<story><title>Locked out of &apos;God Mode&apos;, runners are hacking their treadmills</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/nordictrack-ifit-treadmill-privilege-mode/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brokenmachine</author><text>Definitely.&lt;p&gt;TV updates are another thing. They change things with abandon and you can&amp;#x27;t revoke the updates.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes they break stuff and then you have to pray and wait until they hopefully fix them at their leisure.&lt;p&gt;IMO, it should be illegal to issue unrevokable updates so you can&amp;#x27;t get a product to have identical features as it did at the time of purchase. You should always be able to wipe it back to stock. Same with phones.&lt;p&gt;And the people who might crow about &amp;quot;security&amp;quot; - my device, my rules. I can block it on the network if I want.</text></item><item><author>mensetmanusman</author><text>Government should mandate the ability to downgrade the software to versions that were previously available on said hardware.&lt;p&gt;I’ve had so many issues with Apple devices losing compatibility with obscure features on apps after updating iOS, I wish I could go back occasionally to accomplish some task, and then upgrade again when finished.&lt;p&gt;The flexibility is valuable.&lt;p&gt;For example, on the newest iPad Pro, iMovie is unusable after iOS 15, completely jittery and unable to handle smooth user experiences for some reason.</text></item><item><author>CoastalCoder</author><text>I agree. Perhaps the U.S.&amp;#x27;s legal framework reasonably allows this kind of behavior, but IMHO it&amp;#x27;s a sign that the framework needs legislative correction.&lt;p&gt;The first time I encountered this was when Sony advertised Linux-compatibility for the PS3, which I bought expressly for that purpose. I was shocked when a judge upheld Sony&amp;#x27;s post-sale removal of that capability.</text></item><item><author>gorjusborg</author><text>This type of &amp;#x27;update&amp;#x27; is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called &amp;#x27;smart&amp;#x27; devices.&lt;p&gt;If part of the product I&amp;#x27;ve paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can&amp;#x27;t rely on the product&amp;#x27;s features. Period.&lt;p&gt;I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day, and the controls were all changed, completely. Total rip-off. I liked the game I bought, but it was replaced without my consent.&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that this behavior should be illegal for purchased products.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tharkun__</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s exactly why I personally try to stay away from as many of these things&amp;#x2F;devices as I can reasonably do.&lt;p&gt;TV: just don&amp;#x27;t buy an actual TV. Buy a monitor and hook it up to a Linux box with something like Kodi. You can hook up your cable box if you have that or stream from Netflix and such. Sure, even Netflix makes it hard as you can&amp;#x27;t get 5.1 surround but I&amp;#x27;ll take that and 2.0 -&amp;gt; 5.1 upmix over buying a Smart TV any day!&lt;p&gt;Games: Kerbal Space program sounds fun. Lots of mentions on HN. Apparently after some company bought them up changes of this sort have been made. So I decided against getting it even though I would probably very much enjoy playing it. Don&amp;#x27;t buy games like that. Buy games like Factorio or some GoG stuff (the ones that actually do work on your current Windows OS if that&amp;#x27;s what you use ... ;)) and do &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; buy into the GoG Galaxy thing. Get the installers. Otherwise that&amp;#x27;s like falling for Steam or Xbox Live or whatever the &amp;quot;Windows Live&amp;quot; BS is called nowadays.&lt;p&gt;Tablets and Phones: Use them for what they&amp;#x27;re good for: Making phone calls and browsing the web on the go.
Apps are a curse, I avoid installing them as much as possible. Some exceptions prove the rule, like a free GPS tracker app for hiking created by a single guy. UI looks like it&amp;#x27;s out of the 90s but works for my use case. Found it because the other app I used started requiring a login even for the free part of the app. I refuse to bow to such things.</text></comment>
<story><title>Locked out of &apos;God Mode&apos;, runners are hacking their treadmills</title><url>https://www.wired.com/story/nordictrack-ifit-treadmill-privilege-mode/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brokenmachine</author><text>Definitely.&lt;p&gt;TV updates are another thing. They change things with abandon and you can&amp;#x27;t revoke the updates.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes they break stuff and then you have to pray and wait until they hopefully fix them at their leisure.&lt;p&gt;IMO, it should be illegal to issue unrevokable updates so you can&amp;#x27;t get a product to have identical features as it did at the time of purchase. You should always be able to wipe it back to stock. Same with phones.&lt;p&gt;And the people who might crow about &amp;quot;security&amp;quot; - my device, my rules. I can block it on the network if I want.</text></item><item><author>mensetmanusman</author><text>Government should mandate the ability to downgrade the software to versions that were previously available on said hardware.&lt;p&gt;I’ve had so many issues with Apple devices losing compatibility with obscure features on apps after updating iOS, I wish I could go back occasionally to accomplish some task, and then upgrade again when finished.&lt;p&gt;The flexibility is valuable.&lt;p&gt;For example, on the newest iPad Pro, iMovie is unusable after iOS 15, completely jittery and unable to handle smooth user experiences for some reason.</text></item><item><author>CoastalCoder</author><text>I agree. Perhaps the U.S.&amp;#x27;s legal framework reasonably allows this kind of behavior, but IMHO it&amp;#x27;s a sign that the framework needs legislative correction.&lt;p&gt;The first time I encountered this was when Sony advertised Linux-compatibility for the PS3, which I bought expressly for that purpose. I was shocked when a judge upheld Sony&amp;#x27;s post-sale removal of that capability.</text></item><item><author>gorjusborg</author><text>This type of &amp;#x27;update&amp;#x27; is one reason I tend to stay away from so-called &amp;#x27;smart&amp;#x27; devices.&lt;p&gt;If part of the product I&amp;#x27;ve paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can&amp;#x27;t rely on the product&amp;#x27;s features. Period.&lt;p&gt;I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day, and the controls were all changed, completely. Total rip-off. I liked the game I bought, but it was replaced without my consent.&lt;p&gt;My feeling is that this behavior should be illegal for purchased products.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rurp</author><text>&amp;gt; my device, my rules&lt;p&gt;Exactly. Companies that actually care about security don&amp;#x27;t bundle those updates with major breaking UX changes.</text></comment>