Ask HN: How do you install not the latest iOS version? I would like to change the minimum deployment target of my iOS app and update my testing device from iOS 13 to 14 (instead of 16). How do other iOS developers handle it? I really don't want to rely on the iOS simulator. |
Unfortunately for this strategy, Apple tend to drop support for several devices at once, so there's no device whose final version is iOS 14, for example. With that said, if you're desperate, you could get new-in-box old devices, assuming those devices can still be activated (not all can).
(Memes aside, keep old devices around and never update them. And while not useful to you something like Corellium can be useful to check things in a pinch.)
Biggest flaw of iOS in my experience, I have lost over $1000 in apps not operable due to iOS updates. The apps work fine on my older iOS version devices which have since died due to battery issues.
How long is a dinner or drinks supposed to last before you buy another one?
How long is your house supposed to last before you need to make repairs?
How long is gasoline supposed to last before you buy more?
Vacation? Movie tickets? Hotel rooms? Flights? Appliances? Clothes? Shoes? Furniture? Maybe ~10% of the things we buy can be “buy it for life” items.
It seems like a lot of people want more longevity out of software than simple physical objects.
Smartphones weren’t exactly mature 7-10 years ago and we all knew that. If it were me I’d just accept that I spent $1000 on software and got something out of it for the time being.
Life is full of things that are fleeting.
You can take a 20 year old+ copy of Windows software that shipped on a CD-ROM in a paper box and it'll probably work just fine on Windows 10, maybe it needs some compatibility setting checked or absolute worst case an XP or 2000 VM. Meanwhile what do you do with an 8 year old iOS app? Hunt down old devices on eBay that you hope you can get working?
Side note: I lived in an apartment in a 400 year old building once, and once lived in a shared house that was 300 years old (both cases were in Germany). Both buildings were renovated and had repairs several times and in a very good condition, and living in them was a great pleasure.
How long is a vinyl record that you bought supposed to last until the license expires and you have to buy it again?
How long is a wedding ring supposed to last until it needs to be replaced?
How long is my cast iron skillet supposed to work until it falls apart and I have to buy a new one?
One of the current issues with mobile development is that moore’s law has finished, so any update that hits performance is actually a step back. However, SWEs get paid based on deploys, so everyone has an incentive to get things in the final OS and slow down the phone.
Oh well
Isn't it worrying that the developer doesn't care enough to check out their code, compile and resubmit?
The vast majority of 10+ year old apps wouldn't compile with modern xcode, and even if they did they won't meet the stores requirements anymore.
For a small app with a small userbase, the maintainance cost isnt worth it.
I totally see the benefit of windows in these situations.
https://gs.statcounter.com/ios-version-market-share/all/unit...
How many users are actually on iOS 14 since every device that can run iOS 14 can run iOS 15?
The best you can do at the moment is to jailbreak and use futurerestore to go to slightly lower ios 16 beta versions
the Simulator has improved a lot over recent years I've found. We couldn't use it for ages as accessing metal would cause it to crash, I noticed late last year this no longer happens, making it a viable solution for us again.
I'm currently running one device on 14.8.1, other on 15.X and third on latest.
Find the one who with a dremel and people actually wanting your money.
But if you have an app that people actually pay money for, I think it's bad business to not spend the few hours a year to update it to the latest XCode.
And if you don't care, just delist it from the store so people don't buy your abandonware.
The mere act of playing a vinyl records damages it. It’s a terrible example.
All my college textbooks are unacceptably outdated except for basic foundational math and science, but today’s kids are actually taught basic arithmetic in more effective ways than how I learned it.
Even non-academic prose eventually needs to be translated or supplemented as vernacular changes. Religious texts come to mind: the Bible we know as the “King James Version” has been revised dozens of times. [1]
Cast iron skillets are items that fall into that 10% category of “can actually last a few lifetimes” but as I mentioned in my original comment, my point is that this is a rarity.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version, footnote 96
Give the original text a try: https://www.originalbibles.com/the-original-king-james-bible...
It’s decently readable, but archaic enough to be difficult to follow. Spellings like “yeere” instead of “year” are all over the place. And while this is 17th century text, you barely have to leave the 20th century to find prose that’s difficult to parse without updated language.
Also, my grandparents had their rings until they died, my vinyl records from the 70ies play just fine and I have books from the 1950s that I would not deem outdated. The skillet will last for centuries maybe.
On the other hand, some of my favorite apps just stopped working without any warning after using them for three or four years, just because I updated my iPad. In one case I lost some of my work, because I could not open the file format anymore.
Modern consumer non-business smartphones aren’t even 20 years old as a concept.
Imagine getting an Apple II and expecting application compatibility with a Power Macintosh from the 90s. That’s the exact same timeframe we’re talking about in years, and that’s a massive change because computers weren’t all that mature as a technology in the 70s.
Sure, it is bad that App Store distribution introduces this problem. I’m not saying it’s not bad. However, I’m doubtful that future OS changes from here on out will introduce as many incompatibilities as the ones that took place during the time when smartphones were changing chip architecture to 64-bit, implementing new concepts surrounding sensor and device permissions, and other more fundamental shifts that would affect app compatibility.
On top of that, we’re also talking about a marketplace of apps with an average price of under a dollar.
There’s a damn good argument for PEBKAC (or PEBPAC) if you manage to spend $1000 in the App Store in a lifetime.
Houses are a great example. They absolutely crumble without constant maintenance. Water heater every 10 years, roof every 20, hardwood refinishing as needed, paint, GFCIs wear out, every type of appliance and HVAC item, repairing drywall, caulking bathrooms, and the list goes on and on.
Physical media wears out. Book pages get sun and moisture damage, wear from use, discs rot, vinyls get damaged just by being played. Film and printed photos fade.
In the case of textbooks and other non-fiction, information itself can become outdated.
Sure, the advent of digital technology should mean data doesn’t suffer from the woes of the physical realm, but that’s not even really half of the discussion.
Even those old boxed pieces of software, simply getting them to run usually isn’t always helpful. Is my tax software from 1999 going to have any functional purpose? Will I be able to get a job as a graphic designer anymore if my tools support 256 colors? If someone else made a better PDF than Acrobat Reader 1.0 would I have any desire to use the copy I already own?
Another analogy: if I could be given a brand new classic car but it needed leaded gasoline and got 10 MPG, is the fact that it lasted a lifetime relevant to me for the purposes of daily driving?
Basically, what I’m saying is that “surviving” and “maintaining value” are different things, and that putting things into the buckets of of “consumable” and “durable” good is a little too binary compared to the real world.
Sure, the smartphone distribution model means that old applications aren’t as resilient as WIN32 apps, but that doesn’t automatically mean that the current model isn’t acceptably durable.
Certainly some software is more like a book, while some is throw-away magazine type that is constantly being updated with no actual net progress in functionality (or backwards progress, like ads in the start menu).