
iPhone 6S getting iOS 14 is like the Galaxy S6 getting Android 11 - finphil
https://www.androidauthority.com/ios-14-iphone-6s-android-1131739/
======
ComputerGuru
It’s crazy to think supporting a five year old device is now considered
ground-breaking. Windows did (does?) officially support devices fifteen years
old. Desktop developers are only now starting to release apps that don’t
support Windows XP, released twenty years ago.

From a consumer perspective, it’s crazy how often we’re expected to replace
mobile devices (even though the story now isn’t as crazy as it was five years
ago) and how much we shell out for them (even putting aside the monthly bills
associated with them). Not to mention a PC was shared by the family and now
every kid needs their own phone. Great for the economy but oh so wasteful.

~~~
skywhopper
Windows 10 can install on a typical 2005 PC? I'd be surprised if that's the
case.

Anyway, the point of the article isn't that five years is all that long, it's
that Android's two-year policy is despairingly short.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I believe so. The 32-bit variant, at least doesn’t even use SSE2 acceleration,
iirc.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/windows-10-specifica...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/windows-10-specifications)

1 GHz CPU, 1GB ram, 800x600 display, 32GB drive. Those are not 2005 specs,
those were easily around in 2000.

~~~
zozbot234
Yes but Linux will run on these same specs, while actually being usable
(including for web browsing) and even snappy at times. In fact, you could even
halve the amount of RAM and still be quite fine. (And 2000 is definitely
pushing it. Mid-2000s seems more likely.)

~~~
lostmsu
I run Ubuntu on 2017 PC (8700K, 32GB RAM, admittedly, HDD), and it is nowhere
near snappy. Boot takes over 2mins until apps actually start to show up,
starting new Terminal instance takes over 3sec (if not over 5). Regular
programs like VS Code or Firefox are about the same as on Windows.

~~~
rescbr
Software are more bloated than 3 or 5 years ago. Performance with a HDD will
suffer as everything has to be loaded to RAM before the CPU runs the code. Put
a SSD in this machine and for most tasks your experience will be the same as
with a brand new PC.

~~~
lostmsu
That would contradict a claim about 2005 machine being snappy with Linux. 2005
machine probably does not have an SSD.

------
compiler-guy
The thing that holds most android manufacturers back is that their chipset
vendors don't update their drivers for newer kernels.

So the next version of android comes along and requires a newer kernel, and
the phones built around these chipsets can't be updated.

The chipset folks see no new revenue for forward-porting their hacked up
kernels and drivers, and therefore aren't interested in updating.

That is the problem the Android ecosystem needs to solve.

Because Apple controls the full stack, they have no problem forward porting
any custom changes that they need. It's all the same codebase.

~~~
phire
This might be a contributing issue, but it seems this is far from the only
reason why Android has such shit upgrade lifetimes.

Android itself doesn't have a strict requirement for an updated kernel. It
will typically run fine on the original kernel tree the SoC launched with.

OnePlus occasionally does this, they are currently rolling out Android 10 for
the OnePlus 5 and 5T, based on the original kernel tree. That's a 3 year old
device (and I hate that I'm using a 3 year old device as my best example)

It seems like most Android vendors simply choose not to offer extended
updates.

~~~
dstaley
Android device manufacturers make their money when you buy a new device.
Apple, on the other hand, makes money when you buy apps (in addition to making
money on device sales I'm sure). They have an incentive to make sure that the
latest OS runs on as many devices as possible, so that developers can release
their apps to a wider audience, and so that Apple can make more money. Google
wants apps to run on as many devices as possible, so that's why they bend over
backwards to support older devices with their SDK. Samsung doesn't have any
incentive to update the Galaxy S6 since that won't bring them any additional
revenue.

------
JohnTHaller
If you bought an iPhone 6S Plus 128GB at launch, it cost you $949. $189.80 per
supported year so far.

If you bought a Pixel 1 128GB at launch, it cost you $749. $249.67 per
supported year over 3 years.

(The iPhone 6S Plus has same 1080p resolution as the standard size Pixel
phone, which is why I use them as the base, but for folks wondering...)

If you bought a Pixel 1 XL 128GB at launch with the higher resolution screen,
it cost you $849. $283 per supported year over 3 years.

~~~
huzaif
I like that the updates are offered. I wonder how usable these older devices
are after updates.

I have an iPhone 8 which hasn't been usable since the last update. Most
functions work but the performance has taken a nose dive. Some apps crash
randomly.

I would not use that device as my daily phone.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I have an iPhone 7 I bought for $110 recently on Swappa to mess around with
iOS development. It runs the current iOS 13 version quite well.

I'd suggest checking your battery health and maybe doing a reset.

------
the_rara_avis
I'm unsure whether I'll ever forgive Google/Verizon for only offering 2 years
of support for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. After all the promises of "this is
our flagship phone and we'll absolutely support it!" and then... only 2 years?

I've my issues with Apple like anyone else, but at least my phone is supported
for a reasonable amount of time - 5 years or so?

------
mataug
This is one of the many reasons why I switched to the iPhone after 7yrs on
Android, and I'm also getting my mother a iPhone as soon as possible.

My mom is used to android phones, its complex but she's understood the basic
design language and can navigate the phone easily. Whenever she needs help
though, its a massive struggle for me to do tech support over phone / video
call. Each android phone is different, and we've never had the same phone, and
we both get frustrated because the menus and the steps needed to modify
settings is different.

With an iPhone though, regardless of the iPhone model, I can send her a screen
recording that she can easily replicate on her phone. Consistency is extremely
valuable for a non power-user, and only iPhones offer such consistency over
multiple generations of iPhones, and iOS updates. Yes there are changes, such
as the switch from TouchId to FaceId in iPhone X, but they are incremental, as
compared to the confusing experience of switching from a Samsung device to a
OnePlus or a Xiaomi device.

------
davemtl
Wait.. Apple support a 5 year old phone? Why the heck am I still using an
Android device? I have a Galaxy S8, while I'm still lucky enough to get the
occasional security update, I won't be getting the latest Android release (at
least officially), although the CPU in it is probably perfectly more than
capable of running Android 11.

I have been considering getting a new phone and I keep eyeing up the iPhone 11
Pro, mostly because of the longevity of available software updates. Secondly,
with an Apple I'm not subject to waiting for the carrier to push out the
update.

------
DrBazza
Companies don't backwardly support old phones so they can ship new ones.
Planned obsolescence.

However, Apple rightly foster "brand loyalty" (awful phrase), by doing exactly
the opposite. And with the knowledge that people sell phones second hand, thus
increasing Apple's market share, and future customers.

It sounds like Samsung could learn a lesson or two.

A phone does have a shelf life though (4g, 5g...), but it's not as short as
these companies would like you to believe.

~~~
rescbr
UMTS (3G) is still up and running in many locations, sometimes HSDPA (3.5G) is
faster than congested/low signal LTE and it still is totally adequate even for
video streaming.

Those are early 2000's technologies which telcos are upgrading from to
increase subscriber density, but on the customer optics, they are mostly
equivalent to 4G.

------
nicwolff
This makes the old 4" SE still viable too! Apple was still selling them until
late last year – it's a fantastic little phone (with an obsolete camera) – and
you can get them refurbished for about $100. Highly recommended if you want to
hold and use your phone with one hand comfortably, or forget if it's in your
pocket!

~~~
saagarjha
It's been running iOS 14 quite well. Such a great phone!

------
tibbydudeza
The worst part of Android which Apple said screw you to was that each Samsung
phone and others has to released with a firmware bundle specific to a carrier
for each country (Orange/Vodacom etc ...).

------
bad_user
It's true, Apple products age very well. I don't like iOS much, I hate its
restrictions, but this is the number one reason for why I like Apple's
products.

I'm a previous Android user, my iPhone 8 is almost 3 years old and I'm
thinking of keeping it for another year or 2. I also have 2 Macbook Pro
laptops at home from 2012 and 2015 respectively and I actually prefer them
over the 2019 model from work. And a first generation iPad Pro (2015) that's
better than what I see on the market for Android.

Was just thinking of getting a Samsung tablet, but this is making me
reconsider. All of my Apple products still work and are kept up to date.

------
maxwellito
I'll be honest. It's true that it makes Android look a bit bad, at least the
ecosystem. But this only matter in the iOS world, where the the whole park
always move to the latest version, and you're required to get the latest
version. Because on android, you can still download apps from the PlayStore
for an Android KitKat. On iOS, if you're 2 versions behind, your device is
getting pointless.

~~~
guessbest
The App Store still supports older iOS builds.

~~~
OldHand2018
I have a first generation iPad and the App Store will still allow me to
download compatible apps. The Kindle app still allows me to download purchased
books.

------
ogre_codes
When I first bought an iPhone (iPhone 5, I was a slow learner), Android's
track record with updates was terrible but Google/ Samsung/ etc said it was
going to get better and promises were made. I was skeptical and bought the
iPhone. Every year since then, it seems like more promises and efforts get
made by the Android crowd but it's never gotten more than marginally better
and only for the top end phones.

There are other reasons I don't use Android, but this was very distinctly the
single reason I bought iOS initially and I've never regretted it.

------
agurk
Almost five years ago I got a OnePlus Two when it was released and about the
same time my then work gave me a new iPhone 6 (unrequested by me, and when
they appeared they told me I had to take it).

I still use that OP2 as my daily driver, now with LineageOS 17.1 (Android 10,
the current version) installed on it. It's not blazing fast but the battery is
at 80% capacity and it otherwise works well (and has a 3.5mm jack).

This obviously is the enthusiast option, but the first OnePlus had Cyanogenmod
as the factory installed OS on there. If their relationship had continued and
Cyanogen hadn't imploded it's quite possible that the OP2 would have the
latest build on there officially as LineageOS is what Cyanogen became.
Unfortunately there are no builds of 17 for the OP1.

That iPhone of the same vintage? I gladly gave it back when it was stuck on
the then just-outdated iOS 12 and there wasn't much of an obvious future for
it.

------
jdofaz
Google updated the original Pixel to Android 10, which was nice because that
was beyond stated major updates period. That was followed by a single security
update before it was abandoned.

I don't understand why they wouldn't keep issuing security updates when they
already did the hard part of the major update.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I'd sure appreciate it if Android phones got five years of support. Right now
my GS8+ is relegated to quarterly security updates only, and even _that_ is a
pretty big achievement in the Android world.

It's probably time that I upgraded it, but nothing _new_ even appeals to me
anymore due to nearly all phones ditching the headphone jack, even the
phablets. The "newest" phone I can find that ticks all the boxes I want
(wireless charging, headphone jack, expandable memory slot) would have to be a
regular S10, which is over a year old at this point.

------
fsflover
If you think that a smartphone should be supported for much longer than 5
years, consider Librem 5 [0] or Pinephone [1].

[0] [https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/)

[1] [https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/](https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/)

~~~
Xavdidtheshadow
Knowing basically nothing about either of these, I'm super curious as to if
either company will exist in 5 years. I've set myself a reminder and am
looking forward to the result.

~~~
fsflover
You do not need those companies for the software support. You only need
upstreamed drivers for Linux kernel for the hardware. This is what these
companies are doing and Android doesn’t.

Similarly, my laptop from 10+ years ago works flawlessly With Debian 10.

~~~
Xavdidtheshadow
Sure, but it's nice to have an active company for repairs, replacement parts,
support, etc.

It'll certainly keep running without a company backing it, but there have been
so many similar initiative, I'm personally curious how this one will turn out.

------
dehrmann
It's still not even close to the oldest PC Windows 10 supports. I've found
Windows 10 to be happy on ~any PC with more than one core, 4+ GB of RAM, and,
most important, an SSD.

~~~
jokoon
I still think the SSD requirement doesn't make sense.

RAM is cheap, and XP/win7 worked well without HDD, so I don't understand why
SSD matters.

~~~
Jtsummers
Hard drive speed is one of the slowest parts of your computer (after accessing
remote systems over the network). It usually becomes the bottleneck after
increasing RAM for most users, in my experience. The bus that transfers data
from your hard drive to the CPU is _much_ faster than what many spinning disks
can actually manage. Address that, and many performance issues go away and you
approach the essential limit of your system (bus speeds).

Of course, I say this primarily from the perspective of a developer, where
hard drive access is frequent when building systems. But a lot of workloads
are similarly HDD dependent, but maybe not to the same extreme.

~~~
jokoon
> Hard drive speed is one of the slowest parts of your computer

I guess the SSD is also slower than the RAM, so generally, storage is always
slower. Ethernet/wifi is generally as fast as a HDD, in order of magnitude.

There are many possible ways to avoid accessing the HDD, by buffering things
and storing them on ram as often as possible. If HDD worked well on windows
7/xp/linux desktops, there are no credible arguments why it would not work
properly on windows 10.

Again I would say the problem is Wirth's law, which here easily benefits SSD.
At one point, for an OS like windows is becoming so much complex that it
becomes just impossible to optimize things appropriately for something else
than a HDD. Backward compatibility and hardware compatibility might be one
source of the problem, but I'm sure there are other things at play.

I'm suspecting that in the end, the hardware people and people at microsoft
decided to abandon the idea of having an OS that works well on a HDD, because
the SSD industry would obviously benefit from this.

Wirth's law has completely replaced Moore's law, in my view. I say this over
and over, but when climate problems will cause economic problems, computing
will return to an era of lightweight software and hardware.

------
intpx
I can confirm, that even on beta 1, it runs really, really, really well on the
6s. I wonder if they rewrote all of the UI in swift or just really cleaned up
the libraries because the perceived speed, that thing makes a end user device
feel fast because it quickly moves you from on screen to the next when you
command it to, is improved over 13.5. I can also confirm that it runs really
well on an ipad (5 i think) with the same generation SoC, though I have seen
more bugs with things like widgets. In my limited testing, all of the apps I
run often work, i love that it tells me when an app is trying to use network
discovery and allow me to block it. I might install it on my daily use phone
by beta 2 its so good.

------
LaSombra
That is the single reason I switched to an iPhone. I don't want to pay US$800
for a phone that will stop being supported after 2, 3 years.

------
brailsafe
> Even with a phone that old, Apple is still sending it the latest iOS 14
> features, which will allow people still holding onto that device to use it
> for at least another year.

I'm running an iPad 3 with iOS9 and a OnePlus 3 running Android 9 that I
bought off Craigslist for $200. I know it's like driving a 20 year old
Corolla, but does lack of the latest OS make a device unusable? If my current
car worked I wouldn't buy a new one to get auto distance cruise control.

I haven't found features on smartphones very compelling probably since 2015.
Fingerprint sensor is nice, more speed is nice, but the complexity of what I
use it for isn't that significant.

------
KKKKkkkk1
One of the central tenets of Apple's marketing since forever is that price !=
value, and this is the manifestation of that idea. You might be paying more
for an iOS device, but unlike Android ones, it maintains its value for years
on.

------
Abishek_Muthian
Even better iPad Air2 was released a year earlier than iPhone 6S and it's
getting iPadOS 14; it's like Galaxy Tab 3 Lite which was released with Android
4.2.2 Jelly Bean and never got even a single OS upgrade getting Android 11.

------
Tepix
Little-known fact:

As part of the "Android Enterprise Recommended" program, some Android devices
(such as rugged devices) receive FIVE years of updates.

Unfortunately they are all very expensive and most of these devices are not
standard phones.

~~~
neurostimulant
Hmm, according to this page[1], google pixel 1 has the android enterprise
recommended seal, but it seem to be out of support after 3 years. Last
guaranteed security update is October 2019 according to this page[2].

[1]
[https://androidenterprisepartners.withgoogle.com/device/#!/1...](https://androidenterprisepartners.withgoogle.com/device/#!/15)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en](https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en)

~~~
Tepix
Pixel 1 is not a rugged device

~~~
neurostimulant
Yeah, but which one of those rugged devices that has five years of support?
The page doesn't provide that information, and if we use the "android
enterprise recommended" filter, it listed pixel phones that obviously don't
have 5 years of support. Or are all those devices marked as "rugged" actually
got 5 years of support? I tried going to some of the listed rugged device
manufacturers website and they don't seem to indicate how long they'll going
to support their device (unless the information is hidden somewhere).

~~~
Tepix
It was mentioned here: [https://9to5google.com/2018/09/05/google-android-
enterprise-...](https://9to5google.com/2018/09/05/google-android-enterprise-
recommended-rugged/)

------
Yetanfou
The Android update model is very different from the iOS model since many
Android vendors only support their devices for a short time, often no more
than 2-3 years where Apple provides updates for a much longer period. This is
offset by the fact that the core of Android is free software, on top of which
you can - but do not have to - install Google-proprietary parts. I choose not
to install those parts since I prefer to keep my data (mostly) to myself.

When Apple says "that's all, folks" they mean it - the device will no longer
get updates. When Samsung says "that's all folks" the user can install one of
the alternative distributions and continue to use the device.

I'm using a Galaxy SIII - using it right now in fact - with Android 9 more or
less _because I have not updated it to v10 (the current version of Android)
yet_. I might upgrade it, then again I might not, the thing works fine on v9.
For reference, this phone was launched in 2012 (3 years before the iPhone 6s)
with Android 4.0 and got official updates to 4.4. It then got updates through
Cyanogenmod, later through LineageOS. It is still updated OTA (as in 'over the
air', like when it was new). Once Android 11 comes around it'll probably be
ported to the SIII, the limiting factor tends to be driver support.

[1] [https://www.xda-developers.com/developers-
android-10-samsung...](https://www.xda-developers.com/developers-
android-10-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-galaxy-note-3/)

~~~
mh8h
_When Samsung says "that's all folks" the user can install one of the
alternative distributions and continue to use the device._

The problem is that a tiny percentage of users actually do that. It leaves the
rest vulnerable to any security issues that are found after the last update.

~~~
Yetanfou
That is a matter of user education comparable - but not equal - to what is
keeping 'the year or Linux on the desktop' always somewhere in the future. The
difference is that LineageOS (et al) is more or less identical to (the better)
vendor-supplied distributions while Linux is a different operating system, not
just a different distribution. Once installed something like LineageOS is just
as easy to keep up to date as vendor-supplied distributions.

------
adrianvincent
I much prefer Android over iOS, but this is the only reason I switched to an
iPhone 11 last year.

------
philshem
iPhone SE (1st gen) will get iOS 14, too. “Be still, my heart.”

~~~
jeffbee
What's interesting is the iPadOS supports A8-based iPads like the Air 2 and
the Mini 4, while the new iOS does not support any A8-generation devices like
the 6/6+.

~~~
saagarjha
I believe the iOS 13 cutoff was mostly a function of onboard RAM. (iPhone 6/6+
had a fairly anemic amount for what was being expected of them.)

------
ajkdhcb2
The ability to install a custom OS like LineageOS again gives the advantage
back to android

~~~
aruggirello
Spot on! Coincidence: my Samsung S6 is on LineageOS 17.1 since May - that is,
Android 10 - and despite being an unofficial build, I've got everything
covered - save a few minor glitches. Before that, it was on the last official
update (7.0).

------
tibbydudeza
Sigh .... as an Android user this really hurts.

~~~
evanlivingston
Does it though? Most android users I know don't care how recent their OS is.
Most Apple users I know don't care how recent their OS is. Most people I know
don't update their OS because then they have to update a bunch of other stuff
too.

~~~
t-writescode
The defining reason for my original switch back to iOS from Android was lack
of confirmation that a security update would be released to my phone.

It absolutely impacts the reasoning for some iPhone and Android users.

edit: added words to the last sentence

~~~
evanlivingston
I think it's a very tiny number of user though. Most users don't care about a
security update and many actively avoid them. A phone updating all the time is
seen by many to be a bug, not a feature. If my car was constantly nagging me
to take it into the shop to be optimized, I'd be pretty annoyed. If it was
taking itself to the shop and coming back telling me I now needed to update my
seat belts in order to work with it's newest updates I'd be further annoyed.

I switched from iPhone to Android because I end up breaking my phones after
about two years and I can't be paying more per annum for a phone than for a
car. I need an email client, web client, maps and sometimes a camera for
taking a reference photo. It's astounding to me that the cost of meeting those
needs seems to be increasing over time instead of decreasing.

We've seen over time how Apple uses software updates to aggressively force new
hardware purchases. The latest OS doesn't support version X of the software,
and more often than not your device doesn't support OS version Z so open up
thy wallet and get the latest hardware. This is precisely the reason people
are terrified of updating their software. It goes from working to not working.
This impacts my reasoning for NOT buying Apple hardware.

EDIT: You know what, I change my mind. This gains some respect from me for
Apple. I hate phones in general and I'm just grumpy.

~~~
nickv
I don’t think your car comparison is a fair one. You don’t see your iPhone nag
you to take it to an “Apple shop.” They usually update while you sleep.

My Tesla does the same thing, it’s a car that literally gets software updates
while I sleep. And it’s AMAZING. I get new features (sometimes a new alarm
system, one time a dash cam system, another time Spotify and once it made the
car actually faster) for free! There’s no taking it to the shop or nagging or
anything. This is an amazing feature.

On the android side you literally have phones that don’t get critical security
patches - that’s the scariest type of “it doesn’t work anymore so you need to
go buy new hardware” because you don’t even know you’re at risk.

Android devices not getting OS updates after two years, especially $800
android phones, is obscene. There’s no way to defend that.

------
supernova87a
And yet, cue the armchair commentators about how Apple tries to hobble your
hardware to make you buy a replacement.

~~~
cooper12
I hear this conspiracy theory so often from non-technical people. I think
what's going on is that obviously this isn't being done intentionally, but
rather each new release is mainly written for and performance tested on the
newest Apple devices (not to mention obvious hardware differences like CPU
instructions/speed/cache size/memory). Apple might test that everything works,
but they're not on these older devices 24/7 that they'll notice slight
degradations. Also, devices are not uniform. On some devices the flash memory
has been written to countless times and degraded. Other people are running
tons of crapware or have the storage full to the brim. Finally there's always
going to be some psychological suggestion going on: if I tell you to look for
a certain thing, you'll be more likely to notice it, real or not.

------
jp0d
I used Android phones for several years before switching to an iPhone 8 two
years ago. I think the major reason why manufacturers don't care to provide
updates is because they don't expect those phones to last more than 2 years.
It's not a joke. I've had some mid-range to expensive Android phones (HTC,
Samsung, Motorola) and none of them lasted more 2 years. Whereas my wife's 6
year old iPhone 5s is still working! How do you explain that? Every Apple
devices I've owned so far has been incredibly reliable and held their value
really well. My wife's 6 year old Macbook air with 4 gigs of RAM still works
fine and runs the latest Mac OS! I don't think I can get that level of support
from any other vendor.

------
nullsmack
The fact that Samsung won't even provide Android 10 for my Note8 should be
criminal, even by their policy of only updating their devices for two "major"
revisions. They shipped it with Android 7 when Android 8 was already out.

------
metta2uall
Given the harm caused by cybercrime, plus the increased police work,
governments really ought to make a minimum duration of security updates
mandatory.. Phones are already required to meet a raft of various regulations.

------
drewg123
That, and supported battery replacement from the oem is why I recently
switched from Google Nexus and Pixel phones to an iPhone 11.

~~~
dddddaviddddd
I called Motorola support once to ask about a battery replacement for a Moto G
(3rd gen). They told me it was impossible and effectively that I should buy a
new phone.

~~~
evanlivingston
[https://www.amazon.com/MAXBEAR-Li-Polymer-
SNN5965A-Replaceme...](https://www.amazon.com/MAXBEAR-Li-Polymer-
SNN5965A-Replacement-
Motorola/dp/B07QW1KLBW/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=moto+G3+battery&qid=1593028123&sr=8-3)

------
makecheck
It’s been surprisingly easy to support various Apple devices.

I think the notch and home-screen-bar layouts were a bit tricky but they did
have APIs in place and it was OK.

The biggest issue really was the 32-bit to 64-bit hardware transition; I
remember seeing weird graphical issues because floating-point results were
slightly different with float vs. double.

------
jayd16
Has anyone done a comparison to see when iOS 14 features were introduced into
Android? I believe picture in picture works on the S7 (which was introduced 4
months after the 6S).

Normally I'd feel a bit bummed about missing features and long term support is
a problem but there wasn't much that was new to Android.

------
mixmastamyk
Nice work Apple. My 6S is having problems†, but I don't want to let it go.
Headphone jack and lack of biometric scanning.

† Battery is shot and lightning connector bent from their impractical dock I
fancied in years past. _Very_ difficult now to get the perfect angle to allow
charging.

~~~
brunoluiz
I guess the jacks need a clean-up after sometime. My lightning jack was not
holding the charging cable anymore and I was super desperate to lose access to
the phone during Holidays.

I went to an Apple Store and they just cleaned-up for me (walk-in). I bet the
same applies to the headphone jack ;)

~~~
mixmastamyk
My phone's port is bent from use of these docks:

[https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-
lightnin...](https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGRM2AM/A/iphone-lightning-
dock-white)

It looks good but after a few years destroys the port due to lack of support.

------
lostgame
I often compose music on the go in GarageBand on my iPhone.

I own several pairs of _extremely_ high quality and highly accurate
headphones, and; no - I don’t want to carry an adapter around for headphones
that _prevents charging_ while headphones are plugged in. That’s obviously
logistically a no go for anyone performing live with an iPad. I’d never want
to rely on battery power live.

Even if I hadn’t invested in my audio gear and headphones specifically so
much, the latency on Bluetooth has made it a non option forever - unless I buy
one of the select few W1 certified Beats units, which then is just an
additional expense.

Apple does not currently offer, and it seems that they have no interest in
offering, a phone that I will buy in the future. I couldn’t believe they
pulled the headphone jack on the SE2, it seemed like the last ‘fuck you’ to
the audio content creators they’ve claimed to support forever.

iOS 14 support on iPhone 6S means Apple keeps me as an iPhone user for maybe
another year.

I will probably be downgrading to a dumbphone and an old, flash-drive modded
iPod gen 3 or 4.

------
jordache
I have a beater iphone 5s around to stream podcast and music while I'm doing
yard work. Works great! pretty smooth OS UI..

Can't say the same about any Andorid phones from the same era.

Looking forward to this new era of Apple ARM chips in desktops!

------
JoshuaRLi
Love how my old Galaxy S6 is stuck on ancient Android 7. And it's the verizon
version too, so I can't unlock the bootloader. Perfectly capable device, what
a shame.

Switched to iPhone SE a while ago because of this.

------
projektfu
I found a big difference in application and app store support for older
versions. You need to keep updating the iPhone to the newest version of iOS
because if you don't, all the apps will be undownloadable. When they stop
updating it, it's toast.

I had an Android Gingerbread (2.3) phone for a while when KitKat was out, and
I had lots of software to download. Then I updated to one on Marshmallow (6.0)
and it had plenty of software and probably still does. I'm not sure how much
software is still available that works on Nougat (7.0.1) on the S6 all the way
through Android 10, but I was really disappointed that I couldn't even keep
the iPhone 4S alive as a toy because all the old software was gone.

However, it's lame that Google drops security updates so early.

~~~
unix_fan
The minimum iOS version supported for most apps is iOS 11,sometimes even iOS
10.

~~~
projektfu
Yes but the old versions disappear more quickly. So if they decide to upgrade
to requiring 13, they don’t leave an old version available.

~~~
scarface74
Yes you can. Apple will allow you to download the “last compatible version”
going back to iOS 5.

------
e40
One of the reasons I left Android for iOS was just this issue. 2 years of
updates, then you're expected to purchase a new device. My iPhone 11 I expect
to have for many years. Hopefully 5+.

------
ngcc_hk
Size is important and that is something Apple should have deal with from day
one. It miss the big phone time and now it miss the small phone time. Really
want to have a small one.

------
acd
You can still install Linux, FreeBSD and FreeDOS on an old PC.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
And if phones used UEFI (or openfirmware or whatever), you could do just as
well there (subject to driver support, but that's varied on PC, too). The
absurd lack of standards in phone bootloaders and device trees is killing us.

~~~
fsflover
You will probably be interested in Librem 5 or Pinephone.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Given that I own a Pinephone, you would guess correctly:D

I'm having trouble finding out whether this truly helps though; do either of
those have a bootloader/firmware that provides device tree info to the booted
OS, or are they still relying on the booted system to have its own device tree
to describe the hardware?

EDIT: [https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/devicetree/usage-
mode...](https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/devicetree/usage-
model.html#history) _implies_ that u-boot can probably feed a device tree file
to Linux at boot time?

EDIT2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree)
says, "As an example, Das U-Boot and kexec can pass a device tree when
launching a new operating system.", so yeah it looks like that would work!
Sweet:)

------
greatgib
I think that no one in the comments recalled that the last times that older
iPhones got the last updates, they became slower with reduced artificially
reduced battery life.

So somehow, despite getting updates, old iPhones were becoming less functional
and users would get the feeling that they have to change it for a shiny new
recent more powerful iPhone!

~~~
Jtsummers
The battery life wasn't artificially reduced, it was naturally reduced by
years of use and charge cycles. Apple should have done a better job of
communicating why they slowed down the systems, and perhaps made it an option
rather than just doing it, but having had devices that shutdown because of the
battery (while it still had a charge, but was not capable of providing power
to the CPU running at full-speed) I'd have preferred slow downs to random
shutdowns.

The latter makes the device unreliable and unusable, the former makes it
reliable and _maybe_ unusable for some applications. It's also rectifiable by
replacing the battery (which I've done on several iPhones myself, and used
stores for others just for the convenience). That last part is what Apple
_should_ have communicated to people. We did that with my dad's old iPhone 6
and it went from "slow but usable" to "like brand new and snappy".

EDIT: A note, the device I had that did that to me was a laptop with a
spinning disk hard drive. When the battery started failing the laptop was fine
until I hit the GPU (which was often, I was in grad school and doing a lot of
graphics programming). Plugged in there were no issue, but on battery it'd
bring the system down when I ran anything that made the GPU and CPU run close
to full-speed. Fortunately I was able to get the data off, unfortunately I'd
pretty well fucked the system before I realized why it was happening (so it
happened a few times) and ended up just replacing the whole laptop rather than
just getting a new battery.

~~~
greatgib
Indeed, you are right, they did not reduce the battery level but reduced the
performances after the update.

So before the update, your phone was reasonably fast. A new phone/os version
comes out, you have an automatic update, and then your phone will be slower to
do the tasks that it was doing well before.

So, as an user what will be you conclusion? If you are not even aware that
performance slow down is due to the update, you will think "my phone become
older, I need to buy a more recent one!".

For memory:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batterygate)

"Apple Confirms It Degrades Your Old iPhone's Performance"

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/12/20/apple-
iph...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/12/20/apple-iphone-kill-
switch-ios-degrade-cripple-performance-battery/#7dfd1fd116a8)

And to be remembered, they were fined for that by the French regulator:

[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724)

------
samename
It used to be Apple was criticized for dropping support for phones too early.
Now, they're still supporting the iPhone 6S, a phone from 5 years ago. Did
Apple change their policy due to criticism, or have they honed their tech to
improve support for older devices?

~~~
Infinitesimus
Apple beats Android in the smartphone space but Windows has a much stronger
desktop support record

~~~
Angostura
I think that's fair. Big Sur support is limited to 2014 iMacs and later, which
is a shame because my late 2012 iMac is absolutely fine for home and business
use still.

~~~
OldHand2018
Intel released Haswell in 2013. Big Sur probably requires features introduced
with it, such as AVX2, new low power states, increased GPU execution units,
etc.

------
RMPR
Those updates have a price though [0], Android phones sure have their issues,
but I never heard something about Google slowing down Pixel phones after
updates. Moreover, if your Android device is not supported anymore, you can
still opt for LineageOS, with iPhones you're pretty much fucked up.

0:
[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724)

~~~
hombre_fatal
Since you keep posting that link, I don't think it's the smoking gun that you
think it is.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT208387)

~~~
RMPR
I'm well aware of this, but I guess my point was: it's not just black and
white like many people wanted to picture it in this thread, I use an iPhone 6S
myself.

