5 ms·

Come on, Apple. What are you doing? I was thinking just the other day that Apple should virtualize older iPhones within the latest iPhone system software, so yo

by _j0r5 2y ago

Come on, Apple. What are you doing? I was thinking just the other day that Apple should virtualize older iPhones within the latest iPhone system software, so you could seamlessly open old apps and games (32-bit, anyone?) in their own containerized environments. I can't think why they haven't added this feature for any reason other than money grubbing. You could even customize the containers to be completely closed off from the rest of the iPhone—no contacts, no Internet access (or high security Internet access), etc. Come on, Apple. Do something good for once. Oh and bring back the headphone jack. -Mark

djha-skin 2y ago
Apple does a lot of good stuff, But remember that their whole business model is selling hardware. They have no financial interest in making it easy to continue to use old phones.
- samatman 2y ago
  For some value of 'old' perhaps. In terms of length of official support, and aftermarket value, Apple is at the top of the game. Those strike me as the most important metrics here. And while you might think that once official support is over, that's the end of the story, this is far from true. Those phones end up in developing markets, where there's an entire cottage industry dedicated to keeping them going. Jailbreaking is getting harder, so that might stop being an option eventually, but so far it's viable, and that's what happens.
- downWidOutaFite 2y ago
  Or any interest in reducing the incentives to buy their $200 Bluetooth headphones.
- asveikau 2y ago
  Old phones no, but old apps yes. If a developer has abandoned an app and hasn't been investing in the update treadmill, but end users still care about it, that can make people feel negatively about Apple.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    > Old phones no, but old apps yes. If a developer has abandoned an app and hasn't been investing in the update treadmill, but end users still care about it, that can make people feel negatively about Apple. On the other hand, it is well within the standard Apple approach to say "here's how we want people to use our hardware. We are well aware that this is not consistent with how some potential and past users want to use the hardware, but we are comfortable with losing those customers if they will not adapt to the new set-up."
    - asveikau 2y ago
      I know it's not the Apple approach, I'm just pointing out an interpretation that it isn't particularly focused on end user needs in this area. I feel like it's mostly an attitude about where to focus engineering resources, which is very "inside baseball", but people have post hoc justifications that it's really what end users want anyway.
- neodymiumphish 2y ago
  They have to maintain a balance that still incentivizes current purchases. Otherwise it’ll be a constantly trend of “don’t buy now, support might not last.”
- foldr 2y ago
  This isn't as true as it used to be, now that Apple is getting increased revenue from subscriptions. If your old iPhone continues to work well, then Apple has a better chance of selling you Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. etc.
- tomjen3 2y ago
  In this case, they only broke their newest hardware.
mrpippy 2y ago
iOS dropped 32-bit support because the CPU itself no longer supports AArch32. Virtualization won’t help.
Hackbraten 2y ago
Someone would have to maintain all the old OS versions that would be required to run those old apps, and keep those OS versions reasonably secure. That sounds like a maintenance nightmare to me.
- exe34 2y ago
  No, the old versions would not have access to anything else, so the only thing that needs to change is the part running the container. Present one folder as the whole disk drive to the old. Send touch screen input to the old. That's about it really.
  - Hackbraten 2y ago
    If you're trying to play older 32-bit games, chances are you'd like to have sound, too. Who is going to develop the virtual audio device drivers (for each OS) that are required to virtualize sound? Who is going to run all the tests needed to make sure that the guest-side 32-bit iOS 7 (and 8, 9, 10) drivers are going to play well with the host-side driver? Who is going to accept the risk that someone takes over the guest VM after exploiting one of the well-known and unpatched kernel-level vulnerabilities present in iOS 10? What happens if malware finds and exploits a bug in that new audio driver virtualization pipeline so it can escape the VM and then compromise the host iOS?
    - exe34 2y ago
      yeah it's much better to lose access to games you've paid for. this is why I stopped buying apps on Android - if it's not open source, I'm not interested. I also don't buy DRM stuff unless I know I can remove the lock.
gjsman-1000 2y ago
[flagged]
- adamc 2y ago
  This is one of the things I dislike about hacker news: People responding to what is clearly emotional hyperbole as though it were a literal statement. The OP expresses disappointment with Apple -- exactly what the cause was is unstated. People are allowed to have such feelings. I've had them myself. In recent years, Apple has killed things I liked and pushed a lot of services/login crap I have zero interest in. Other people like the new changes. That's OK too.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > OP expresses disappointment with Apple I read it as polarisation against Apple. As in what follows is not to be taken literally, but as a diatribe. The message being, in essence, "I don't like Apple." If that wasn't the intended message, OP is right--the comment is stronger without it.
  - plufz 2y ago
    I agree that feelings are okay. But also the internet and society is so overloaded with emotional hyperboles. I like with HN that a lot of people make the effort to be bit more diplomatic, less aggressive and more based in facts than most online communities.
  - evilduck 2y ago
    Nobody wants to read emotional hyperbole when it's just an excuse to lie or exaggerate instead of being truthful or accurate. It's more common than not to find people expressing disappointment with Apple online who are lying, ignorant to the point that their complaint is just incomprehensible, using long outdated and incorrect information, exaggerating the problem to the point of absurdity, or applying expectations or standards that literally no company or alternative product on Earth meets. A good chunk of the time you can even get people to reply in a way that betray the fact that they never even owned or used the Apple product they're complaining about, they're just seeking upvotes or karma with easy and popular sentiments even if they're factually wrong. Holding Apple accountable and having a negative opinion is fine, but it's a fairly rare thing to find someone online doing it in good faith.
jsheard 2y ago
For better or worse it's never been Apples MO to keep software working forever, that's Microsoft's schtick. PPC OSX software is gone, x86-32 OSX software is gone even on hardware that could still run it natively, AArch32 iOS software is gone, and if history is any indication it's only a matter of time before x86-64 OSX software is gone too.
- adamc 2y ago
  You make a good point. It was kind of the breaking point for me when Apple killed 32-bit executables, because it meant even old steam stuff couldn't run. But that's a casual consumer viewpoint. It's valid to buy them if they solve your problems in the here-and-now. (I used one for a year at work and it was a bad experience, but a lot of that was having x86 libraries I had to use, so... Bad choice for here-and-now.)
- TaylorAlexander 2y ago
  One time I had to run a very old version of Eagle CAD on Linux and it turned out that even tho I had a native Linux version, it was easier to run the windows version in wine! I guess stable interfaces have their advantages.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Linux (the ecosystem; not necessarily the kernel) is actively hostile to binary software.
    - nullpoint420 2y ago
      It baffles me as to why. I think it’s hilarious how Linus is so careful to not break user space (for good reason) and all the user space libraries break every week.
      - Daishiman 2y ago
        Because every distro runs it’s compilers with a variety of flags and safety features and library versions and ABI quirks that make supporting stable ABIs a pain in the butt.
InvaderFizz 2y ago
32bit ARM and aarch64 are wildly different instruction sets. 32bit ARM may as well be x86 or MIPS as far as running it on aarch64 hardware, it is going to require just about the same level of emulation(memory models may be similar which would help, but that's about it). Unlike x86/64, the 32bit silicon is entirely gone in most aarch64.
- DeathArrow 2y ago
  I wonder why Intel and AMD still keep the 32 bit and even 16 bit parts. Are there people still running many legacy apps?
  - deafpolygon 2y ago
    Yes
  - jerdfelt 2y ago
    Intel has proposed dropping 32-bit and 16-bit support in the future. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...
    - layer8 2y ago
      The proposal doesn’t remove 32-bit user land or (I think) virtualization.
      - wtallis 2y ago
        X86S allows 32-bit ring3 (userland) but even VMs are stuck in long mode and only support 32-bit code for userland. Booting a VM for a 64-bit OS that has a legacy bootloader with 16-bit or 32-bit code would require software emulation of that code.
  - adamc 2y ago
    As a consumer, yes. Old steam games are a big deal. In business... not where I work, but I hear stories of shops that still have lots of old 32-bit COM stuff, etc.
christianqchung 2y ago
I don't think almost anyone actually want a headphone jack anymore. Just the consumer reality in 2024. I do obviously, but it's clearly too rare for them to bother with.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Yes people seem happy to buy not only new phones every couple of years but new accessory devices as well. I don't understand it but it's quite apparent.
  - plufz 2y ago
    I find it very practical with small Bluetooth earbuds, but I agree on the consumption aspect of it. I really don’t like that I can’t change the batteries in my AirPods. I would even be semi-okay with having to hand in them to a technician for battery exchange, for a reasonable cost. But the current battery exchange for airpods is just another name for buying new earbuds. And the third party solutions that actually change the batteries cost about as much as new buds.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- plufz 2y ago
  Why do you want a headphone jack? Not a rhetorical question, just genuine interest. Is it about audio quality, avoiding batteries or something else? I would find it so cumbersome to use a cable on a handheld device nowdays. But different things for different people! :)
  - developerDan 2y ago
    Not who you are replying to but my $30 wired Apple earbuds (came with my 6S) have outlived all of my co-workers half dozen $160 AirPods. That’s reason enough for a lot of people.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Apple should virtualize older iPhones within the latest iPhone system software, so you could seamlessly open old apps and games (32-bit, anyone?) in their own containerized environments What is the practical, broad use case for this? (And can't you virtualize older iOS version on a Mac?) > bring back the headphone jack The article is about Macs. If you want a headphone jack, get a 3.5mm:USB-C converter.
- oceanplexian 2y ago
  Speaking of headphone adapters. It’s crazy to me that something like an iPod released in 2005 will output better audio when playing a lossless file than the most state of the art $2,000 iPhone with Apple’s most state of the art $549 headphones in 2024. The remarkable thing is that 90% of listeners don’t seem to notice. Their reference point is a lossy 128kb/s file from a streaming service double transcoded over bluetooth so that must be what music sounds like. Who would have thought technology would progress backwards.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > remarkable thing is that 90% of listeners don’t seem to notice That's not a remarkable thing, it's the reason. (And out of the remaining 10%, a good fraction may notice but prefer the new convenience. Those who remain can find the difference between most and all, or go corded.)
  - dagmx 2y ago
    Of course to make this strawman argument you have to ignore the previous comment that says you can do wired connections just over a different port type. Let’s also ignore any understanding of the DAC quality between older iPods and newer iPhones, where even the dongle Apple sell are considered a high quality DAC. Let’s also ignore any advances in Codecs in that time, or advances in audio hardware itself. Let’s also ignore that most iPod users would have bought low quality MP3s or medium quality AACs at the time. Not to mention that most customers use streaming today so wouldn’t even be able to take advantage of the higher quality codecs today. Finally let’s ignore customer preferences and what niche set of customers would have bought high end enough audio equipment and have the hearing to appreciate and also not want wires today to even fall into your narrow band description. Who would have thought that if you ignore all aspects that are inconvenient to an argument that you could make any argument you want?
GeekyBear 2y ago
It's probably worth finding out whether this is a bug or an intentional decision before making assumptions.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  For Apple Hanlon's razor rarely holds, they're both too competent and anticonsumer for this sort of thing to not be intentional malice in an attempt to sell more stuff. Maybe not, but very unlikely and even if it's a bug they'll probably call it a feature and keep it.

by _j0r5 2y ago

djha-skin 2y ago

Apple does a lot of good stuff, But remember that their whole business model is selling hardware. They have no financial interest in making it easy to continue to use old phones.

samatman 2y ago
For some value of 'old' perhaps. In terms of length of official support, and aftermarket value, Apple is at the top of the game. Those strike me as the most important metrics here. And while you might think that once official support is over, that's the end of the story, this is far from true. Those phones end up in developing markets, where there's an entire cottage industry dedicated to keeping them going. Jailbreaking is getting harder, so that might stop being an option eventually, but so far it's viable, and that's what happens.
downWidOutaFite 2y ago
Or any interest in reducing the incentives to buy their $200 Bluetooth headphones.
asveikau 2y ago
Old phones no, but old apps yes. If a developer has abandoned an app and hasn't been investing in the update treadmill, but end users still care about it, that can make people feel negatively about Apple.
- JadeNB 2y ago
  > Old phones no, but old apps yes. If a developer has abandoned an app and hasn't been investing in the update treadmill, but end users still care about it, that can make people feel negatively about Apple. On the other hand, it is well within the standard Apple approach to say "here's how we want people to use our hardware. We are well aware that this is not consistent with how some potential and past users want to use the hardware, but we are comfortable with losing those customers if they will not adapt to the new set-up."
  - asveikau 2y ago
    I know it's not the Apple approach, I'm just pointing out an interpretation that it isn't particularly focused on end user needs in this area. I feel like it's mostly an attitude about where to focus engineering resources, which is very "inside baseball", but people have post hoc justifications that it's really what end users want anyway.
neodymiumphish 2y ago
They have to maintain a balance that still incentivizes current purchases. Otherwise it’ll be a constantly trend of “don’t buy now, support might not last.”
foldr 2y ago
This isn't as true as it used to be, now that Apple is getting increased revenue from subscriptions. If your old iPhone continues to work well, then Apple has a better chance of selling you Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. etc.
tomjen3 2y ago
In this case, they only broke their newest hardware.

mrpippy 2y ago

iOS dropped 32-bit support because the CPU itself no longer supports AArch32. Virtualization won’t help.

Hackbraten 2y ago

Someone would have to maintain all the old OS versions that would be required to run those old apps, and keep those OS versions reasonably secure. That sounds like a maintenance nightmare to me.

exe34 2y ago
No, the old versions would not have access to anything else, so the only thing that needs to change is the part running the container. Present one folder as the whole disk drive to the old. Send touch screen input to the old. That's about it really.
- Hackbraten 2y ago
  If you're trying to play older 32-bit games, chances are you'd like to have sound, too. Who is going to develop the virtual audio device drivers (for each OS) that are required to virtualize sound? Who is going to run all the tests needed to make sure that the guest-side 32-bit iOS 7 (and 8, 9, 10) drivers are going to play well with the host-side driver? Who is going to accept the risk that someone takes over the guest VM after exploiting one of the well-known and unpatched kernel-level vulnerabilities present in iOS 10? What happens if malware finds and exploits a bug in that new audio driver virtualization pipeline so it can escape the VM and then compromise the host iOS?
  - exe34 2y ago
    yeah it's much better to lose access to games you've paid for. this is why I stopped buying apps on Android - if it's not open source, I'm not interested. I also don't buy DRM stuff unless I know I can remove the lock.

gjsman-1000 2y ago

[flagged]

adamc 2y ago
This is one of the things I dislike about hacker news: People responding to what is clearly emotional hyperbole as though it were a literal statement. The OP expresses disappointment with Apple -- exactly what the cause was is unstated. People are allowed to have such feelings. I've had them myself. In recent years, Apple has killed things I liked and pushed a lot of services/login crap I have zero interest in. Other people like the new changes. That's OK too.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > OP expresses disappointment with Apple I read it as polarisation against Apple. As in what follows is not to be taken literally, but as a diatribe. The message being, in essence, "I don't like Apple." If that wasn't the intended message, OP is right--the comment is stronger without it.
- plufz 2y ago
  I agree that feelings are okay. But also the internet and society is so overloaded with emotional hyperboles. I like with HN that a lot of people make the effort to be bit more diplomatic, less aggressive and more based in facts than most online communities.
- evilduck 2y ago
  Nobody wants to read emotional hyperbole when it's just an excuse to lie or exaggerate instead of being truthful or accurate. It's more common than not to find people expressing disappointment with Apple online who are lying, ignorant to the point that their complaint is just incomprehensible, using long outdated and incorrect information, exaggerating the problem to the point of absurdity, or applying expectations or standards that literally no company or alternative product on Earth meets. A good chunk of the time you can even get people to reply in a way that betray the fact that they never even owned or used the Apple product they're complaining about, they're just seeking upvotes or karma with easy and popular sentiments even if they're factually wrong. Holding Apple accountable and having a negative opinion is fine, but it's a fairly rare thing to find someone online doing it in good faith.

jsheard 2y ago

For better or worse it's never been Apples MO to keep software working forever, that's Microsoft's schtick. PPC OSX software is gone, x86-32 OSX software is gone even on hardware that could still run it natively, AArch32 iOS software is gone, and if history is any indication it's only a matter of time before x86-64 OSX software is gone too.

adamc 2y ago
You make a good point. It was kind of the breaking point for me when Apple killed 32-bit executables, because it meant even old steam stuff couldn't run. But that's a casual consumer viewpoint. It's valid to buy them if they solve your problems in the here-and-now. (I used one for a year at work and it was a bad experience, but a lot of that was having x86 libraries I had to use, so... Bad choice for here-and-now.)
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
One time I had to run a very old version of Eagle CAD on Linux and it turned out that even tho I had a native Linux version, it was easier to run the windows version in wine! I guess stable interfaces have their advantages.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Linux (the ecosystem; not necessarily the kernel) is actively hostile to binary software.
  - nullpoint420 2y ago
    It baffles me as to why. I think it’s hilarious how Linus is so careful to not break user space (for good reason) and all the user space libraries break every week.
    - Daishiman 2y ago
      Because every distro runs it’s compilers with a variety of flags and safety features and library versions and ABI quirks that make supporting stable ABIs a pain in the butt.

InvaderFizz 2y ago

32bit ARM and aarch64 are wildly different instruction sets. 32bit ARM may as well be x86 or MIPS as far as running it on aarch64 hardware, it is going to require just about the same level of emulation(memory models may be similar which would help, but that's about it). Unlike x86/64, the 32bit silicon is entirely gone in most aarch64.

DeathArrow 2y ago
I wonder why Intel and AMD still keep the 32 bit and even 16 bit parts. Are there people still running many legacy apps?
- deafpolygon 2y ago
  Yes
- jerdfelt 2y ago
  Intel has proposed dropping 32-bit and 16-bit support in the future. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/envisioning-future-simplified-architecture.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...
  - layer8 2y ago
    The proposal doesn’t remove 32-bit user land or (I think) virtualization.
    - wtallis 2y ago
      X86S allows 32-bit ring3 (userland) but even VMs are stuck in long mode and only support 32-bit code for userland. Booting a VM for a 64-bit OS that has a legacy bootloader with 16-bit or 32-bit code would require software emulation of that code.
- adamc 2y ago
  As a consumer, yes. Old steam games are a big deal. In business... not where I work, but I hear stories of shops that still have lots of old 32-bit COM stuff, etc.

christianqchung 2y ago

I don't think almost anyone actually want a headphone jack anymore. Just the consumer reality in 2024. I do obviously, but it's clearly too rare for them to bother with.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Yes people seem happy to buy not only new phones every couple of years but new accessory devices as well. I don't understand it but it's quite apparent.
- plufz 2y ago
  I find it very practical with small Bluetooth earbuds, but I agree on the consumption aspect of it. I really don’t like that I can’t change the batteries in my AirPods. I would even be semi-okay with having to hand in them to a technician for battery exchange, for a reasonable cost. But the current battery exchange for airpods is just another name for buying new earbuds. And the third party solutions that actually change the batteries cost about as much as new buds.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
plufz 2y ago
Why do you want a headphone jack? Not a rhetorical question, just genuine interest. Is it about audio quality, avoiding batteries or something else? I would find it so cumbersome to use a cable on a handheld device nowdays. But different things for different people! :)
- developerDan 2y ago
  Not who you are replying to but my $30 wired Apple earbuds (came with my 6S) have outlived all of my co-workers half dozen $160 AirPods. That’s reason enough for a lot of people.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Apple should virtualize older iPhones within the latest iPhone system software, so you could seamlessly open old apps and games (32-bit, anyone?) in their own containerized environments What is the practical, broad use case for this? (And can't you virtualize older iOS version on a Mac?) > bring back the headphone jack The article is about Macs. If you want a headphone jack, get a 3.5mm:USB-C converter.

oceanplexian 2y ago
Speaking of headphone adapters. It’s crazy to me that something like an iPod released in 2005 will output better audio when playing a lossless file than the most state of the art $2,000 iPhone with Apple’s most state of the art $549 headphones in 2024. The remarkable thing is that 90% of listeners don’t seem to notice. Their reference point is a lossy 128kb/s file from a streaming service double transcoded over bluetooth so that must be what music sounds like. Who would have thought technology would progress backwards.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > remarkable thing is that 90% of listeners don’t seem to notice That's not a remarkable thing, it's the reason. (And out of the remaining 10%, a good fraction may notice but prefer the new convenience. Those who remain can find the difference between most and all, or go corded.)
- dagmx 2y ago
  Of course to make this strawman argument you have to ignore the previous comment that says you can do wired connections just over a different port type. Let’s also ignore any understanding of the DAC quality between older iPods and newer iPhones, where even the dongle Apple sell are considered a high quality DAC. Let’s also ignore any advances in Codecs in that time, or advances in audio hardware itself. Let’s also ignore that most iPod users would have bought low quality MP3s or medium quality AACs at the time. Not to mention that most customers use streaming today so wouldn’t even be able to take advantage of the higher quality codecs today. Finally let’s ignore customer preferences and what niche set of customers would have bought high end enough audio equipment and have the hearing to appreciate and also not want wires today to even fall into your narrow band description. Who would have thought that if you ignore all aspects that are inconvenient to an argument that you could make any argument you want?

GeekyBear 2y ago

It's probably worth finding out whether this is a bug or an intentional decision before making assumptions.

moffkalast 2y ago
For Apple Hanlon's razor rarely holds, they're both too competent and anticonsumer for this sort of thing to not be intentional malice in an attempt to sell more stuff. Maybe not, but very unlikely and even if it's a bug they'll probably call it a feature and keep it.