[darren_]

I've mentioned this in another comment but: this update will permanently disable any 32 bit iOS apps you have on your device with no recourse or downgrade possible.

So, reason not to update: you like using software you've paid for.

[jquery]

I remember when iPhones first truly became useless if stolen. Tech support forums were filled with sob stories about why a particular person couldn’t activate their iPhone, begging for a secret bypass. They would make up sob stories because otherwise people would just call them a thief and ignore them. But the tech support forums usually called them a thief anyway because most of the time, they were, and part of the cost of ownership of these devices is keeping them up to date and remembering the activation password…

Anyway I’m sharing this because the “my ancient unsupported 32 bit applications will fail”, while a minimally valid reason not to upgrade, reminds me a bit of the sob stories people would tell to get tech support for their stolen iPhones…

[ChuckNorris89]

>They would make up sob stories because otherwise people would just call them a thief and ignore them.

You're being unfairly harsh here. Most likely they bought it off the second hand market because in many countries people can't afford the prices of new iPhones, and then realized it's a stolen phone.

[rixthefox]

I think the harshness is on point. We've gotten to a point where people's lives are deeply connected inside their devices and people need to understand that it's not "just a phone" anymore.

Just like it's the buyers responsibility to make sure they aren't purchasing a stolen vehicle, it should be equally the buyers responsibility to ensure they are not purchasing a stolen phone. Proof of a clean IMEI would be a start. The problem stems from most countries outside the US not taking the IMEI database seriously and so in some countries it's possible to activate a phone with a reported stolen IMEI.

I personally think Apple's choice to restrict activating stolen iPhones is a smart move overall. If countries won't use the IMEI database, this is the next best thing. It's not our responsibility to "unlock" phones for people because they didn't perform due diligence.

[ChuckNorris89]

>We've gotten to a point where people's lives are deeply connected inside their devices and people need to understand that it's not "just a phone" anymore.

Then it your responsibility to have backups no? Forget theft, if you keep all your most valuable data on just your phone alone, you're one accident away from loosing it al, via so many ways other than theft.

>Just like it's the buyers responsibility to make sure they aren't purchasing a stolen vehicle, it should be equally the buyers responsibility to ensure they are not purchasing a stolen phone

Now you're moving the goalposts. A phone is not a car. If my car is stolen, I can't just walk into a Ford-Store and buy a new one on the spot for $1000.

What about stolen bikes? Police don't bother investigating such things and they'll basically laugh you out of the police station.

[Kye]

A growing number of people only have a smartphone. This is probably alien to most people here, but I've had more than a few friends who haven't owned a laptop or tower in years, if they ever did. It's only recently that you could even connect a USB mass storage device to most phones to do an offline backup. I'm not sure apps for that even exist.

[ChuckNorris89]

>A growing number of people only have a smartphone.

Yes, so do I and everyone else, but that's why most people pay for cloud backup services (iCloud, etc) or set up their own if they're tech savvy enough. So when they break their phone, their data is still safe.

Still, this has nothing to do with theft. You can easily drop your phone on the ground or have it fall in the ocean on vacation. If your phone is such a valuable tool to you that you can't live without then it's up to you to get various insurance policies (phone insurance, a backup phone, etc.)

[alexvoda]

You could connect mass storage to an Android Phone for a very very long time if not from the start. Certainly from the beginning if you consider SD cards to be mass storage.

And you could physically connect mass storage to an iPhone since before the iPhone (iPod days, same connector, same adapter) but unless it was jailbroken you could do almost nothing with it

[skinnymuch]

Cloud backups work if you have one device

[Suzuran]

When a thief fences stolen goods they don't magically become un-stolen.

[rodric]

I am reminded of a line from G.K. Chesterton: ‘Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.’

[ChuckNorris89]

Sure, but unless the police catches the crook an seizes their money then return it to the victims, then the person who unknowingly bought the stolen good can't magically un-buy it and get their money back.

[Suzuran]

This makes the unwary buyer a victim of the thief as well. All the more reason to brick stolen devices and make them unsellable by the thief so they can't victimize more people.

[jdboyd]

Or also commonly, the person selling it didn't know how to transfer it correctly.

[lamontcg]

Is that the fault of who sold you the software and isn't upgrading it for whatever reason or who made the O/S?

[OkayPhysicist]

I think it's both.

Fortunately, unless you're doing hacky bullshit, changing from 32 to 64 bit should be trivial. Unfortunately, companies go out of business, so can't be relied on to update their own software into perpetuity. Fortunately, it probably doesn't have to the original company to update the software, because it should be a straightforward update of some build parameters. Unfortunately, proprietary, source-unavailable code is the norm in commercial software development, so no one but the original company has the source code. Thus it's the original company's fault for not being at least source-available.

Fortunately, we have the technology to run 32 bit software on 64 bit operating systems. Unfortunately Apple has decided to not do so any more. Fortunately, Apple used to allow this, so your software still works on an older version of the operating system. Unfortunately, Apple has decided to brick that version of the operating system, forcing you to update it and lose access to the software you were perfectly capable of running on your device before Apple's unilateral decision. Thus, it's Apple's fault, for breaking backward compatibility and then forcing people to update.

[bamboozled]

Why should software last > 10 years when very little else in life does ?

Sure tools etc can last a lifetime , but my drop saws motor will probably burn out in 10 years and will be replaced with an upgraded model ?

[highwind]

Just because your drop saw burns out in 10 years that doesn't automatically make my code obsolete in 10 years.

I can make a same counter argument using the same logic. I have a car that runs fine well past 10 year mark. Why can't I expect a software do the same?

[acdha]

Your car didn’t run for 10 years without any maintenance. It’s not unreasonable to expect someone to click build once a decade either.

[alexvoda]

You did not depend on the manufacturer to do that maintenance. The manufacturer could have even gone out of business and you could still fix or find someone to fix your car.

You however depend on the original developer to click that build button because proprietary software. If it was FLOSS, you could.

But don't worry, thanks to DRMed parts you won't be able to fix anything on your car either (or phone, or any other smart device) without the involvement of the original manufacturer. Ain't property wonderful when the manufacturers intelectual property has precedence over your physical property?

/s

[acdha]

I think you misunderstood the analogy - the app is the car, not the parts. Once you correct that it’s easy to understand why the rest of your message doesn’t make sense.

[antihero]

Not running on modern architecture does make it obsolete in the same way that stuff that’s only available on punch card is obsolete.

Why is it up to others to spend resources supporting backwards compatibility instead of you to keep your code compiled for modern arch?

[Pigalowda]

They’re different tools though. I’m sure Elsevier makes that same argument about text books

[xattt]

In life sciences, knowledge stagnates and rots. An undergrad-level Pathophysiology textbook published 10 years ago would probably mention that Alzheimer’s dementia is caused by the formation of plaques in the brain.

This might not be apparent to engineers who see everything as a formula waiting to be solved from first principles.

[Pigalowda]

I am in life sciences! While you can find some examples of things becoming outdated you don’t need entire new textbooks. Addenda/errata can be appended to the document. Or the instructor can point out the error and teach the new “truth”

[xattt]

You’re right; smaller-scale changes can be captured in errata.

However, some things move pretty quick and warrant updates to the whole document especially when the document is used a handbook in critical situations. The ACLS protocol manual, updated quinquennially, comes to mind.

[alexvoda]

Than you agree and are missing the point.

Some textbook publishers are intentionally making small changes from year to year to intentionally make the life of those using second hand text books miserable.

Corporations have long since realised that often their biggest competition comes from their own products therefore we now have planned obsolescence (someone who already has your product and doesn't want to buy another) and the war on secondary markets (someone other than you selling your, old, product).

[OkayPhysicist]

Because software is more like the song on a record than a record player: I have songs that were bought on vinyl, transferred to cassette, then transferred again from vinyl to CD, then from CD onto my computer as digital files, then copied from device to device for the last 2 decades. The record player, in contrast, died years ago.

Software's even better! Since it was inherently digital to begin with, I'm able to make leaps like that with ZERO data loss! The only thing that kills software permanently is planned obsolesce. It doesn't matter what the lifetime of your saw is, that's like arguing that you should be free to shoot nonagenarians because most people don't live that long anyway. It's not about how long other stuff lasts, it's about the fact that it was perfectly capable of going on living until it was killed.

[xattt]

Tools often have serviceable parts. A burnt out motor is just worn out carbon brushes, which are easily replaceable.