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Comment by webprofusion | Hacker News Reader

The most sustainable thing we could do for web capable devices is to make right to repair mandatory and include in that driver specifications required for custom software/firmware. e.g. an old iPad is now obsolete, but it may work fine it just can't connect to modern TLS and doesn't trust new root CA certs.

If it was possible to updated old devices with any custom OS, many devices would continue to work instead of being disposed of.

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Yup, I have two perfectly good iPads sitting in a drawer nearly-unusable for modern online things because Apple and the web have left them behind (and all apps that have online services are no longer functional of course). The hardware is mint, the battery is good, everything in tip-top shape, but... forced obsolescence. The actual CPU/hardware are absolutely powerful enough to perform all basic computing tasks including web browsing, but Apple would prefer I just throw these away and buy a new iPad (as if that's going to happen). It's really abhorrent to me that this borderline-godlike technology is supposed to just be... thrown away after a few years? Like, I'm going to be blunt: what the fuck?

I have an iPad that is in that state too. Hardware is fine, os can’t be updated.

I wish I could jail break it or install an alternative os. It’s only useful to play the few games I have for it (most of those haven’t been upgraded to 64 bit so don’t run on new OS and hardware). It’s good hardware but I feel very much at the whim of Apple.

Yeah, it's so frustrating. There's the "opposite" problem too where old software I had is no longer on App Store, and simply cannot run on newer versions of iOS. I finally had to say goodbye to my friend's awesome photography app that applied a really nice B&W effect which was unique to that app. I'll never be able to use it again, unless I carry around an old/outdated iPhone with me.

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