Apple Sidecar on Unsupported iPads and Macs
github.com
github.com
When activating some features of Sidecar, my Mac crashed without so much as a dialog box. After three such abrupt crashes, I reverted the framework file.
YMMV
``` sudo codesign -f -s - /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SidecarCore.framework/Versions/A/SidecarCore ```
A properly signed SidecarCore modified with free-sidecar shouldn't cause random crashes.
I’ll report my results here, unless replies are closed, in which case I’ll comment in the repo.
I expect the reason certain Mac and iPad models are blacklisted from Sidecar is that it was sluggish or glitchy running on them. Even on supported hardware, Sidecar is sluggish over Wi-Fi (though it works great over a wired USB-Lightning connection.)
I can't imagine Apple doing that ever, so I guess that's an advantage of various Linux distros that support backports.
This is a new feature, which they have chosen to make available to recent hardware only.
I suppose you could argue whether the performance features of new devices is really necessary for this new feature to work well (and what does "work well" even mean - is occasional choppiness OK? How low does latency have to be?) but old devices are not losing anything because they never had this feature to begin with.
Same thing with apple watch. i "had to" buy an iphone 6 at the time because my 4gs couldn't have the apple watch software installed.
Apple Watch supported iPhone 5 and higher. It’s a limitation of the BLE stack on the iPhone 4S (the 4S has BLE, but there were issues with it).
Implement the feature on old hardware, but it’s slow or crippled? Planned obsolescence. Don’t implement the feature... planned obsolescence.
It's basically the way software updates has worked for ever. Only since apple ( because it controls both the hardware and software) do we see features not deployed on old hardware because it may eventually not give you the best experience.
It's innovation. There are (hardware, ...) limitations, so you simply cannot run the same software on old hardware.
The features and capabilities on the old device are completely unaffected.
How is adding a new feature to other devices making an old device obsolete?
Meanwhile, you can buy a Luna Display for your older kit to do the same thing with roughly the same performance, because that also does encoding in hardware.
And adding a new feature to newer hardware doesn't obsolete your old hardware. If Apple release a 5G phone in September, your not-5G iPhone will still work.