Semi-related, I've got an iPad 1st gen, and wanted to gift it to my nieces in El Salvador for school work.
So, I wiped it, hoping to give them a blank slate to install whatever they need.
I wish I hadn't - I could find absolutely nothing to install on the device from the Apple Store. Everything requires new iOS version (which is fine, of course), but I also can't install old versions of software on the iPad.
Basically, I screwed myself by wiping the device because now the default, pre-installed apps are the only apps that will ever run on this thing again.
Since 2012 and iOS 6, the App Store will offer to install the most-recent compatible version of an app.
You can buy the most-recent version of app on your computer using iTunes (or a newer iOS device), and then download the last compatible version to your iOS 6 device.
This kind of user-hostile and environmentally destructive and unsustainable planned obsolescence is exactly why you should use GPLv3 and the AGPL as your Free Software licenses. Apple and Google's current software offerings have been built on Free Software and what this is what we get in exchange.
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Google's lack of long-term support, only 2 years of OS updates for the Nexus and Pixel lines is lousy. But this is perfectly reasonable. Android 2.2 was released 7 years ago. The Nexus One and original Motorola Droid can run it; any device that can't has been obsolete for years.
I am typing this comment on a Thinkpad T43, a model that was released in 2005. It does not matter that you think 7 years ago is a long time. There is nothing "perfectly reasonable" about planned obsolescence. If a thing is still usable and someone wants to use it, preventing them from doing so is violating their freedom.
I am typing this comment on a Thinkpad T43, a model that was released in 2005.
Phones have advanced much more rapidly than computers in the last 10 years.
If a thing is still usable and someone wants to use it, preventing them from doing so is violating their freedom.
You are free to continue using your Android 2.1 devices, just not with Google's store. It is your position that no service provider should ever be allowed to drop support for any hardware that might still be functioning? Are you equally outraged at F-Droid's "planned obsolescence" in requiring 2.3? (https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=f-droid&fdid...)
> Phones have advanced much more rapidly than computers in the last 10 years.
That argument is irrelevant. If you have something, it does not matter how old it is, you should be able to continue to use it.
> You are free to continue using your Android 2.1 devices
Why do you act like you do not understand anything about Android phones or have never heard of rooting, when you obviously have? You cannot install any other operating system or even many applications on most Android phones without exploiting security holes, which is illegal in many jurisdictions.
Your argument about vendor support is nonsensical in this discussion - if you did not have to depend on the vendor for basic system software upgrades, there would be no problem. You are arguing against your own position with the F-Droid example - why are people restricted from upgrading their version of Android?
Marking a "Install from unknown sources" checkbox provided by the OS is not illegal, nor is downloading properly licensed APKs. If the applications don't (legally) permit themselves to be used without being downloaded from Android Market or provide their source code, they totally have the right to do that.
> if you did not have to depend on the vendor for basic system software upgrades, there would be no problem.
Totally agreed. But your initial comment didn't point that out. It just said naively how GPLv3, AGPL, and FSF are good and all other things are evil. Please make yourself more clear next time.
> Why do you act like you do not understand anything about Android phones or have never heard of rooting, when you obviously have?
Please do not take things on a personal level like this, that section of your comment was totally unnecessary and targeted, which doesn't add any value to this thread, according to the HN's approach to comments guide[1].
> Marking a "Install from unknown sources" checkbox provided by the OS is not illegal, nor is downloading properly licensed APKs. If the applications don't (legally) permit themselves to be used without being downloaded from Android Market or provide their source code, they totally have the right to do that.
Certain system changes, and applications that need to do these changes, are not possible without rooting. This includes things like, for example, using ext3/ext4 on external storage.
They probably aren't. Many of the older phones can be rooted and custom roms installed, but the problem is nobody is writing drivers for that hardware anymore.
Also, consider that Android universally has sideloading. Nothing stopping you from running whatever you want.
> Many of the older phones can be rooted and custom roms installed
"Rooting" is exploiting security holes, which is illegal under the DMCA in the United States and under other laws in other jurisdictions. The only reason that is even possible is accidental. The phones are deliberately locked down.
> the problem is nobody is writing drivers for that hardware anymore.
If the Linux kernel had been re-licensed under GPLv3, the source code for the drivers would be available and the drivers would still work. There are a ton of Free Software drivers in Linux and NetBSD/OpenBSD written in the 1990s that have had minimal modifications in the meantime and still run.
Are you sure? IIRC when I played with my old iPhone 3Gs (older than iPad) earlier this year, I could still install the old versions of apps, even if the new ones required higher iOS versions.
I kinda have to question the value of giving someone a 7 year old device with a $50 market value that can't run any modern apps. Why not just send her $50 to buy a new Android tablet that probably runs whatever she needs?
I tried most of Google's offerings, iPad refused to install them.
> I kinda have to question the value of giving someone a 7 year old device
The device is perfectly usable. The battery life is still great on it, the screen is unscratched, it runs school-related apps just fine (or, did). What am I supposed to do with the thing now? Just junk it?
edit: I ended up giving them an Android tablet. I still have this iPad, and would love to at least give it to an organization that can hand it off to someone in need. Something inside me absolutely balks at the idea of throwing away a perfectly usable, modern device just because the parent company turns a blind eye to it.
Well, you could just jailbreak it, find the compatible version of all apps that you need and sideload them. If you bought them previously, I don't see any moral issues with this.
Can you restore from an old backup? (iTunes by default preserves at least the most recent backup when you sync; in fact, I don't know how to stop it from keeping at least one.)
I was able to get this working recently* to get an older version of Pandora installed on an original iPhone.
Problem with this method is you're guessing at version numbers to find a version that will work, but it's neat when it does!
*The article says certificate pinning breaks this, but there's a comment about how to add Charles Proxy's certificate to your trust store which seems to circumvent this.
To anyone who has this problem, there's the option to download older versions but you have to be logged in to the appstore using an apple id that was used to download that version previously.
a 1st gen iPad .. I'd just buy and gift them a $329 iPad (2017) which is an INSANE deal for what you get, arguably the best value per dollar of any Apple device, ever.
I have the opposite problem: I have a 1st gen iPad that still has all the old apps we used on it, but it sat on a shelf for a year and now the battery won't charge. I've tried all the little tricks scattered across the 'net and nothing. I can get the screen to power up to the "Connect to iTunes" logo, but it won't charge in that mode and won't boot the OS off the charger alone.
I'd love to get it running, as you said it's still a very capable device and if nothing else would be a good digital newspaper for the bedside. Unfortunately, I think it's toast and I'm going to have to send it to the recycler.
Also it's more than a little weird to expect a V1 product in its genre, from 2010, to still be useful 7 years later. I think your expectations are all messed up here.
To be clear - this doesn't mean that you can no longer install apps on Android 2.1 and lower, just that you can't use Android Market/Google Play. It's pretty easy to sideload APKs, and the development tools still provide for Android 2.1 and lower. Of course, you lose the convenience and relative malware protection that Google Play offers, but if ease-of-use and/or security are primary concerns you shouldn't be using a 7.5 year-old operating system anyway.
The graph legend says they don't show versions with user share lower than 0.1%, so one could infer that the user share for 2.1 is <0.1%, but they also say that this graph only shows "devices that visited the Google Play Store in the prior 7 days". Devices which haven't connected to Google's servers recently (for instance, because they don't have an Internet connection) aren't counted.
And while the development tools still allow developers to target older releases, there were large API changes in Android 3 and 4 (these were the versions which added tablet support), so developers often will target only API level 14 (Android 4) and above.
Two years ago, cheap $50 smartphones with 3.5" screens running on generic MediaTek chipsets sold in West Africa were based on Android 4.0 or 4.2 depending on the device. I wouldn't worry too much about the market share of devices older than 4.0 at this point.
For context, Android Eclair 2.1 was released 7.5 years ago. Android Froyo 2.2, which succeeded it, was released 7 years ago and is still supported by the Google Play Store.
The problem is that support for hardware ends far too soon. We're about to hit a transistor size wall; it doesn't make sense to spend $500 on a phone that is functionally equivalent to your old one just to get a software update.
Why can you run a cutting edge commercial OS on a 12 year old PC but not a 2 year old phone?
You wouldn't buy a $500 washing machine, microwave, or oven that only lasted 2 years, but you're expected to do so for a phone?
> Why can you run a cutting edge commercial OS on a 12 year old PC but not a 2 year old phone?
Because Windows isn't open source.
That is absolutely the answer. Because hardware manufacturers couldn't just take Windows and recompile the kernel for their own custom hardware they had to support the IBMPC standard bios interfaces and ACPI.
With Android, when hardware manufacturers can get away with not standardizing the hardware platform to be OS generic, they make custom shit blobs they stick in a Linux kernel and leave for dead after 2 years.
Because it sells new devices. If you could keep an old S3 updated to the latest Android effortlessly there would be no artificial software based pressure to buy a new phone as long as you still liked the old one.
I actually find it really fascinating that it seems that hardware vendors are aggressively trying to create new modes of planned obsolescence as Google ramps up efforts to reduce their ability to abandon updates. User irreplaceable batteries are the biggest one to me, where vendors take the extra step to be truly devious and make hard-to-access batteries in sealed phones actually impossible to replace because they either solder the battery in or make it break the connectors when you try to remove it.
I agree, Android is particularly bad for this as well. I work with someone still using an iPhone 4 - works fine for him in that he can make and receive calls on it which is all he uses it for, but thanks to shoddy update support I can still send specific characters to him in an SMS and make his phone restart!
Everyone keeps saying "7.5 years old" as though that is the only fact that matters.
I happen to like my Nook Glowlight. I have a newer Kobo also, but, like all the new ereaders, it lacks hardware page-turn buttons, and microsd slot.
In the case of that Nook, I did in fact root it and already had to side-load apps anyway, since it only runs android 1.6. So, don't bother telling me how to make my Nook work. It's not about me or my Nook. It's about this idiotic response that no one could possibly have any legitimate reason to run 7 year old software.
You know what? I'd LOVE to run new software on my 7 year old DEVICE. But they don't bother to make current software compatible with old devices.
It would be incredibly inconsiderate to demand it, but I'd even almost swallow "just get a new device", except they don't make new devices that have the same features as the old device. For instance that Nook. New nooks and all other ereaders lack the features I specifically valued about that one.
There are countless examples of features that you want, that devices have only one time or for a short while, and then not again. Hardware buttons, sdcard slot, removable battery, headphone jack, (conversely, headphones with a cord that plugs into anything, how do you use airbuds with your roku remote? ), size that actually fits in your hand even if you're a small woman, special museum glass anti-reflective screen (vaio tz laptop), or literally countless other features that someone else decides you no longer need.
Meaning there are countless examples of why someone might actually want to run "gasp 7 year old software omg I think I just threw up in my mouth..."
Yet another reason to be thrilled, as an Android user, that my ability to upgrade is held hostage to my phone vendor's willingness to package it. Google has so much weight to throw around, and seems to recognise the problem with fragmentation; why do they only ever take such half-hearted steps to combat it?
I want to believe, but I'm worried that it won't work any better than their past efforts to address fragmentation. eg Android Update Alliance (2011). I'm sure there were other failed promises, but I can't recall offhand.
That alliance sounds like just the motivation/PR part. Treble is the "remove the actual technical hurdle that made it hard" part. That makes me more hopeful.
Unlockable bootloader and carrier unlockable -- if you are paying full price for a phone, these are non-negotiable. Otherwise what are you really buying?
Won't help if the hardware manufacture does not support the newer hardware even google itself has had to stop updating a few devices because of no hardware support by qualcomm or Nvidia. Though google is trying to change with it latest version of Android.
> Won't help if the hardware manufacture does not support the newer hardware even google itself has had to stop updating a few devices because of no hardware support by qualcomm or Nvidia.
To be fair, at that point my complaint about Google and phone manufacturers is kind of irrelevant ….
> Though google is trying to change with it latest version of Android.
How can software change hardware support? (That sounds snarky, but I'm serious.)
The iPad First Gen was released at the same time as the version of Android that is mentioned in the article as losing access to Android Market. The current top comment in this post is about the iPad First Gen being basically useless for anything except the built-in apps because nothing in the App Store can be installed to it.
That's not Apple doing this, that's the developers. Almost no company thinks it makes financial sense to support old OSes when 97% of users are using iOS 9 and above.
Apple certainly plays a part, when their sdks stop building for older versions, and developers have to choose between supporting older versions or newer versions; or maybe make a separate app for old os? The first time they did this, they also didn't make it easy for users on older oses to reinstall the last version that supported their os.
This notion ignores the reality: That nothing about Android is actually open, because Google controls all the OEMs through confidential agreements. They've already taken all sorts of control, for the purposes of branding, monopoly expansion, etc. (They not only require over 20 apps be installed by OEMs, but dictate which are default and which appear on the homescreen and where.)
The only reason the Android update situation is as bad as it is: Google doesn't want the expense or responsibility for maintaining or testing hardware support.
I pick that there is no contradiction in my having a preference, even if different groups of people have different preferences. (EDIT: To be fair, I guess you didn't say that this is contradictory, only that "Google can't win"; so let me amend my response to: I pick that I have no responsibility to help, or even allow, Google to win.)
> At least you acknowledge you want something unreasonable.
I don't acknowledge that it is unreasonable, only that it is not universal (and that, perhaps, what I want is not in Google's best interests, or more accurately that I don't care whether it is). Just to be clear, what I want is that Google use some of its power to bring phone manufacturers into line vis a vis Android fragmentation.
That this is not totally unprecedented is demonstrated by Apple's doing so (with iOS rather than Android, obviously), to, if I recall correctly, mostly applause from users. I agree that this necessarily involves some trade-off in openness, but, again, that is by no means an unprecedented trade-off; it is one to which, again, Apple has vehemently committed without sparking a total user revolt.
Whether Apple's doing something should be any evidence of its reasonableness, I think that there is some case to be made about why my desire is obviously unreasonable.
(See also juliand's post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14599189 elsethread, which is one of many pieces of evidence that Google itself finds my position reasonable, even if, as you say, it is not clear that they 'win' by taking this position.)
So, I wiped it, hoping to give them a blank slate to install whatever they need.
I wish I hadn't - I could find absolutely nothing to install on the device from the Apple Store. Everything requires new iOS version (which is fine, of course), but I also can't install old versions of software on the iPad.
Basically, I screwed myself by wiping the device because now the default, pre-installed apps are the only apps that will ever run on this thing again.