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Comment by tqkxzugoaupvwqr | Hacker News Reader

I cannot agree with the quoted statement. Early Apple tablets do not work as well as when they were released. I bought an iPad 3. After each major iOS release it became slower. Now it runs iOS 9 and it is unbearably slow. I only ever use it to watch YouTube, and even this is an exercise in patience.

Because of the performance drop, I had bought an iPad mini 4. After half a year I sold it because I simply didn’t use it often. I cannot imagine spending $400 on a new iPad. I will keep using my iPad 3 until it breaks. And I will not buy a new iPad again. The OS and form factor is too limited to do any serious work on it. (I’m not going to buy a keyboard and stand for a tablet just to have a subpar laptop experience.)

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As counterpoint, I used my first generation iPad until I broke the screen last year. (It withstood more than a few drops as the corners attested before finally succumbing.) Granted, my use case wasn't overly intensive: mostly just web browsing and video viewing (Netflix, HBO Now, iTunes). My primary gripes are with iTunes and video storage management, and while that was more acute with the limited storage of the first generation iPad, it hasn't changed with its 9.7" iPad Pro replacement. But that first generation iPad worked well for me, even with iOS 9.

> But that first generation iPad worked well for me, even with iOS 9.

The first-generation iPad did not support past iOS 5.1.1.

Thanks for the correction. I know I always upgraded the OS when prompted, which is why I (mistakenly) assumed it was running the latest version.

Can I asked something? Why are iPads popular? Genuine question. I will admit first that I also use an old iPad for watching YouTube, but that's because I run Linux on my surface pro 3, and YouTube sucks my battery dry faster than you can say sudo.

But, the iPad is still too heavy to hold for extended periods, falls over all the time on its rubbish case if I keep it on the uneven bed, and I find the surface kickstand does the job much better. Or just a normal laptop. Even for playing music when I cook, laptops somehow have less friction.

You probably do on your laptops or phone what others do on the iPad. it's also worth nothing how much more portable the iPad mini is than the 9.7" form factor.

Offline Netflix and Amazon Video only works on tablets. Useful for flights. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what an iPad is for...

Content consumption? I am reading this on my bed, on my iPad Pro.

I have an iPod mini my wife won, I use it in the restaurant kitchen for music, looking things up and stocktake.

Don't use a case as those add to much weight.

I also upgraded to a newer iPad which is dramatically lighter. Around 1lb seems about the limit for comfortable use indefinitely. The new iPad is a little lighter than a hard back book, the iPad mini at 0.65 pounds is lighter than the average paperback.

PS: The 12" pro is 1.59 pounds which IMO is to heavy for sustained use.

Just as a side note, we've never needed to upgrade the ipad air 2 nor any prior tablet from apple. We're of horror stories of devices slowing down or degrading with each iteration of ios so we've been lucky in not keeping them up to date.

On the other hand its actually been a negative impact in regards to wanting to buy a iphone. Knowing that if apple ever force a update or accidently swipe a notification away we could be looking at slower devices is a incentive not to buy their iphone products.

I'm in the same boat not upgrading OS version, but it does limit your app choices significantly.

With the CIA ios exploits out in the wild now, how can you really be comfortable using such an insecure version?

If you're that worried you should just simply stop using the internet. People downloading the facebook or messenger app kind gives a clear message they don't care about their privacy or their data.

The hardware possibly matured to a point where future iOS releases don’t have a noticeable performance impact anymore. The iPad 3 and iPhone 4S became slower with each major update whereas the iPhone 5 is still perfectly okay to use. Apple’s recent ARM chips rival laptop CPUs. Apple would have to intentionally cripple iOS devices to make them feel sluggish.

(Nevertheless, since my trust in Apple has eroded, I can imagine the bean counters thinking of how to increase sales by deliberately degrading older hardware.)

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