The “Legacy iDevices forum” thread: on a new community forum for unsupported iPods/iPhones/iPads (in the vein of the Early Intel & PowerPC forums)

[B S Magnet]

I was thinking about this topic over the weekend after listening to someone I know share the story of upgrading the 1.8-inch HDD in their iPod with an SSD.

And then something clicked in my mind:

One thing we don’t have around on MR forums is a forum dedicated for keeping iPods, vintage iPhones, and vintage iPads out of waste streams and repurposed (i.e., hacked/tinkered with) for new uses beyond the scope of what Apple intended for them (particularly so the iPhones and iPads which Apple no longer support in any sense). Certainly, with jailbroken devices and firmware projects, there are undoubtedly unexpected ways to keep using old gear. Those ways deserve a home and don’t deserve being lost in the stream of posts about current products.

I’m posting here because this is one of the two forums dedicated to keeping old gear in use, and much of the above came into being during the early Intel years for Macs.

So I’ll throw the question your way: do you think we have a good case for requesting a new forum to support the use of older Apple “appliance” gear?

(I’d add a poll, but I’m not sure if polls are still a posting feature. I’m not seeing them here.) EDIT to amend: The poll is up and runs through the end of August 2023.

 

[theMarble]

I think it would be good to have a specific forum for everything relatively old from Apple that doesn't relate to the Mac (eg: Newton, Early iPhone, iPad and iPod...), including all of the old jailbreak and modding tools which are becoming harder to find now.

We do have the Apple Collectors forum for ~80's gear from Apple but doesn't cover more modern devices.

 

[B S Magnet]

I think it would be good to have a specific forum for everything relatively old from Apple that doesn't relate to the Mac (eg: Newton, Early iPhone, iPad and iPod...), including all of the old jailbreak and modding tools which are becoming harder to find now.

We do have the Apple Collectors forum for ~80's gear from Apple but doesn't cover more modern devices.

Yeah, this wouldn’t fall within the purview of the Apple Collectors forum, as that might be a good place to continue with keeping Old World Macs and Newtons, QuickTake, and other Apple peripherals from the Old World era.

For this, I’m thinking of all the “iDevices” produced between 2001 (the first iPod) and until, I suppose, whichever generation of devices have not been supported by Apple for at least a couple of versions of iOS/iPadOS. Stuff in such a forum might include how to retrofit drives, flashing community-based firmware, completely re-purposing the hardware built inside a handheld, running different OSes, and so on.

 

[theMarble]

For this, I’m thinking of all the “iDevices” produced between 2001 (the first iPod) and until, I suppose, whichever generation of devices have not been supported by Apple for at least a couple of versions of iOS/iPadOS. Stuff in such a forum might include how to retrofit drives, flashing community-based firmware, completely re-purposing the hardware built inside a handheld, running different OSes, and so on.

If we're going by a similar cut-off point as E.I Macs, then it could be cut at any device that can natively run iOS 6 for now. Having a WikiPost with all modding links (eg: jailbreak tools for the iPhone, mod parts for iPods like EliteObsolete...) would be a nice touch as I find the PPC/EIM SuperWiki's handy when I'm setting up a new old Mac, instead of going through my years of archived files to find a specific tool that I need.

 

[B S Magnet]

…would be a nice touch as I find the PPC/EIM SuperWiki's handy when I'm setting up a new old Mac, instead of going through my years of archived files to find a specific tool that I need…

I’ma accept that as a compliment.

 

[theMarble]

I’ma accept that as a compliment.

No worries! I've found it especially helpful as I can get some space back on my server, still got quite a few things however that aren't on the lists so I keep those around

 

[eyoungren]

As much as I like the idea, in this instance I don't think there is much of a case for it. The main iPhone, iPad and iPod forums still handle support requests for old devices. The jailbreak forum is still around as well as all the older individual iOS forums. I am also much more inclined to direct people to the jailbreak subreddit on Reddit as that is far more active at this point.

If the cutoff is iOS 6 then that alone means I'm out, unless @theMarble meant devices that started with iOS 6. If so, that means only three devices for me and not one of them is an iPod.

Amongst all of us in the two relevant forums, I just don't see enough of a user base for this. I could be wrong, but I've been here over 10 years and not a lot of these devices have been mentioned.

EDIT: @B S Magnet perhaps if you took a survey to see who had what? Maybe we'd be able to get a better idea of how many of us would be in a forum like what you propose.

 

[MysticCow]

Some consolidations need to happen.

1. Just an "Older macOS forum" instead of each one getting their own.

2. Consolidate all of the system forums under the AS Mac or a new "Later Intel" forum.

 

[B S Magnet]

EDIT: @B S Magnet perhaps if you took a survey to see who had what? Maybe we'd be able to get a better idea of how many of us would be in a forum like what you propose.

Curiously, the option for creating a poll just opened up once the moderators moved this thread to a different forum. When they set up the Early Intel Macs forum last year, I don’t think they activated the ability for polls to be created on there.

 

[B S Magnet]

Some consolidations need to happen.

1. Just an "Older macOS forum" instead of each one getting their own.

This will, in my experience, invite new troubles — particularly because each major version of the OS, especially older versions, are so significantly different from one another that combining them (like combining Snow Leopard with Lion) would usher in a bunch of headaches. We do have threads in the PPC and Early Intel Macs forums called, for instance, “The Tiger Thread”, “The Leopard Thread”, and so on.

But as instructive as your suggestion presents as a forum management strategy, it’s not topical to this thread specifically.

2. Consolidate all of the system forums under the AS Mac or a new "Later Intel" forum.

As with the previous, this deserves a new thread. I’m sure, once Apple no longer supports 4th-gen Core iX-and later Intel Macs, a new forum will be made for those models.


As for consolidating existing threads, guides, and hacks to improve, keep working, and/or upcycle iPods, obsoleted iPhones, and iPads, I’ve created a poll above.

 

[GMShadow]

I'd be for it, I've been slowly grabbing both older iPods and now iPads over the last year. Just got an iPad 2 this week.

 

[Weaselboy]

Curiously, the option for creating a poll just opened up once the moderators moved this thread to a different forum. When they set up the Early Intel Macs forum last year, I don’t think they activated the ability for polls to be created on there.

This has been fixed.

 

[mectojic]

I'm posting here instead of iPhone/ iPad sub because most in that forum know nothing about tweaking and optimising old hardware.

This post is about early iPhones and iPads. For the sake of definition, let's call them "early" for anything that can run iOS 6. The cutoff is the iPhone 5, and the iPad 4th gen + iPad Mini 1st gen. To most people, these devices are functionally useless beyond being a light media player / ebook reader / picture frame.

But clearly, these aren't that dead, right? Even the A4 chip has a 1GHz processor with 512mb – we can work with far less in PowerPC land.

So, where's the thread dedicated to jailbreaking/tweaking/optimising early iPads and iPhones, to make them usable again? Sadly, it seems that the 99% consensus is that they're only good for old games, music playing, ebooks.

And indeed, these old devices feel very crippled these days, especially if starting with a fresh install of iOS. Even apps that once could run on them are no longer available on the app store, even through the purchased tabs, because the developers have removed them. Apple Pages? Gone, unless you bought it before 2013 and have an iTunes restore. Angry Birds? Removed entirely, replaced with a new remaster app which is not compatible with old devices.

It got me thinking today about how this forum's tweaking knowledge could help with the early iPad cause. The "Russian Youtube" site is actually the easiest way now to access Youtube on iPad 1st gen, now that the web version through Safari is broken. We will need more tweaks like this, in future. I have an old iPhone 4, and it's pretty darn good actually, the main thing I'm missing is a workable Google Maps (using it through Safari is really slow and unoptimised). The iPad 1st gen feels pretty useless, at the moment. My favourite word processor Pages can no longer be downloaded, and my PDF reader (Goodreader) has also had its old version taken off the App Store.

There are so many cool possibilities that we could integrate with Early Intel Macs. Classic iCloud allows you to sync your iOS 6 Notes to a Mac running Lion+, through the Mail app. Other apps can sync through iCloud too. Old software like AirDisplay, intended to connect an iPad to an Early Intel Mac, could be revived.

I think the main step in getting somewhere closer – to preventing millions of devices become ewaste – is to start a thread with some ideas about what to do. I imagine jailbreaking may be necessary. Perhaps some clever developers know how to make simple apps for iOS 6 that could enable modern functions again – the equivalent of a TenFourFox for iOS 6 seems to be more necessary every day for simple functionality.

 

[theMarble]

We had a thread like this a little while ago.

I agree that a new subform should be considered, but I'm not sure how much attention it would get as the iPod forum + the iPod subreddits already have lots of attention.

 

[eyoungren]

We are now in a zone where my interest begins to depart. I own a 3GS, a 4 and a 4s. The 3GS is on iOS 6.1.6, the 4 is on iOS 7 and the 4s is on iOS 9.

I also own a 5 (my first brand new iPhone) but that's on iOS 10.

I like to keep these devices doing one or two things that they can still do, but unlike my Macs which I use much more heavily, I'm not interested in making them work like I am my Macs. I tend to be far more current with my iPhones/iPads than I am my Macs. making my Macs function with my current devices. That was the way even when I was PowerPC.

I am not saying there is no interest. I just don't think there are enough of us out of the niche we are already in to make it viable to the mods.

None of this is said to offend, it's just how I feel.

EDIT: In regards to jailbreaking. Just note, that while jailbreaks are still available, it's the tweaks and apps that make jailbreaks worthwhile. But unlike App store devs, JB devs are fly by night operators. Even if they make it big, they aren't there forever. Some of this stuff relies on registration or third party servers that long ago disappeared.

BiteSMS being a major example.

 

[TheShortTimer]

We had a thread like this a little while ago.

I thought I was experiencing deja vu...

I'm posting here instead of iPhone/ iPad sub because most in that forum know nothing about tweaking and optimising old hardware.

This post is about early iPhones and iPads. For the sake of definition, let's call them "early" for anything that can run iOS 6. The cutoff is the iPhone 5, and the iPad 4th gen + iPad Mini 1st gen. To most people, these devices are functionally useless beyond being a light media player / ebook reader / picture frame.

You can still make/receive calls and send/receive SMS and MMS on those earlier iPhone models, so they remain functionally viable as a basic mobile phone.

 

[eyoungren]

You can still make/receive calls and send/receive SMS and MMS on those earlier iPhone models, so they remain functionally viable as a basic mobile phone.

Also as an emergency phone. Here in the US, the FCC requires all carriers to accept any device making a call to 911 (999 or 112 to you). This means that any device without service can still make an emergency call.

 

[mectojic]

Sorry folks, I missed @B S Magnet 's post, assumedly because it was moved out of the usual forum (like mine).

I tend to be far more current with my iPhones/iPads than I am my Macs. making my Macs function with my current devices. That was the way even when I was PowerPC.

I was the same as you Erik, but recently I was just getting nostalgic for iOS 6. Every time I get out my old devices, I realise they are less and less supported, both in web browsing and app store.

I do think a new forum would be a great idea. We wouldn't know how much interest there was until it existed, but I think the number is larger than we may think. The Early Intel forum certainly has been a huge gain to have, but the iOS userbase is much larger than us. Also, the nostalgia is kicking in for lots of people. The Youtube channel iClassic is a good one, but we need a forum for better discussions than a YT comments section. Even the enthusiasts like iClassic don't seem to have a more in-depth knowledge about what is possible. Maybe we can all collaborate here for something better.

 

[eyoungren]

Sorry folks, I missed @B S Magnet 's post, assumedly because it was moved out of the usual forum (like mine).


I was the same as you Erik, but recently I was just getting nostalgic for iOS 6. Every time I get out my old devices, I realise they are less and less supported, both in web browsing and app store.

I do think a new forum would be a great idea. We wouldn't know how much interest there was until it existed, but I think the number is larger than we may think. The Early Intel forum certainly has been a huge gain to have, but the iOS userbase is much larger than us. Also, the nostalgia is kicking in for lots of people. The Youtube channel iClassic is a good one, but we need a forum for better discussions than a YT comments section. Even the enthusiasts like iClassic don't seem to have a more in-depth knowledge about what is possible. Maybe we can all collaborate here for something better.

Part of my reasoning for staying on older versions of iOS over the years was that JB tweaks and apps often had better implementations of Apple features, or features Apple didn't have at all.

For instance, with my iPhone 5 on iOS 6.0.1 I had dark mode from 2012 to around 2015 when I upgraded to a 6+. That was all courtesy of a bunch of combined tweaks and stuff. Stuff that with an iOS 8 jailbreak was solved with Eclipse. I again installed Eclipse when I got my 6s+ and that iPhone was on iOS 9.0.2 until December 2020.

With iOS 14 came native dark mode. Now I've often argued in the jailbreak forums here on MR that JBs are better than what Apple usually offers. For instance, call blocking (Apple) compared to iBlacklist. But in this particular instance, Apple's dark mode was much better implemented than Eclipse (or it's later competitors).

There are still other tweaks that are better, but the problem (for me) now is that their time has passed. With the advent of semi-untethered jailbreaks I could see that I'd soon be exiting the JB scene altogether. A lot of institutional JB knowledge was lost when Saurik shut down the Cydia store. Stuff that JB devs accomplished way back when weren't even being replicated in new tweaks. It just wasn't worth it to me to stay any longer.

And without jailbreaking to give me what new phones have, I'd just rather have the new phone then have to do workarounds with old phones. I'm okay doing that with my Macs - but it's no longer worth my effort for devices now.

Again, this is just me. I'm not trying to shut you or others down and if there is enough support, I say go for it. I'm just not going to have much to add is all.

 

[B S Magnet]

What motivated my post (which was moved over here to Forgottenville, MR) arose from much the same reason the PPC and Early Intel forums came to be: to bring and hold together the collective brain trust which maintain Apple portables/handhelds long, long after Apple’s obsolescence.

Mercy knows such support ends up being slim pickings on the existing iPod/iPad forum(s), where the bulk of MR members on there are: A) only preoccupied by products and OSes Apple support right now, and/or B) new members who only need a support question resolved on their current devices. For all older iDevices, one miiiight find some aspect of the answer they need in some dead, dozen-year-old thread — if they’re lucky.

Information exists online for obsolete iDevices — hardware, firmware, software — but to find it ends up being, frequently, an inefficient, time-consuming, individual endeavour to go track it down for one’s own needs. Once found, it stops being useful once one buys or acquires what they need, with said knowledge getting basically lost to the sieve of one’s own memory.

Obsolete iPods/iPhones/iPads lack a forum for not just the software running on handheld devices and the upkeep, repair, and care of the hardware, but also a community to bring and hold that together.

When I posted the topic several weeks ago, I was thinking less about iOS-based devices and more about the embedded OSes developed for the iPods (Touch notwithstanding). On this: for a spell, the OSS community worked to develop Linux-based software to run on iPod classics, minis, and several generations of nano devices (last I checked, they’d made it up to 5G nanos, the model with the video camera). With my renewed interest in amateur radio, I was also thinking about how (or whether) intrepid folks are trying to hack things like the FM tuner chip on iPod nanos and iPhones to receive other frequency bands (as those tuner chips are just another implementation of SDR, or software-defined radio — albeit corralled into only “seeing” the FM bands of ~76–108MHz).

For hardware, I want to see more of that collective knowledge, or brain trust, incubated in a place — like an active, living community forum — within which members develop wikiposts for aggregating things like known vendors still selling iPod/iPhone battery replacements; places where used iPod components are still sold; and resources on how to upgrade the tiny spinner HDDs on classic and mini models with SSD-based mods.

Much of this community-based knowledge is spread by the four winds of the internets. Some is documented on Wikipedia or maybe iFixit, but other resources are scattered with no community hosting them in a way which integrates all that knowledge.

[On that thread, I began drafting a list of links and source citations — internal to both MR forums and external — directed to the moderators, as grounds for a new forum, but I ended up losing or ditching said draft. The thread being moved over here sort of discouraged my motivation to finish that draft.]

In short, I want to advocate for a community-based resource to help folks curtail waste streams of obsoleted, Apple handheld hardware. A purpose-designed forum on here would accomplish just that.

A dedicated forum, drawing in many of the longtime, generous community members from the PowerPC and Early Intel forums (and drawing in similar folks from elsewhere on the MR forums who otherwise might not intersect with the things the PPC and Early Intel communities are doing), is a step in that direction. Opening a forum for community to work together to keep that obsolete, handheld Apple gear running; to entice the fun hacking of that unsupported gear; and to keep that gear in use for years to come (instead of being shoved into some drawer somewhere or just tossed out) is very much within MR forums’ remit.

 

[maflynn]

Is there enough specific discussions to warrant a new forum? Unlike Macs where people can own old laptops, hell there's a cottage industry just for PPC based macs, the iPhone/iPad is a different animal. I don't doubt that there's people who are still on older iOS devices but is there enough to an active forum for those devices?

Are questions/discussions occurring now for iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 etc? Most everything I see is current

I used the prefix/filter to show threads of iPhone 5 or earlier and in the last 6 months there's only been 5 threads created and overall 8 posts. That is 5 threads that were created in May and up, but others bumped older threads.

 

[B S Magnet]

I like to keep these devices doing one or two things that they can still do, but unlike my Macs which I use much more heavily, I'm not interested in making them work like I am my Macs.

Although you may not realize it, I’m often impressed by the ways you’ve managed to eke more use from your older iPhones beyond, say, everyday carry phones — especially when getting them to work with your Macs in your present-day working/production environment. (I can go dig about in the archives for instances where you did stuff like this, if anyone else here wants to read some examples.) That kind of knowledge absolutely has a place in an obsolete iDevices forum, even if you yourself are tending to stick with the newer of your iPhones and iPads.

I am not saying there is no interest. I just don't think there are enough of us out of the niche we are already in to make it viable to the mods.

Setting up a purpose-designed forum may not get the kind of traffic we’re accustomed to on the Early Intel and PowerPC forums, but administrative set-up is trivial; the infrastructure is well in place; the long-term aggregation of knowledge and community around said knowledge builds incrementally; and communities mature over time — something many of us have witnessed since the start of the Early Intel forum last year.

Moreover, while all iPods are obsoleted, we won’t be seeing a shortage of newly-obsolescent iPhone, iPad, and Touch models anytime soon. The latter are, relatively speaking, handheld supercomputers whose Achilles heel is an aggressive planned obsolescence by the manufacturer.

This comes to mind when noting the processing power of the quad-core A10 in the iPhone 7, obsoleted last month by Apple, is on par with the Westmere Xeon in the 2012 Mac Pro (in floating-point operations per clock cycle per core); it benchmarks faster than the quad-core MacPro3,1 in Geekbench 5. And the heckin’ thing, which also drives a Retina display and multiple software-defined radios, runs off a battery with no active cooling — all in your hand. It’s “obsolete”, so ongoing support for keeping one running now falls to the community to help make that happen.

[And heck, topical to iPods: my iPod nano 5G remains my daily user for music on the go (it would be my 4G nano, which the 5G was meant to replace after I thought I’d lost the 4G following a gig performance, only for it to reappear in the recesses of my messenger bag months later; even so, I still use the 4G with my bedside alarm clock, which has a built-in iPod dock). That said, I look at all the tech Apple jammed into the 5G (it was amazing for its moment and even bounds beyond the backwards step of the 6G and, arguably, the 7G), and I wonder what more community tinkerers could ultimately eke from it.]

None of this is said to offend, it's just how I feel.

Nah, it’s a legit take to weigh in as counterpoint.

EDIT: In regards to jailbreaking. Just note, that while jailbreaks are still available, it's the tweaks and apps that make jailbreaks worthwhile. But unlike App store devs, JB devs are fly by night operators. Even if they make it big, they aren't there forever. Some of this stuff relies on registration or third party servers that long ago disappeared.

Surely a fertile, idk, garden could one day find a home for short-lived JBs. This wouldn’t be central or prerequisite for an obsolete/vintage iDevice forum’s remit beyond, say, linking from a relevant WikiPost topic to such a garden — if a plot were to, one day, be sowed. :bigshrug:

 

[B S Magnet]

Is there enough specific discussions to warrant a new forum? Unlike Macs where people can own old laptops, hell there's a cottage industry just for PPC based macs, the iPhone/iPad is a different animal. I don't doubt that there's people who are still on older iOS devices but is there enough to an active forum for those devices?

Are questions/discussions occurring now for iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 etc? Most everything I see is current

I used the prefix/filter to show threads of iPhone 5 or earlier and in the last 6 months there's only been 5 threads created and overall 8 posts. That is 5 threads that were created in May and up, but others bumped older threads.
View attachment 2104388

Is there enough specific discussions to warrant a new forum? Unlike Macs where people can own old laptops, hell there's a cottage industry just for PPC based macs, the iPhone/iPad is a different animal. I don't doubt that there's people who are still on older iOS devices but is there enough to an active forum for those devices?

Are questions/discussions occurring now for iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 etc? Most everything I see is current

I used the prefix/filter to show threads of iPhone 5 or earlier and in the last 6 months there's only been 5 threads created and overall 8 posts. That is 5 threads that were created in May and up, but others bumped older threads.
View attachment 2104388

At this point, an administrator could re-route these threads (in this screen cap) into a new, vintage iDevices community forum, side-by-side with obsolete iPads and virtually all threads from the iPod forum — those tagged iPod Touch 4G, iPod shuffle 4G, or iPod nano 7G notwithstanding. For the latter, bringing over only the most active threads over the last few years, along with the last six months of threads, would have a place in populating a vintage iDevices community forum.

I appreciate how an administrator, following administrative team review, who’s down with volunteering to set up a forum (and to re-route selected discussions to populate the new forum, along with setting up a topic tag taxonomy for the forum), needs to have the time and the mental bandwidth to do it. Up-front setting up will take up nearly all of that.

I’m not really in a rush, even if we’re talking about it right now.

 

[maflynn]

At this point, an administrator could re-route these threads

To be sure, but that's not my point.

My point is, with only 6 threads in the past six months, I don't think there's sufficient justification to create a new forum. Maybe more specific prefixes, but even so, we see a dearth of conversations occurring for older iPhones. The admins and site owner try to balance organized and categorized discussions vs. forum bloat. Having too many forums is counter productive in the long run and if there's little to no discussions occurring, then its hard to justify such a move

Just my $.02 as a member, and I'm not down on the idea, just pointing out that its not a subject that will generate a lot of discussions and the scarce discussions will only decrease with time

 

[eyoungren]

Surely a fertile, idk, garden could one day find a home for short-lived JBs. This wouldn’t be central or prerequisite for an obsolete/vintage iDevice forum’s remit beyond, say, linking from a relevant WikiPost topic to such a garden — if a plot were to, one day, be sowed. :bigshrug:

Possibly. But they'd need a different setup. Cydia wasn't just a website. As a store, it was an app that connected to the website and then processed downloads and the actual install on the device. I am not certain that Cydia is still up (I assume it is), just that the store part is no longer functioning.

Cydia has tweaks and apps going back to the earliest jailbreaks.

But that isn't the problem. I keep mentioning BiteSMS, but that's only because it's a good example. A lot of devs relied on third party servers and registration/activation to prevent being ripped off. I have BiteSMS running either on my 3GS or 4, forget which at the moment. The problem is, I have no way to activate it. Without activating it, I cannot access the custom themes I bought years ago and I cannot shut off the nagware. And I bought BiteSMS two or three times for different devices. The activation server does not exist.

There's another company I bought tweaks from. Every time you switch a device they require your new serial number. That's through their email system. It was getting dodgy in 2014-2015. No idea what's going on now. A large percentage of my JB tweaks on my 6s+ broke because of stuff like this, and there were no direct equivalents (or equivalents that did less) under the newer semi-tethered jailbreaks. This is one of the major reasons I updated that 6s+.

It's not an impossible thing to surmount, but it just might be extremely difficult and time consuming.

I had one tweak I installed in 2012 under iOS 6. It was called Bars and it did nothing but having these bars streak across your screen and disappear. You could change their size and length and color. A JB tweak developed by high school age kids in highschool in 2012. They never released another tweak. Bars was free, but Cydia is littered with this kind of stuff and some of the devs came up with arcane methods for activation/registration. Finally, Apple was very good at poaching the best JB devs they found. Those guys never made JB tweaks and apps after that. An example here is WiFi syncing of your iDevice. That was originally a JB tweak that Apple appropriated. Never updated because Apple hired that dev.