows user. After several years I splurged for an expensive brand new iPad specifically to run music apps such as behringer deepmind (which integrates with their synth). Couple of weeks later iPad silently installed some os update. Half my apps stopped working! They were apparently incompatible with the current OS and I needed to "contact app devel…

par for the course? I’ve literally never had this happen and I always keep the OS updated, this is certainly a confusing one.

I'm not an iOS expert; I've talked to my colleagues who have iPhones and iPads and they indicated "it happens". Quick Google search indicates my experience is hardly unique. Different people with different apps may have different experience and I don't know what the median experience is.

To be fair, it also obviously happens on Android, and every other platform, though for me on Android it was far more common that device itself stops getting new OS updates and new devices might not run old apps. I was caught by surprise that what seemed to me a small OS security patch or whatever, had an unanticipated and immediate effect on already installed apps.

I have no idea if "Automatic OS updates" was the default setting or if I clicked it at some point when I got the new iPad. I will take the responsibility for that choice, obviously, but my point was that "You can run old apps indefinitely on existing hardware" is not perfect advice.

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