Comment by null_object | Hacker News Reader

Comment by null_object | Hacker News Reader

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> I had an iPad 1 a long time ago. After just a few years, it stopped receiving updates... the device became essentially bricked after a few years.

Last month I bought a new iPad to replace my TEN YEAR old iPad, which was working fine, but couldn't be updated to the latest iOS versions, and which was therefore missing some applications (like Netflix).

Plenty of apps still worked fine - including Safari, Mail, and most other applications.

The device is not "bricked" - which is an absurd and totally misleading description of a piece of technology that is slightly outdated, but works fine with most 'essential' apps.

Saying something is "bricked' means it cannot be used, at all. Which is totally not the case.

It could not be used for my (really pretty standard) purposes. So I stand by "bricked". Unless you consider it a light source. In which case I'd say ok yeah it could still have had some uses as a (not very bright) lamp.

> Unless you consider it a light source.

Obviously if you're claiming that the only application that was still working on your iPad was the lamp, then there's really nothing left for me to discuss, as I don't think that's factually the case for even the oldest existing iPads.

I was being sarcastic.

“Bricked” has a pretty generally accepted meaning as non-responsive/completely non operational — it does not mean reduced functionality or incompatible with modern operating systems. By abusing the term, you’re being disingenuous rather than having an honest discussion about how to deal with the aging of technology and how to balance security and forward progress with efforts required for backward compatibility.

Where’s the moral outrage about my Macintosh SE not being able to run any version of OS X? Yes, that would be absurd. So where do we draw the line? It must be drawn somewhere - but Apple didn’t brick your device and claiming that gets in the way of reasonable discussion.

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