About the security content of iOS 15.8.5 and iPadOS 15.8.5

Well, good. The moment they stop, it's declared E-waste and Apple suggests you give it to them for free.

Fucked-up world we live in where a disposable vape can be reused for more purposes than an iPhone with expired software support.

I got plenty of old iPhones I can still use.

My pile of old android phones ... they sadly do not live long overall as far as a % of survivors goes. A few have lived long lives for sure, but overall not as many as my old iPhones.

Unfortunately I think it'll be much worse in the coming years with Google's ban on ban sideloading apps and other companies following them.

For whatever reason I don't sweat that condition in Apple land, but I do find it very worrisome to see Android land forego side-loading.

Choose phones supported by LineageOS where the bootloader can be unlocked, and you can easily outlast iOS.

I used to do this back when I was on Android and official updates only lasted 1-2 years. Now I’m on an iPhone I get official OS updates for such a long time I don’t need to worry about flashing custom roms.

My experience just with the hardware doesn't match that. My android devices just tend to fail over time more often than iPhones.

Granted, there's PLENTY of other good reasons to make that choice even with that condition. So I don't disagree generally.

it was upfront disclosed in Apple land in that I knowingly know this to be true and do not expect it as a feature but it is a surprise new condition with no notice in Android land that makes it such worrisome action

Can't say my experience matches yours, either. I too have a box of unsupported mobile devices; the stuff I can do on an Android device clears every iOS one. I can't install apps on iOS without a desktop and a specific unsupported iTunes client. I can only use a subset of iOS functions.

My Android phones still do everything they say on the tin. Regardless, you've worded your entire argument to be orthogonal to my original point so it's clear you're not arguing in good faith. Nothing you ever said was related to the principles I mentioned, just what you consider to be personally valuable. Which is fine, but akin to responding to a health food nut by saying how great burgers taste.

I want root reliably.

Every version of Lineage offers rooted debugging, even without Magisk.

I know that root can be obtained in iOS, but Apple really prefers that users be restrained from this capability.

I am out of date on the latest from the jailbreak scene, but checkra1n supports the device up to iOS 14. If you updated to iOS 15, there may not be a full jailbreak, but not all is lost.

The latest release of Xcode, Xcode 26, still allows you to build apps for iOS 15. At some point you will have the secondary problem of needing an older Xcode which only runs on an older macOS, though Apple has been doing the minimum to make it possible to acquire both of these.

With a free Apple Developer account, you can sign and side load your apps, but they expire every 7 days, and you wouldn't be able to add any restricted entitlements. But the TrollStore exploit (https://github.com/opa334/TrollStore), which I cannot vouch for, seems to work around these limits.

So: It seems like if you are the kind of person who keeps disposable vapes to reprogram the microcontrollers, the iPhone 6S should actually be an attractive device worth keeping:

- Runs an operating system released in September 2021 and received regular bug fixes and security updates through July 2024. Still receives occasional security updates as of September 2025. Not completely end-of-life.

- Supported by the latest developer tools, probably through June 2026, with older downloads available (https://xcodereleases.com/).

- Known jailbreaks and exploits to maximize utility.

It's not surprising that the trade-in value for a 10-year-old device is nil, but on the secondary market they fetch about $60 (https://swappa.com/prices/apple-iphone-6s) which is not bad if you consider the device capabilities compared to most hobbyist devkits.

I think if we're comparing the easiness of repurposing an EOL phone, it is much better to just check the postmarketOS wiki for supported devices and pick one of those instead. They got great instructions for reflashing/jailbreaking the bootloaders etc.

And yes, you get a full blown Linux with it. So you can, like me, repurpose your smartphones into pretty much everything. I have removed their batteries and have them solar powered as Freifunk routers and even offline-ready kiwix media servers among other things.

[1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

If old iPhone can be easily hacked like a disposable vape, of course you can repurpose it. But you can’t.

Ever since the Pixel 2, the Android phones put out by Google have been long lasting. I have a Pixel 2 XL that still works just fine and it's now 8 years old. Doesn't get OS updates but it works.