Episode: 3278
Title: HPR3278: A Minor Victory Against Designed-In Obsolescence
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3278/hpr3278.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 20:02:21

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This is Haka Public Radio episode 3278 for Wednesday, 24th of February 2021.
Today's show is entitled, A Minor Victory Against The Mind in Obsolescence.
It is hosted by Beena and is about 9 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is, extracting a bit more life out of a device that Apple will rather have you done.
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Hello Haka Public Radio, this is Beena.
I know several people are now on their third or even fourth iPad.
One is to be fair, one of those weird Apple cult disciples who within the limits of his funds
has to try and have the latest mother of everything they make, regardless of whether the previous
model is still serving them well. The other's though, for the most part,
being forced into upgrading to a new model due to the obsolescence designed into iPads
and iPhones as well for that matter. My problem with Apple has always been with their business practices
rather than the devices themselves. Just in isolation iPad, for example, is a superbly engineered
piece of kit and it's highly reliable as long as you don't misuse or damage it.
The display, even on the early models, has always been excellent and they've got better
still with each new model. The iOS user interface is to my mind more in choice of the Android.
So what is there not to like?
On my daughter went to school where the head teacher was for some reason, very well disposed to
all's Apple. No matter how restricted the budget for IT, the evaluation for new equipment
always seemed to result in the purchase of Macs or iPads, even though generic Windows and Android
devices could have delivered the same functionality at a much lower cost. When she first started the
school, a scheme was launched whereby pupils could acquire an iPad on a lease purchase arrangement
for about £20 a month, including insurance against loss or breakage.
Since these were featured strongly in the school's e-learning activities and it seemed all the other
kids were going to get one, against my free software instincts we signed up for the scheme.
I'm not sure the amount of essential UC's iPads didn't got getting justified the scheme,
but that's something I could only judge in eyesight. As I went by, my daughter left that school
and used the now ageing iPad 2 less and less. After about six years almost daily use,
the device remained in remarkably good condition. The battery life was still enough to watch
three full length movies along journey, the display was still crisp and the audio faultless even
up maximum volume. So why should I seem interested in it? Whatever two big issues, it didn't bother
in the slightest that the operating system was now unsupported and receiving no security updates.
What did bother, though, was that just about every app she tried to install right grade,
reported need for a later version of iOS, the 9.3.5 running on her iPad,
and of course iOS itself could not be upgraded either.
The other issue was that of on-board storage. The model 2 came with 16GB of which about 3.5 was
used by the OS itself, and the pre-installed default apps. By the time she'd loaded a music
collection and recorded a few video clips with the built-in camera, it didn't have a lot left,
and of course there's no way to add any more. In contrast, most Android tablets come with
a microSD slot, so you can easily and cheaply add an extra 64GB even more.
I thought she was concerned that the iPad 2 was now useless, so in common with every other
piece of ancient or obsolete tech in my household, it was given unceremoniously to me with instructions
to do something with it. Over the years, I've had the job of finding a home for any number of phones,
TVs, DVD players, VCR players, and domestic appliances in various states of function.
These days it seems you literally cannot give an old but working TV away. Even charity shops generally
won't accept mains powered electrical items, as they don't want to accept liability if they catch
fire or electrocute somebody. At our local recycling centre, they have skipped devoted to electrical
items, so that is where I've reluctantly ended up taking a lot of my stuff. Period to it are
sometimes tempted to remove items that other people have done. I've seen laptops and PCs which
look to be in perfect condition. To cut the long story short, nobody else was interested in this
old but perfectly working iPad 2, but it seemed criminal to take it down the council tip.
I decided to hang onto it, at least temporarily, to see if I could get any genuine use out of it.
It struck me that the minimum residual functionality required for this old iPad to be very real
used to me would be the abilities to use email, browse the internet, watch YouTube and use the
camera, anything else it did would be a bonus. First I tried to set up my email account using
a default mail app and was pleasantly surprised to find it worked fine. The internet browser Safari
was less successful. It certainly displayed some websites, generally those with a minimum of
complexity, but for most sites it will just keep on reloading the page but never get beyond displaying
a blank area. I tried upgrading Safari but it wanted a new version of iOS.
There are all sorts of browsers in the App Store, most of which I've never heard of,
nearly all of which had very low user ratings. I tried a few regardless but was sorted by the
need for a later version of iOS most of the time. However, my last option was a browser called
MaxThon5 which had received plenty of good reviews. It installed out any problems,
and although it was a bit on the slow side both in loading and moving between sites,
everything seems to be displayed correctly, even YouTube works fine as long as you show
little patience when it's loading. As far as I could tell the camera app hasn't changed since
the iPad was brand new. It works perfectly, the video is only 720p but unless you want to use it
in challenging lighting conditions it's not bad at all. All the other standard iOS apps that came
pre-installed still work on the Safari. It means that the device can still be used for FaceTime.
The ability to watch your own movies is a bit constrained in all iOS devices so to rectify that
I tried to install VLC and was delighted when that installed OK and worked perfectly.
Beyond playing almost any format of sound and video, a particular advantage of VLC on iOS
is that it comes with its own data space which means it can transfer videos onto the iPad,
using the USB charging cable direct from a PC as mounted storage. If you don't have the cable
and the VLC also has a wireless transfer for Cersei built in which you can access from your PC's
browser. Certified that it's old iPad could still be a practical device for me, I tried to
add to it and found that the BBC iPlayer app could also be installed. The iPlay can be accessed
from the Maxthon browser but it's tediously slow to load but using the app is considered
quicker. I was also able to install a simple radio app which gives access to feeds from thousands
of radio stations all over the world. The end result of all this is I hope a device which
despite being around nine years old and officially obsolete can still be used effectively for email,
internet browsing, play music, watching movies and video calling so that's enough to provide
the basic functions you might need when you're out and about but don't want to take a laptop with you.
My bottom line is that while I wouldn't buy an iPad of this vintage for more than the price of
a coffee or a beer, if you have one lying around then don't throw it away. There could be somebody
you know who could get some useful life out of it. The only word a warning I would give is to
always bear in mind that this device has not received any security updates for several years
and never will again. On that basis I'd hesitate to use it for any kind of banking or for
completing forms containing sensitive information. Other than that though all the while the battery
is giving at least five or six hours of life why not get some utility from it. I find it's such a
shame that a perfectly good computing device is designed to be thrown on a scrappy at the
whim of the manufacturer rather than because it's finally given up the ghost. As I mentioned earlier
these old devices are extremely well made and deserve any popular as a result.
Mike Wright with Apple has always been its business practices and cynical pricing policies
which I'm sure contribute more than little to Apple being arguably the most valuable company in the world.
Bye for now.
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