Down the rabbit hole again trying to revive an old iPhone 4 to pull Podcast duty for the kids.
- Problem: The charging cable and dock on my Logitech S715i speaker keeps disconnecting. Wiggling the phone around seems to help but it won’t stay charging.
- Solution: Clean out the charging port. Years of old sticky pocket lint have built up and the charger doesn’t insert all the way, causing the connection to go in and out. I had to use a paperclip to delicately scrape out all the junk that was in there (a simple paper towel did not help). No clue how all this lint fit in that tiny port…
- Problem: Podcasts app for iOS 7.1.2 is no longer available in the App Store. Apple recommends upgrading to iOS 10 – not likely on this iPhone 4.
- Attempted Solutions: Didn’t have this app in any of my iTunes Backups, or in “Purchased Apps -> Not on this phone”. Really annoyed at Apple over making this so hard to get. I explored a bunch of options that didn’t work (like using an old iTunes version, downloading a .ipa, using and .ipa from another old iPhone 3G I had laying around…etc).
- Actual Solution: Using my more modern device (iPhone 8 on iOS 13) with the same iTunes account, I installed an app called RSSRadio from the App Store then switched to my older device (iPhone 4 on iOS 7.1.2), searched for RSSRadio in the AppStore, and used the “Cloud Download” icon to install a valid, old version of the app.
* Special Thanks to u/SebSnares on Reddit for the idea and Dorada Software for maintaining an app that can still be loaded on old devices – I recommend purchasing their ad removal subscription for that fact alone.