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0 pointsvetinari10y ago0 comments

I have an iPhone 3G in the drawer, as an emergency phone.

The amount of apps, that this phone can download from App Store, whether running iOS 3 or 4, is exactly zero (yes, even those that were available in the past, cannot be downloaded).

My brother has for exact the same purpose the original HTC G1, running Android 1.6. That phone can download every single app from the Play Store, that was made available when the phone was supported.

0 comments

qq6610y ago

If you're using it as an emergency phone, do you really need to install apps? Apple has taken the position that the older phones are not worth the trouble it takes to support them. The numbers seem to bear out this decision -- most in-market iPhones seem to be 4S and newer, and people upgrade their iPhones almost immediately when the new OS is released (this I can't understand at all, the new OSes frequently break things, and I always wait a few months to update).

vetinariOP10y ago

Background: I needed to sync the contacts with Google. Meanwhile, Google disabled the ActiveSync support, the phone was reset, and I was looking for some app to do that. In the past, there were apps capable of doing so, but now, they were unavailable. Add to that inability to side-load the apps..

Regarding the retro-compatibility:

Nobody supports Android 1.x either. However, in the past, developers did upload their apps that did work on these devices. So why the users shouldn't be able to download these old versions?

And that's the difference. Apple actively removed old packages from the store, while Google just left them there. Just this alone makes the old android devices more useful.

ianlevesque10y ago

You are comparing two phones that combined have less than a fraction of one percent of the installed base.

vetinariOP10y ago

So what? Is it ok to just trow them into garbage then?

You can still use them for calls and messages. You can still use one of them for apps, that were developed for this device.

marrs10y ago

The parent is probably too young to remember a time when you could buy a device expecting to keep it for the rest of your life, or maybe even pass on to your children.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsvetinari10y ago0 comments

I have an iPhone 3G in the drawer, as an emergency phone.

The amount of apps, that this phone can download from App Store, whether running iOS 3 or 4, is exactly zero (yes, even those that were available in the past, cannot be downloaded).

My brother has for exact the same purpose the original HTC G1, running Android 1.6. That phone can download every single app from the Play Store, that was made available when the phone was supported.

0 comments

qq6610y ago

vetinariOP10y ago

Regarding the retro-compatibility:

Nobody supports Android 1.x either. However, in the past, developers did upload their apps that did work on these devices. So why the users shouldn't be able to download these old versions?

And that's the difference. Apple actively removed old packages from the store, while Google just left them there. Just this alone makes the old android devices more useful.

ianlevesque10y ago

You are comparing two phones that combined have less than a fraction of one percent of the installed base.

vetinariOP10y ago

So what? Is it ok to just trow them into garbage then?

You can still use them for calls and messages. You can still use one of them for apps, that were developed for this device.

marrs10y ago

The parent is probably too young to remember a time when you could buy a device expecting to keep it for the rest of your life, or maybe even pass on to your children.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse