And some people have been advocating for Apple to do something similar with old iPhones and tablets for a decade, and there’s no sign. Their privilege but not great for the world.
Would you elaborate? Because my understanding is that Apple has offered outstanding support for older devices in terms of iOS support for quite old devices.
You can't release all the documentation just because the entire phone isn't supported. Many of the components come from other suppliers and aren't obsolete, and you can't just reveal all your suppliers' IP.
They don't have to - just give an option to unlock the device when it's EOL.
It's not a security problem, since they don't support it anylonger anyways!
They could even make it so, that iOS itself refuses to boot if the device is unlocked. That way you can't accidentally have an iOS running that's compromised in some way.
But you can still boot Linux or Android or whatever you want to do to it.
Apps that connect to a service over the Internet (maps, music iMessage) could stop working if Apple changes the APIs that those apps use. This is even more likely to happen to third party apps.
You won't get updates to the trusted root CAs, which means you won't be able to visit sites with certificates signed by CAs created or renewed after support is dropped. And your browser will continue trusting CAs that have had their trust revoked.
And as web standards evolve there will be websites that use features and APIs that your browser doesn't support and may break in subtle, or not so subtle ways. And there is no way for you to install a more up to date browser.
And then of course, you won't fixes for any new security vulnerabilities that are found.
So yeah, it's not as bad as getting bricked, but it as also worse than continuing to work as it always has, but with no new features.
The original post was about Apple not giving proper support to after-EOL phones.
Saying "could stop working" and "won't get updates to the trusted root CAs" is all future issues.
How long should Apple be required to provide updates, both security/vulnerability and future API support?
Currently, iPhone 6S, released in 2014, can run iOS 15, which received its latest update in 2025. The iOS 15 apps work with Apple's services, some with reduced functionality because it was never in iOS 15.
Apple don't give people the tools/keys/etc to load new OS (etc) onto a device once it's no longer supported.
So, at best the device can just be used with the latest version of the software Apple allows until it's a security nightmare and better off no longer used.
Instead, if Apple gave people the ability to load something (prob a Linux) onto those old devices, then those old devices could be used usefully for quite a few more years.
