Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Forced to upgrade

herman.bearblog.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 303 posts

Re: Forced to upgrade

#211

Post by ryandrake »

llm_nerd wrote: post #208
ryandrake wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can give you an egregious example: FlightAware. Not only do they not offer updates that support 16.x (fine, I’d just use the last version that still works on my phone) but instead, their last update puts a full screen modal dialog up, telling me the app will no longer run and that I need to buy a new phone that supports the latest iOS. You can’t even dismiss the modal, so the app effectively no longer works. Total…

I can find some recent internet posts noting that FlightAware dropped iOS 15 support, but at present it claims to support iOS 16.4 or later devices, which would include the 7 and 8 if updated. I don't use iOS 16 or FlightAware, so it's possible that they allow you to install it from the store and then do some runtime check and refuse to actually run, but that would be super weird behaviour. I get why devs do this som…

iPhone 7 is stuck on iOS 15.8.3[1].

> I don't use iOS 16 or FlightAware, so it's possible that they allow you to install it from the store and then do some runtime check and refuse to actually run, but that would be super weird behaviour.

This is exactly what they appear to be doing. It should be against Apple’s guidelines to release an app that simply says “go away until you buy a new phone.”

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7

Re: Forced to upgrade

#212

Post by RadiozRadioz »

I still target Android JellyBean as the minimum version with my apps. I have never increased the minimum version since I created the app. Google makes it difficult, but I refuse to give into their quest to annoy users. I love my 3 JellyBean users as much as the rest of my users and they deserve to not have their software break for no reason.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#213

Post by gregoriol »

vundercind wrote: post #145
gregoriol wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SE3 is good enough and not too big

The only, only reason I ever buy anything but the smallest phone they offer is because the best cameras are never on the smallest devices. The extra size is pure down-side for me, and I don't really give a shit about slightly faster processors or what have you (I hardly burden the low-end ones), but I do find when looking back at older photos I always appreciate when I've had better cameras, so I hesitate to go too l…

I choose the cheapest technically up-to-date one. I really don't care about the camera, the gap between generation is mostly not interesting. Actually the only reason I had to replace the last one is that Apple stopped supporting it with the latest iOS...

Re: Forced to upgrade

#214

Post by ryandrake »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #212

I still target Android JellyBean as the minimum version with my apps. I have never increased the minimum version since I created the app. Google makes it difficult, but I refuse to give into their quest to annoy users. I love my 3 JellyBean users as much as the rest of my users and they deserve to not have their software break for no reason.

From your lips to all software developers’ ears!

Thank You.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#216

Post by gregoriol »

yumraj wrote: post #164
gregoriol wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SE3 is good enough and not too big

I love SE3, had SE2 before it. I love the phone and the size, but I do NOT love the battery life.. It's manageable though.

Battery life is not excellent indeed. I have cables and extra battery most of the time when out for a day.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#217

Post by vundercind »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #187
vundercind wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want. - Live Photos. I won't consider any device that doesn't have something analogous, now. They're magical. Non-kid-havers may feel otherwise, but making every photo I snap of my kids a "Live Photo" is one of the most important improvements any technology thingy has provided in my en…

Those are very nice to have, but if the device still can do basic web and phone things do you really need to upgrade?

Well, no, but I was working with a bar of:

> I'm having a really hard time coming up with an OS feature introduced in a full OS upgrade within the last 10 years that I actually want.

which both of those easily clear for me. I bet I could come up with a few more if I read over some OS release notes from the last few years—"oh yeah, that! I use it so much I'd kinda forgotten it was a thing" sort of stuff.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#218

Post by EdJiang »

putzdown wrote: post #126

The main message I take from this story is that a decent quorum of consumers want Apple to offer a smaller phone in each generation. The OP seems not to have minded having to upgrade eventually, just not to a “virtual tablet.” I’ve heard others express the same desire.

Isn't the iPhone SE basically that? Why didn't OP get the SE?

https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/

Re: Forced to upgrade

#219

Post by RadiozRadioz »

Personally I keep two phones. I keep a very old Android phone that I like to use, then a new iPhone that I keep "normal". I use the Android phone for as much as possible, but bank apps don't work any more and many apps dropped support for my version years ago. In these cases, when required, I drop down to the iPhone and pretend to be a "normal" user; I install all my updates, use the stock browser, sign into all the cloud crap, pick the easy sign-in options to everything. The most expected, everage user that everybody is catering towards.

Using the iPhone sucks, but owning it lets me mostly use the Android phone I actually like, while still being able to do everything I would otherwise be arbitrarily restricted from doing.

Re: Forced to upgrade

#220

Post by aranelsurion »

iamwpj wrote: post #198

I think people forget how new and dynamic these devices are. Maybe in a couple of decades we can have evergreen devices, but for now the changes of the devices and capabilities is still driven by new releases and proliferation. These types of changes still require a ton of human effort and hardware restrictions. In the 60s and 70s car lifespans were much shorter (around 100k miles), but today those are much longer, d…

> I find it really odd that you wouldn't notice some of the improvements between iPhone 8 to 16.

I'm sure they notice some improvements, when I was out shopping for a new phone I could tell the then-flagship iPhone 13 having a slightly better display and a slightly better camera than 11 even by playing with it at the store.

But then, I've upgraded from an iPhone 6S+ to iPhone 11, and even 11 was unnecessary to me. I just had to because I bought the 16GB model back then, the lowest storage option, and with ever larger iOS updates my phone wasn't usable anymore.

With that a perfectly usable iPhone 6S became electronic waste, and I was out 600 euros, to do exactly what I've been doing on 6S: browsing, instant messaging, Uber and Uber-likes. Now the fonts look a little nicer, and camera is so much better, and that's.. about it for noticeable features for me. I wouldn't pay that much for either of those if I could.

My point is, I think smartphones hit a ceiling of useful features a long time ago. The big features, all the important stuff, the GPS, camera, browser, IM and a few other things have been figured out since a decade now. There are some smartphone "power users" who don't have a computer or maybe a TV and use it for watching movies, playing games or they are amateur photographers/influencers and such, for them maybe these new models still offer something. For everyone else an iPhone 16 does what an iPhone 6 does, just a little fancier.

Post reply on HN