My iPhone SE (2016)
Why do I have this? What makes it so special? It's so tiny. You can hardly tap the buttons. I mean, it's really fucking tiny.
I bought this a few years ago when I wanted a working iPod that could stream Bandcamp/Spotify AND still have a headphone jack. The SE is the last production model iPhone that came with it. It is now ten years old. I just replaced the battery in it this weekend. Works like a champ.
Yes, I have real iPods and a Zune. But once in a while I want to listen to something new without going through the manual process of downloading files and transferring them to a device. That's great for long term favorites, not for discovery.
My daily driver phone is a big chungus 13 pro maxXx. It's screen is bigger than the one on a Switch Lite. I can do anything on it and it fits my hands. But it has no phone jack so I can't listen to music with my Porta Pros. I have to use these wireless Fahrenheit 451 seashell things that hurt the inside of my ear after 20 minutes. How yall wear Airpods 34/7 is beyond me.
Back to the old and dusty. So when I first got the SE back, oh 4 years ago, most major apps still worked with the iOS version. I could download Spotify and Bandcamp without issue. This weekend after upgrading the battery and finally getting a chance to use it again I went to install Twitter's app and it yelled at me that it needed iOS 16+ to add the app. The developer doesn't support older iOS versions.
I understand that. It's a security risk to support old software. But. I am willing to take that risk to listen to new music. No, you can't install a previous version. Even if I had previously installed it and deleted it, it won't let me. As long as the app is still there, I can use it.
So for now, I can never uninstall any app that is currently on the SE or else I'll lose all ability to get it back. I do have an android GO phone from who knows when that has a phone jack as well. It's exceptionally slow. I can't deal with that. So just a heads up to anyone still rocking an older iOS device that works perfectly well, eventually the apps will stop updating and may lose the ability to run, which is a shame.
If yall know of any folks smarter than me who have figured out a way to install a linux based OS for old iPhones please let me know.