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

[eyoungren]

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

I just think part of the problem is a fundamental difference between phones/pads and computers. Another part is jailbreaking.

We, as users, tend to keep our computers longer than phones or tablets. Phones or tablets are more easily replaceable and since a lot of them are sold by the carriers, you can upgrade on payments. And carriers run promotions. If a retailer runs a promo on a computer, you're still having to pay the full price to get that hardware even if it's discounted. The carriers let you pay over time.

Jailbreaking comes in because that was a means to make these older devices do more modern or less restricted things. Things that Apple is now allowing (within its constraints) with more modern devices and newer versions of iOS.

So, it's really a no-brainer to upgrade/update your device. Whereas, a computer we hold on to longer because it's more expensive and less easily replaced.

I'd also add in there the social perception of someone either renting or making payments on a computer, Rent-A-Center springing to mind. I think Curacao also allows you to make payments on stuff. Anyway, the point is that there is a social stigma on that for computers and other tech stuff, but not phones or tablets.

So, to sum this up - a lot of people have just moved on.

 

[eyoungren]

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.

Well, thanks. I didn't realize that.

But, that's mainly just because I didn't like Apple telling me no. So I found a way. Whether those methods still work or will continue to work, IDK. A lot of what I did depended on JB tweaks and apps.

 

[B S Magnet]

Well, thanks. I didn't realize that.

But, that's mainly just because I didn't like Apple telling me no. So I found a way. Whether those methods still work or will continue to work, IDK. A lot of what I did depended on JB tweaks and apps.

“Apple telling you no” is exactly what brings folks together on the PowerPC and Early Intel Macs forums.

It’s what keeps folks coming back to sort of, gently, step outside of Apple’s guardrails because we can. We work interdependently to find more life and to eke more use from our gear — and to keep them out of waste streams — than Apple intended or wanted their users to have. It’s, frankly, kind of magnificent how there are such organic communities to come from a mutually shared stubbornness which so many of us on those forums bring to the table. I’m still being amazed some four years on since signing up. And the two communities’ publicly accessible brain trusts just keep growing.

It’s that je ne sais quoi which brings life to the PPC and EIM forums — as neither forum is, reductively, centred around a specific hardware or software line, but finds community participation where these interleave with a wealth of community-based knowledge and a willingness to work with one another. IF we manage to help someone discover a new hack for an old device they have or help someone find a part to get their non-working device back up and alive again, then we’ve rationalized a need fulfilled.

Even if one doesn’t happen with @arn ’s blessing in the near-term, I hold out for a third such forum on MR — to foster a community for MR members who continue to run, use, and hack all the unsupported, handheld Apple stuff between the first iPod and the iPhone 7 dropped by Apple in September.

 

[TheShortTimer]

“Apple telling you no” is exactly what brings folks together on the PowerPC and Early Intel Macs forums.

It’s what keeps folks coming back to sort of, gently, step outside of Apple’s guardrails because we can. We work interdependently to find more life and to eke more use from our gear — and to keep them out of waste streams — than Apple intended or wanted their users to have. It’s, frankly, kind of magnificent how there are such organic communities to come from a mutually shared stubbornness which so many of us on those forums bring to the table. I’m still being amazed some four years on since signing up. And the two communities’ publicly accessible brain trusts just keep growing.

It’s that je ne sais quoi which brings life to the PPC and EIM forums — as neither forum is, reductively, centred around a specific hardware or software line, but finds community participation where these interleave with a wealth of community-based knowledge and a willingness to work with one another. IF we manage to help someone discover a new hack for an old device they have or help someone find a part to get their non-working device back up and alive again, then we’ve rationalized a need fulfilled.

Even if one doesn’t happen with @arn ’s blessing in the near-term, I hold out for a third such forum on MR — to foster a community for MR members who continue to run, use, and hack all the unsupported, handheld Apple stuff between the first iPod and the iPhone 7 dropped by Apple in September.

Beautifully and powerfully put. I've nothing to add but my full agreement and the almost certainty that the membership of the PPC and EIM forums will agree with you. This deserves to be a sticky in either location as a mission statement.

 

[NoBoMac]

Moderator Note:

Some of these posts are drifting or have drifted off-topic and have been deleted or edited. Please avoid discussing how-to/technical topics and stick to pros/cons of creating a new sub-forum.

 

[B S Magnet]

Moderator Note:

Some of these posts are drifting or have drifted off-topic and have been deleted or edited. Please avoid discussing how-to/technical topics and stick to pros/cons of creating a new sub-forum.

Yah. We ought to wait to discuss how-to and technical stuff for obsolete iDevice gear until @arn grants a go-ahead to open an obsolete/vintage/unsupported iDevices forum community. If and when he does, I ought to go through and flag selected how-to/tech/hack threads from existing forums for moderators to move to this new community.

 

[maflynn]

Yah. We ought to wait to discuss how-to and technical stuff for obsolete iDevice gear until

Nothing is stopping you from discussing it now.

 

[B S Magnet]

Nothing is stopping you from discussing it now.

We lack a community-focussed forum for obsolete iDevices.

A community-focussed forum departs fundamentally from the several product-based forums already in service — particularly, product-based forums whose descriptions concern themselves principally with Apple-supported and/or Apple-vintage products, including OSes.

MR have two community-focussed forums relating to unsupported Apple — Mac-based — products (three, if counting the Apple Collectors forum, home to early PPC, 68k Macs, and 6502-based systems).

The thesis of this discussion thread is there’s a vacancy to be filled for a community-focussed forum topical to obsolete iDevices.

A community-focussed forum develops a brain trust of its participants and regulars. It accounts for discussion threads which overlap hardware, software, firmware, and community-brewed hacks (like adding Bluetooth support, internally, to an iPod classic).

 

[maflynn]

We lack a community-focussed forum for obsolete iDevices.

Two points.
First, you don't need a specific community focused forum. You can have discussions now.

Second, is there a community for such a forum? I think there's a handful of dedicated individuals like yourself and eyoungren but few others

Just my $.02 but there's simply not enough existing and/or potential discussion to justify a new forum

 

[B S Magnet]

Two points.
First, you don't need a specific community focused forum. You can have discussions now.

They are posts which are subject to not seeing much traffic for a while.

Why?

Because unlike with the PPC and EIM forums, MR members generally (to say nothing of MR forum regulars) are far less liable to have a tab open to a product-focussed forum. Consequently, far fewer members are as liable to see such a post.

What you find with a community-focussed form are MR members who either keep a browser tab open to the community-focussed form and/or have it as an easy-to-access favourite/bookmark.

That, as described earlier, is the point of making light of this paradigm and values, activities, and participation metrics between two different kinds of forums: the product-focussed forum and the community-focussed forum.

What benefit is a post for an obsolete product if the right eyes — the eyes of folks who tinker with those products with regularity — aren’t going to read it for a long while, leaving original posts to go necrotic (or the prerequisite need to necromance them once they do)?

(That’s a rhetorical question. It isn’t prompting for a response.)

Second, is there a community for such a forum? I think there's a handful of dedicated individuals like yourself and eyoungren but few others

Let me turn this question over to you: is a there material or symbolic hardship in the launching of such a community-focussed forum? Does doing so require additional work on behalf of staff after the forum is configured and opened? If so, what is that work?

(These aren’t rhetorical questions.)

Just my $.02 but there's simply not enough existing and/or potential discussion to justify a new forum

Fair. I appreciate your two cents’ worth.

The worst to happen is, over the trial span of, say, a year or two, the launching of such a community-focussed forum fails to post more than an index page’s worth of new threads.