Talk:Firmware

Remove "Comments" Column

The tables here are too wide and stretch off the side of the page. We could fix this by ditching the "Comments" column. The column is barely used, and when it is, it adds nothing that couldn't be found on the timeline. The majority of the "comments" are either redundant ("Initial release") or can be found on the timeline.
There are a "few" loners:

• iPhone (original)
  • Alpine 1A420: either make the "IPSW Download URL" "iphoneproto.zip" a link to the MacRumors article or move to Beta Firmware
  • Alpine 1A543a/Oktoberfest 3B48b ("Initial US/Euro shipment"): this is the only device where we differentiate by release date; so unless we do that for all devices, release location/date doesn't really matter
  • Alpine 4A57: move to Beta Firmware
• iPhone 3G
  • Big Bear 5A345: not a beta, but remove "Initial release" (you could argue 5A347 was an "initial release" also just like 4.2.5/4.2.6 for the Verizon iPhone 4 (iPhone3,3) and 7.0/7.0.1 for the iPhone 5c and 5s)
• iPhone 3GS
  • Baker 8B117: says that devices that came with 5.0 can't downgrade to 4.1 (nothing we didn't already know)
• iPhone 4 GSM (iPhone3,1)
  • Telluride 9A405: information available from OTA Updates and (should be) the timeline (9A405 for the 3GS was also first non-beta OTA, but that doesn't have a comment)
• iPhone 4S
  • Telluride 9A334: put that information on the timeline
  • Brighton 10B145: put that information on the timeline
• iPhone 5 (iPhone5,1 and iPhone5,2)
  • Sundance 10A551: put that information on the timeline
• iPod touch (original)
  • Big Bear 5A347 and up: mentioned in the footnote for "Download Link Prohibited"
• iPod touch 2G:
  • Kirkwood 7A341 through SUNorthstarTwo 7E18: mentioned in the footnote for "Download Link Prohibited"
  • Northstar 7C145: put that information on the device's page

We could extend this to Beta Firmware also, but that can be handled later. --5urd (talk) 17:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

It fits perfectly fine on my 15-inch MacBook Pro. However, I agree it's not that necessary. I'd be for removing it. For OTA Updates, I'd say it is required really since it explains why you have to get 6.1.3 from 5.0.x before 8.x for example. --iAdam1n (talk) 20:28, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree it looks fine on a big enough monitor, but not everyone has big screens. I have a 1280x1024 screen, and the table is too big for that. As for OTA Updates, I agree it has its purpose, but there has to be a better way to do it, but that's a job for another day. --5urd (talk) 21:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, apart from that info I noted, is there any more information on OTA Updates comments section that is important? If not, we could just add a section to state the OTA from 5.0.x to 6.1.3. --iAdam1n (talk) 22:02, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

It looks actually fine on my iPhone retina display. If table-size is an issue why not merge the ipsw url column and the sha1 hash column into 1 column ?--M2m (talk) 01:04, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

That wouldn't work. The issue 5urd mentioned would be because the width of the table is too big. --iAdam1n (talk) 08:05, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

so merging url with sha1 and a br-tag in between wouldn't reduce width ?--M2m (talk) 15:58, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, that might but it would look very very ugly. I think the best thing to do is just remove the comments column and add a note for important info there (like the 5.0.x > 6.1.3 OTA). --iAdam1n (talk) 16:22, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

That'd work, but as Adam said, it'd just be ugly. Look at the original iPad's table compared to almost everything else; because of the comments column, each row is at least twice as tall as it needs to be (the width of the comments column shrinks the date column, forcing it to use two lines. --5urd (talk) 17:49, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Looks ok to me:

Version	Build	Codename	Baseband	Release Date	IPSW Download URL SHA1 Hash	Comments	File Size
8.0	12A366	Okemo	1.00.05	17 Sep 2014	iPhone7,1_8.0_12A366_Restore.ipsw bfe00f19ca630bfd7c831ffc765ea3b32cf9e48b	some useful comment	2,374,372,056

Question is if the information outwights "beauty-concerns" so to speak. --M2m (talk) 08:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah it works, but it still looks ugly. --iAdam1n (talk) 10:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Combining the download URL and the hash doesn't really shrink the width though. Not to mention, if the comment gets too long, it can span two lines. On my 1280x1024 monitor, the width of the comments column forces the release date to span two lines on almost every device (it doesn't here). Keep in mind, not everyone has a big monitor; I'm one of them.

Version	Build	Codename	Baseband	Release Date	IPSW Download URL	SHA1 Hash	Comments	File Size
8.0	12A366	Okemo	1.00.05	17 Sep 2014	iPhone7,1_8.0_12A366_Restore.ipsw	bfe00f19ca630bfd7c831ffc765ea3b32cf9e48b	some worthless comment	2,374,372,056

Compare that to just removing the comments column:

Version	Build	Codename	Baseband	Release Date	IPSW Download URL	SHA1 Hash	File Size
8.0	12A366	Okemo	1.00.05	17 Sep 2014	iPhone7,1_8.0_12A366_Restore.ipsw	bfe00f19ca630bfd7c831ffc765ea3b32cf9e48b	2,374,372,056

To show you what it looks like on small monitors, here's a screenshot of this discussion. And here's a full page screenshot of Firmware. Notice how the width of the comments column is forcing the "Release Date" cells into two rows almost all the time? While that could be fixed by replacing the spaces with  , that'd just force the already too wide tables to be wider (eg. Apple TV (all 3), iPad (original through Air), iPad mini (original and 2), iPhone (3G and up), iPod touch 5G). Almost, as if by pure coincidence, the only tables that aren't too wide either have no cellular chip (except for iPod touch 5G) or have either really short comments (original iPhone) or none at all (iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3).

--5urd (talk) 17:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Why do we have the prototype iPhone software listed here? Also, could I add the real download link, or would that count as piracy? --Awesomebing1 (talk) 03:52, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

This is how it looks like on my iPhone 6: http://postimg.org/image/kxeobh4jj/ notice that the release date is 2 lines in ever example and the the difference between the current and the no-comments version is not that big (on that device). --M2m (talk) 04:08, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

As the removal of the comments column has begun, where will the information go that has been in there ?--M2m (talk) 16:27, 28 February 2015 (UTC)