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How come none of these ad blockers work on iPhone 5?
by pduan 11y ago
How come none of these ad blockers work on iPhone 5?
- psophis 11y agoApples framework for ad blockers is 64bit only.
- numair 11y agoYou have to have a 64-bit iPhone for the "content filtering" functions. The iPhone 5 is the last 32-bit CPU-based iPhone.
- pduan 11y agoThanks! Although jailbroken ad blockers were working. Guess it's an Apple framework limitation.
- userbinator 11y agoMost definitely an artificial limitation. There's nothing about blocking ads that requires a 64-bit CPU.
- hughes 11y agoWhat if there are (2^32)+1 ads on the screen!?
- usef- 11y agoApparently the block list is compiled/JITed to native code when loaded for better performance and battery life. They probably decided it wasn't worth the engineering effort to add a second code generation backend for 32bit phones (which are now three+ generations old and already facing RAM limitations).
- dave_sullivan 11y agoYeah, I love how they make it sound like old iphones "weren't powerful enough to handle blocking ads!" when blocking ads actually significantly cuts down on the resource usage. What's frustrating is that on their new phones you can block ads in Safari proper, but apparently not from within an app like Flipboard. I guess they're saving that particular "feature".
- Bud 11y agoHow would a framework that is explictly part of and designed for Safari possibly work in a third-party app with sandboxing? Seems pretty silly to accuse Apple of nefariously "saving" this. Similarly, Apple never "made it sound" like old iPhones "weren't powerful enough". You really shouldn't put things in quotation marks and attribute them to others when you just made them up.
- dave_sullivan 11y agoThey could have it edit the hosts file or some better global interface for blocking/not blocking certain hosts from any app (which would be most users' preference when using ad blockers?) I think it's ok to use scare quotes to convey sarcasm instead of a direct quote. There's admittedly some ambiguity there. 32bit vs 64bit is a super lame limitation to claim, and to most people "number of bits" would appear performance related. It's nice they finally enabled a way to block ads, but it's hardly a feature they deserve a pat on the back for. It's more like, I was seriously considering switching to Android if they didn't add it.
- yuanchuan 11y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong. I watched the Safari Content Blocker video that is presented in WWDC 2015 and it mentioned that the list of content to be filtered is compiled to bit code instead of reading it as a JSON file, which makes it more efficient and less draining on CPU. Since it is compiled down to bit code, 32-bit will not be compatible to 64-bit and that's why only the newer iPhones and iPads are compatible. It is not that iPhone 5 is not powerful enough but simply the CPU architecture doesn't support.
- avn2109 11y agoPlanned obsolescence. You need an incentive to buy a new iPhone.
- freshyill 11y agoThe fact that iOS 9 supports the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, which were released in 2011, kind of takes the bite out of the grand conspiracy theory.
- pinewurst 11y agoThe store won't carry 32-bit ad blockers but they do work. Try: https://medium.com/@searls/installing-a-content-blocker-on-ios-9-public-beta-a25b2b83848f https://medium.com/@searls/installing-a-content-blocker-on-i... Instructions to build and install a blocker that works on iPhone 5 and iPad Retina, where they work fine.
- 0x0 11y agoThat's pretty shabby of Apple to claim one thing and have their official developer tools say something else even without having to tweak anything :-/
- maccard 11y agoI believe their claim is that it's for performance reasons. Drawing the line at everything without a 64 bit processor seems reasonable (from a "where do we draw the line" not a where dhould we draw the line)