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My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

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Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#41

Post by WalterGR »

daneel_w wrote: post #27
tootie wrote: post #22

I have an ancient ipad that is still functional but stuck on iOS 9. Xcode doesn't let you target that version anymore. Is it still possible to compile an ipa for devices out of support?

It's a painfully sluggish alternative, but you can run older versions of OS X (and thus Xcode) in VirtualBox.

On Apple x86 hardware: Running Windows in VMWare Fusion works very, very well. I can’t see a reason why that wouldn't also be the case for old versions of OS X, though admittedly I haven’t tried.

It’s curious to me that OS X in VirtualBox is sluggish. Both VMWare Fusion and VirtualBox use virtualization…

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#42

Post by rahimnathwani »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #34
behnamoh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Apple fee is one of the most absurd things they do. Like, how is it even justified—does Apple really spend $99 on infra maintenance and server costs to host your app? When I buy a device I want to know that I own it, but Apple keeps pushing the narrative that "we LET you use this device in ways we see fit". So basically the customer is just borrowing a device from Apple while paying the full price. I'm a longtim…

I think it's fair to also cover the fairly rigorous testing that occurs for each app store submission. I'm not sure a hundred bucks is the right number, but it's not fair to say all they do is host the file.

You have to pay $99/year even if you only want to use the app on your own device.

You can only sideload for free if you are willing to reinstall every X days.

They don't need to test an app if you're not asking them to distribute it through their store.

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#44

Post by dzhiurgis »

nancyminusone wrote: post #12

>I’m saving approximately $84-120 CAD annually. I suppose most of this is eaten up by the need to pay apple $99 per year just to run your own app on your own phone for longer than a week.

EcoFlow batteries are pretty expensive too.

Also that's about 500kWh of power annually which averages to 50W. There is just no way iPhone uses that much.

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#45

Post by Gigachad »

notnmeyer wrote: post #35
behnamoh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Apple fee is one of the most absurd things they do. Like, how is it even justified—does Apple really spend $99 on infra maintenance and server costs to host your app? When I buy a device I want to know that I own it, but Apple keeps pushing the narrative that "we LET you use this device in ways we see fit". So basically the customer is just borrowing a device from Apple while paying the full price. I'm a longtim…

i’d guess it’s more to keep extremely low effort submissions out of the app store.

Which is not unreasonable for something listed in the App Store. It is unreasonable that you can’t sideload though.

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#46

Post by slg »

nancyminusone wrote: post #12

>I’m saving approximately $84-120 CAD annually. I suppose most of this is eaten up by the need to pay apple $99 per year just to run your own app on your own phone for longer than a week.

There is also the roughly $1k in costs for the solar and battery hardware even if we consider the iPhone itself free since it is so old.

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#47

Post by dzhiurgis »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #14
jiqiren wrote: post #10

HomePods perform real-time vision processing on multiple camera streams for HomeKit. However, the primary quality challenge lies in the video quality of HomeKit-enabled doorbell cameras that can consistently stream to Wi-Fi. For instance, my doorbell operates on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, resulting in highly compressed video streams. This compression likely impacts the results.

The range of HomeKit-enabled doorbells and cameras is disappointing to begin with and even worse when removing options that require a proprietary adapter box and/or subscription. The best option at the moment seems to be a Ubiquiti setup that integrates into HomeKit by way of Homebridge or other similar solutions rather than anything that supports HomeKit specifically.

At this point I'd just avoid HomeKit entirely.

Any sort of automation in Home app besides 2-3 line demo is quickly turning into nightmare, you are locked in bunch of annoying limitations and devices are always costing more than open source alternative.

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#48

Post by criddell »

jerlam wrote: post #39
tclancy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We don’t give enough credit to Apple for keeping these old devices alive and kicking. I'm not sure I follow. It feels exceedingly hard to find new uses for old iPads without doing a lot of heavy lifting. Has that changed?

For me, iPads (base model, non-Air/Pro) and iPhones seem to exist on opposite ends of the longevity spectrum. Never had an iPad last over 2-3 years without feeling sluggish and ready for an upgrade. Never had an iPhone since the 4 that felt sluggish when Apple stopped supporting it (5+ years).

My iPad is a 2018 iPad Pro and it still works great. It’s my most used computer by far. AFAIK, it’s still supported by Apple.

My phone is an iPhone 13 (2021) and I’ll probably upgrade in the next 24 months to get a better camera.

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#49

Post by [deleted] »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #42
aerostable_slug wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to also cover the fairly rigorous testing that occurs for each app store submission. I'm not sure a hundred bucks is the right number, but it's not fair to say all they do is host the file.

You have to pay $99/year even if you only want to use the app on your own device. You can only sideload for free if you are willing to reinstall every X days. They don't need to test an app if you're not asking them to distribute it through their store.

[deleted]

Re: My iPhone 8 Refuses to Die: Now It's a Solar-Powered Vision OCR Server

#50

Post by nico_h »

nancyminusone wrote: post #12

>I’m saving approximately $84-120 CAD annually. I suppose most of this is eaten up by the need to pay apple $99 per year just to run your own app on your own phone for longer than a week.

Also you can only run the compile-sign-deploy from a mac AFAIK.
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