Given that they control the hardware and software, I believe they know full well what they're doing when they put out a new update to devices that cannot handle it. They could provide a warning "During testing, your device may not run at full speed, due to age of hardware and new features added." and offer to install.

With Microsoft, I give them a bye primarily because aside their Surface line, they don't control every possible configuration, and have to deal with a wide ecosystem of hardware.