- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nowsci.com/post/5896434
Quest 1 becomes near-E-waste Apr 30
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That last sentence is fucking dripping in corpo arrogance. People bought their hardware to game on, but meta is implying that people paid them money in order to help them grow the brand for the company’s benefit.
Very much so! Thanks for pointing it out.
This is functionally similar to what Apple and Google do with their app stores. They don’t explicitly ban certain devices, but they mandate minimum API targets, which means they stop allowing apps that support older OSes. This effectively blocks old devices as well once they stop getting OS updates.
See: https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk
This is part of the problem with walled gardens. There is inherently a conflict of interest when the same company operates the marketplace, creates the OS, and even sells devices that run that OS. If the marketplace were independent, they would not have the incentive to block new games for old devices.
targetSdk is different than minSdk.
targetSdk means the app is aware of newer devices and is used to make sure the app is updated and supports new security features, like runtime permissions and scoped storage, when run on newer devices. This is to get out of a state where newer devices have to emulate skipping all those protections to keep apps running that were built without knowledge of them.
minSdk is the minimum android version an app needs to function. To my knowledge there’s nothing stopping apps from declaring any minSdk, even 1, and continuing to install and function on Android from 2007 if they choose.
There is one caveat: Google Play Services and by extension Google’s Play Store stopped receiving updates on Android 4.4 (released late 2013) last August, just before that OS hit 10 years old. Even so, the servers still work with that old app in the short term and there are alternatives for installing apps without relying on Google Play at all.
That 10 year age is for the OS, not the device. Nexus 4 for example launched in 2012 with Android 4.2 and got updates up to Android 5.1.1 in 2015. So it still gets Play Store updates now. You can install apps from other sources, and you don’t need to rely on internet or servers for initial setup if you don’t want to, and you can even install a custom OS like Lineage’s build of Android 8.1.
Nexus 4’s 2.5 years of OS updates was still abysmally low compared to how long phones should be perfectly usable for. Yet that 12 year old phone remains far more usable this year than a <5 year old Oculus Quest soon will be.
Yup, plenty of stuff still gets updates on my old phone running Android 4.
I completely agree. That is why we‘re here. Feel free to post more articles, resources and ideas or start a discussion. The more we do, the faster we will grow and the faster we will end this. I‘m sure of it.
If companies stop supporting devices/software, they should be free game for someone else to pick up the slack, hack, modify or otherwise make useful to people without consequence. Companies like Nintendo would rather shoot you though.
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that is why i do my best to NOT support such and go along the more sane way of using open source, self-hosted and vendor independent things in the first place.
by taking control to yourself you then have it. otherwise giving control away to parasitic richies, then you loose control, which can also as well be pronounced as just: “you loose”.
if something does not yet exist as open source (software or hardware no matter) go along find same pple and make it happen to exist as open source ;-)
I fully agree. Thats why I made a petition on change.org today. Feel free to sign.
Could you link the petition? Sorry I might be dumb but I can’t find it.
You‘re not dumb. Its hard to find them. Please consider signing because we‘re one signee short to go public! :)
What the actual fuck!
Seriously? My kid still uses the headset… He liked it. Had one way before Facebook/meta took over…way before they forced a Facebook signing thing…
God DAMN I hate modern tech companies.
I still have an electronic RC car from the 70s in my garage from my childhood. I can put in batteries and play with it. The stupid bb8 remote control toy my kid got is obsolete because the servers it needed to work were shutdown…
So you can see why I made this community I guess. And why I made the change.org petition to force companies to open up the devices they abandon. This would immediately reduce ewaste and make items we buy actually ours. Feel free to search for it on change.org and sign it. Hell, tell your friends about it and the parents at your kids school and let them sign it as well. Thats why I did this. To change things.
Had one way before Facebook/meta took over…way before they forced a Facebook signing thing…
do you mean oculus rift s? because by the time they released the quest 1, they were all facebooky… iirc. I used them every day q1 & q2 for dev work.
The devices were “Oculus Quest and Quest 2” well into 2021
My quest 2 still has the Oculus logo and name on it, the instructions are the same, and I didn’t need a Meta account to log in until the name change
Calm down. The headset will still work, OP is confused.
wow it was released in 2019.
apple does the same with their stuff. I have a perfectly working ipad2 and it is ewaste at this point. Its one more reason why I made this community. It doesnt hurt anyone to make their old hardware jailbreakable but they actively work against it. We will at some point start writing open letters to the EU and other regulators to ask for a law that requires companies to make their devices jailbreakable after they go out of support because its a huge security risk and an environmental catastrophe.
Its one more reason why I made this community.
fucking subscribed and THANK YOU, this shit needs to be stopped. the only way is to tell them NO en mass, this is a great resource.
Thats very nice! Thank you. I‘m very glad that you feel this way.
everyone eventually stops supporting stuff, but the ipad2 is fron 2011.
What point are you trying to make? The processor, ram and ssd still work. I only need a different OS which I have the experience to install but apple hardware locked the device so it becomes e waste. Its totally okay that they stop supporting stuff but they must be required by law to open the devices after that period. Its why I made a petition about it today on change.org.
hey i’m not against what you’re trying to accomplish, and wouldn’t be surprised if it happens in the EU. i was just pointing out that 5 years isn’t long and 13 years is a long time in terms of consumer electronics.
Why do we see 13 years as a long time though? Because the corporations want us to. My laptop from 10 years ago still works perfectly fine.
Absolutely. I dont know why people downvoted you but thats the reason. Its also the reason why „seasonal trends“ were introduced in the fashion industry, the most disgusting waste producer on the planet iirc. source
depends on the use cases of course. you couldn’t edit 4k video but you could do a bunch of stuff still. but i personally don’t think apple would start letting you install linux on a 13 year old ipad unless the government forced them to.
Yeah, consumer protection laws would be the best course of action. I do hope the EU takes this on.
Function. For so many things: Function.
Time moves forward. A LOT of jobs require newer tech. Don’t compare your needs to the needs of others. For you it may be the right choice to not upgrade. For others they may have no choice.
Besides, while certainly wasteful, we cannot expect any company to support hardware forever. That said, they should be willing to be friendly on service shutdown, giving more autonomy to the community when it happens.
First of all, function is not a reason for abandoning old stuff. If it still works, someone will maybe have use for it. More than the landfill anyway.
Secondly, nobody ever said anything about support. The rc car that was talked about doesnt need support, same with a laptop. Just the actively locked down device does. What does that tell you?
The vast majority of people do not need frequently upgraded devices for their jobs. The average person would see little change to their lives with a decade-old device.
Right now, companies such as meta stop supporting hardware after only a few years. That’s not reasonable at all, and we can expect companies to support hardware for much, much longer than they do. They’re raking in billions, I think they can afford it.
You‘re correct and the fact that apple makes devices that go that long is astonishing. But it still has nothing to do with the fact that they are bricking devices actively.
Btw, I have a laptop of the same age running perfectly fine on lubuntu. So its obvious which is better.
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How long until they pull this shit with the Quest 2? It’s not worth it to buy into this technology if they’re just going to fuck you over with planned obsolescence in a couple of years. I hope this bites them right in the asshole
It is the same everywhere. Technology is fucked all over the world. Thats why I just set up a petition on change.org
yeah we said that would happen and oculus would be ruined…
i hope the takeaway here for the wider public is that they shouldnt buy anything from facebook. as if this wasnt already crystal clear.
Defintiely. I just made a post promoting a petition I made for shit like this. Feel free to sign it. I had to use my nickname to not dox myself but everyone else could use whatever they like I think.
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Isnt this the most amazing thing you have ever gotten in your life?
Am I misunderstanding this, or is this like if say Sony would say ”after April this year we will not license any NEW games for Playstation 4 anymore?”
“After april this year you cant put another game in the shop” if I understand correctly, which essentially means your devide is doomed to stay like it is and you personally cant do shit about it. Feel free to correct me.
What about the games that are already there?
Should work but they won’t get updates anymore. (I guess)
According to the wording on the email, updates will only be allowed for software that runs on Quest 2 and 1.
No idea.
Based on the timeline, it would be like if they did that shortly after the PS5 came out.
The PS5 launched one month after Quest2…
And about 5 years after the ps4.
my favourite part is how while yes, developers can still release software for the Quest 1, as long as they also release it for the Quest 2, users are not allowed to even search for it.
SEARCH is blocked/filtered (for new Q1/2 apps released after April 30). What the hell.
How does that make sense?
I can only think of one reason: they want to pressure everyone to buy the new device. Anyone feel free to point out other reasons.
So, … the device will be bricked ?
Unusable for new games as I read it. Old stuff will probably function, I dont know if it has security implications but its disgusting anyway. If the community wants to make more games, let them.
If the community wants to make more games, they still can. They’ll just have to distribute them through sidequest.
Thanks for chiming in. I checked sidequest. What exactly is it?
Btw. the quest seems to have a browser which makes meta dropping the support a huge issue if you cant update the browser anymore. It then becomes a security nightmare (like old apple devices).
that also mean old stuff do not get update too.
And because nowaday everything is locked (walled garden is the term you need google for) , it is unlikely the device will be useable in few year. Unlike a computer, you can install anything on it.
I know, which is what I said initially. Walled gardens is one reason I made this community. :) thanks for contributing.
Will people be sued if they release open-source mod, homebrew on github ?
No, but the other places you can host your game aren’t trafficked anywhere near as much, so devs won’t be able to make the same money they could if Meta had have left their App Store open to new Oculus 1 games.
A year ago Quest 1’s accounted for 2% of Quest headsets being used. That number definitely dropped down significantly.
Nobody will make any sort of money releasing games that are Q1 exclusive, no matter which storefront they are on.
Oh that’s interesting is there a specific source or place I could review such stats? As an Oculus 1 developer I’d be interested to.
Part of why I’m developing for Quest 1 personally is that it’s so under powered that it’s helping me learn optimisation.
…but I would like to one day do something more profitable with my knowledge/training.
I was refering to this article, I looked it up since I was vaguely remembering reading a similar figure. It’s a year old (before Q3 was released) and the 2% figure is provided by the devs of Zenith to justify not supporting the headset any more.
Which shows quite clearly that VR devs figured out it’s not worth supporting Q1 long time before this step by meta.
Can’t find any more recent stats aside from this Steam hardware survey showing Q1 at 1.37%. Of course, that counts people who used Q1 to play PCVR via Steam and the percentage is out of all headsets, not just the Quest line, so the results are definitely skewed, though it confirms Q1 is far from popular these days.
The thing about it is that it was a bit of an experiment and being a success it was iterated upon very fast, with the Q2 improving on it in almost all respects and for the same price, so it was quickly overtaken. I suspect the Q2 will keep being used by a big chunk of userbase for longer, though we’ll see if the rumoured Q3 lite changes that.
