this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024

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247

Apple will update iPhones for at least 5 years in rare public commitment (arstechnica.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 128 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

This isn't new at all. Apple has been consistent with long term updates for a while.

iPhones have been getting at least 5 major annual updates sense the iPhone 4. The average is 6 updates.

If anything, it gets to a point where the old hardware can barley handle the newer OS.

This is the equivalent of them promising to be called Apple in 5 years - it changes absolutly nothing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history

Edit: thinking about it, this gives them an excuse to reduce the number of years they support phones. Instead of 6-7, can we now expect that to become only 5 years?

This could be a huge loss disguised as a win

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Didn't Apple push updates to older devices that made them slower so that you'd buy their newest?

[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Depends how cynical you want to be and whether or not you trust Apple.

They claimed to slow things down so the aging batteries could run for close to as long as they could when they were new

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

and whether or not you trust Apple.

You mean the company that repeatedly lies about being eco-friendly? The one that lied about refurbishing traded-in phones that they sent off to be crushed? The one that constantly lies about repairability, citing "privacy and security"?

Why wouldn't you trust them?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My guy, I never said whether you should trust them or not. I simply said "whether or not you trust Apple." That is up for you to decide

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

My dude, that's what we call a rhetorical question. It wasn't some sort of accusation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just give me a performance slider so I can slow my phone down myself when I need it.

Anyway I have an android, battery lasts 2-3 days with normal usage (like 3h SoT per day for 3 days usage) so I don't think I'll have to worry about battery - and batteries are getting better with every new model, we'll eventually reach a point where they're a non-issue

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It was more that older batteries can't handle the power draw, so they would shut down if the power draw spiked by an expensive operation.

It was a really bad user experience so Apple throttled so phones wouldn't crash.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If only they made their batteries easier to replace so this would be a non issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

They did offer cheap battery replacements to anyone with the affected models, essentially just covering the labor cost. Like $30 for a brand new battery.

No one makes batteries easy to replace on flagships these days because everyone is more concerned with waterproofing and form factor than they are with ease of battery replacement. I do miss the days of my old HTC Sensation, where I could just pop the back off and swap out the battery. I would carry around charged spares with me, so I would just turn off the phone, swap the battery, and have full battery instantly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Oh I thought it was just to get some extra juice out of the batteries, thanks for the info

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (6 children)

This myth keeps propagating online and it seems people never try to even Google what the issue was.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I think the main issue (amongst the tech community) was that they did this with out making it known to users (patch notes don't count - especially with autoupdates, who reads them?) the device just started getting slower.

If there was an option that was presented to users once the device got below 80% battery health to slow down the system to make daily batter life longer, then that would be an actually welcome feature. The problem was Apple just went a did it, and to a normal non-technical user, that means their phone is dying and they need to upgrade.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why in the world do patch notes “not count”? The whole point of those is to communicate changes to the users.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Because in the world of auto updates, patch notes aren't presented to users, and the average user isn't seeking them out to read them. They essentially just wake up to a new OS.

A what's new pop up or something would be more effective.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

If there was an option that was presented to users once the device got below 80% battery health to slow down the system to make daily batter life longer

This isn’t why they did it. Degraded Li-ion batteries cannot sustain their rated voltage at high currents due to increased internal resistance. Sufficiently undervolted CPUs/memory cells produce errors (specifically bit flips), which can rather quickly lead to memory corruption and a crash.

Reducing the CPU frequency (thereby reducing the peak current draw) is practically necessary in the face of a degraded battery. Various laptops were infamous for not doing this, because it resulted in a ~20-30 minute battery life, as the voltage drop became too great once the battery charge drops below 80-90%. Within the context of a smartphone, neglecting to use the remaining 80-90% would make it basically useless.

What Apple (and the rest of the smartphone industry, at this point) really needs to do is make their batteries replaceable.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A battery that lasts 8 hours and is a little slower, or a battery that lasts an hour… huh that’s a pretty easy choice, but yeah it can always be swung to make someone look bad.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (12 children)

It’s more like a phone that slightly slower, or a phone that will randomly turn off. Pretty sure everyone would want the first.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Or broke their screens

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Never forget the iOS 4 update for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

If they wanted to limit support to 5 years, they could've done so already. Apple never guarantees any support length, so they're just committing to the minimum this new UK regulation requires. This is probably nothing more than a formality.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Public commitment to what? That's two years less than Google's latest Pixel.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Those updates are easy when you have to release an system update to update the safari browser. Hell, you could call it a major security fix and fix some security issue on an old phone and every fanboy would be like "OMG iPhone 3s got an update.🤤" whereas Google can just ship browser fixes over the app store.

And version history means jack all when you can just name releases as you please. Google has been doing the same thing last 5-10 years. Emoji mixers, magic cleaner, launcher with google search bar at the bottom, turning a toggle into a big button on nav bar, enabling aren't major updates. Sure there are underlying changes, but they're mostly security patches and bugfixes. Android is still a bloated mess that needs ungodly amount of RAM and processing to keep even few apps running reliably in the background.

And guess where did Google learn this deceptive "long term update support" trend from?

The only thing they'll need is to decouple chrome and require a system update, and they could be providing updates for a decade.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Those updates are easy when you have to release a system update to update the safari browser. Hell, you could call it a major security fix and fix some security issue on an old phone and every fanboy would be like "OMG iPhone 3s got an update.🤤" whereas Google can just ship browser fixes over the app store.

Except that’s not what Apple means when they say they’ll update phones for five years. Security fixes aren’t the same as full iOS versions.

iOS 17, which came out September 2023, is available for the iPhone XR and XS, which came out in September of 2018. That’s a full OS update with all the non-hardware-based bells and whistles.

Security patches may very well release for older phones, but not full OS updates. Earlier this year they dropped a security patch for the iPhone 6S, a phone from 2015.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (1 children)

From first supply date.

I’d be more impressed if the did it from last supply date.

They still sell the 13, so you’ll only get 3 updates, not 5 with this announcement.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

“At least”. Most iPhones have been updated for 7 years or more

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (2 children)

My last phone lasted me 10 years, and even then I was tempted to just swap out some parts to keep it running.

There's no reason 10+ years couldn't be the norm for a smartphone, at least for people that don't need a portable RTX 4090.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My Pixel 4a 5G just died. Screen turned off, nothing turns the phone back on. Had it for just over 3 years.

I have a Samsung S8 that I'm using right now, and it accomplishes the vast majority of my day to day needs. I'm only missing a better camera, and Android 9 prevents the use of some apps. This this is from 2017! Glad I kept it in a drawer.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

iPhones routinely last 5-7 years just from security updates. I’ve heard of Genius Bar employees supporting iPhones over ten years old.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

My iPhone 6 was still getting security updates last year. Battery lasted all day (I replaced it myself 2yrs before that). Solid phone. Handed it down to my daughter. Definitely at that point with technology that the requirements for a phone aren’t going up as fast as tech has so there’s less reason to replace things all the time. My last PC was up to 12years before I turned it into a server and built a new one.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (13 children)

Big difference: on android you can stay 6 version behind and you probably find any incompatible app during real life use. Browser and framework (google play services) continue to get updates

On iOS once your device stops getting updates it becomes ewaste as almost every app becomes incompatible after 1-2 years . Browser stops getting updates at all so your browsing experience will degrade fast

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Not sure where you got that, my iPhone 6 was still getting OS updates last year (mostly security ones). I didn’t have any issues with the App Store either. Now there were a few apps like Pokémon Go that the phone couldn’t handle, but that’d be true io any old PC. Devs gear their apps to the larger percentage of devices so they can leverage the newer tech. Progress is what it is. Devs aren’t going to code for a 10yo phone if 0.5% of people have it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

That’s true, but this happens because usually 95% of people are always on the latest version a few months after the new version was released. For developers, it’s really not worth supporting older versions when the overwhelming majority of users already upgraded.

Still, many large companies still support older versions when the user base is very huge. I work for a huge bank and we had to support all the way to iOS 10. Only this year it was recently upped to iOS 14, which now covers probably 99.99% of users.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Don't forget you can get 10+ years of software support through third party devs

LineageOS comes to mind

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They’ve been doing this for years

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

They’ve been doing this, but because others have not been doing this, there is now regulation in this space.

Apple had to disclose this in writing to be fully compliant with PSTI.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

All in all, Apple had to agree to this in writing to be compliant with PSTI. They’ve already been doing this for a long time.

This is kind of like asking the Fast and Furious franchise to agree, in writing, to talk about family.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

my friend has a 20yr old core 2 duo system with the latest updates on windows 10

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Comparing apples to oranges are we?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

the difference here is just standardization.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Huh? In what way.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

First of all, you're implying it runs latest Windows - but Windows 11 shipped a few years ago.

Second - not really a fair comparison. 18 years ago the iPhone didn't even exist. And the oldest model (17 years old) had really weak hardware. 4GB of storage, 128MB of RAM, and the CPU was an order of magnitude slower than current spec CPUs (it was also 32 bit - and 64 bit ARM is a completely new architecture - similar to the failed Itanium).

Even if it was supported, it would be a horrible experience.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The core 2 duo was released 18 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

well, about 20 years old then

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Still low, my lineageos phone is going 8 years and is on latest android (and the device wasn't new when I bought it).

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