Apple doesn’t say it out loud, but they can’t just decide to support the new iOS versions on the first few versions of hardware. There just isn’t enough processing power there to deliver a respectable user experience with the new software. Sure, it worked fine when new, but as processor cycles got more plentiful, they still all got used by programmers.
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* one site is showing 98% of users running iOS 12 or higher.
* just 0.1% are stuck at iOS 6.
* the site: http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/template_
My Macbook Air just went out of OS support, and apps have already started to bitrot. My iPhone just went out of iOS support, so it's just a matter of time before I start getting "bad" updates that wreck my stuff. My iPad and iPod touch went out of support years ago, and the only thing that still worked consistently was 2 magazine subscriptions on the iPad...which broke sometime in August 2019.
How much effort is it to keep the digital lifeline services still working, so that I can continue to use paid-for content and apps? I know it's greater than 0, but I went from being a dedicated Apple user to one who will never buy another Apple product. Every single previous purchase has resulted in pristine and perfectly functioning hardware being rendered useless by loss online support services. If I can't update on my schedule and my budget, I can't justify buying the hardware.
I mean, they have a platform, but the feedback loop seems kind of broken.
But mainly, just let me download whatever previous version I want.
One used to be able to back up apps directly to Mac or PC via iTunes but it seems like that ability was lost in 2018, now that I search for it.
For Macs, it’s still easy. Use time machine and if an app updates to a bad version you can just restore the earlier .app file from your time machine.
Everything Apple has done has had the effect of slowly bricking your iPad, bit by bit.
And these so called "upgrades" have only had the effect of removing features and slowing my device, and generally degrading the UX. This is not ok.
I never actually purchased my iPad, it was given to me to develop medical software. And even though it was used in a closed offline environment, this forced update still broke things and set back our development. I also know a teacher who was forced to shelve her lessons after she was tricked into updating her iPad 4 to iOS 11, which had so much latency when typing that it was rendered virtually useless.
Another old iPad is the dedicated darts scoring tablet.
That said, it's a 10-year-old machine. I don't have any desktop or laptop computers left that are good for anything other than e-mail, either.
Compare to Android, where I can still run many modern apps on old hardware with Android 2.3, or at least could at the time my iPad was almost completely obsoleted and I sold it off.
Its like if you were forced to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista on your 512MB laptop - which could handle Windows XP just fine but couldn't handle Vista, even though yes Vista came with many new features.
Instead consider that a 10 year old laptop in 2010 would be basically useless and massively heavy, or a 10 year old desktop in eg 2007.
The difference with desktop operating systems are that applications almost always work for many, many releases. This does not seem to be the case with iOS.
In general terms, the PC world has been characterized for what I usually describe as an intense respect for the hardware and software investment made by users not to become unnecessarily (or unjustifiably) obsolete. Another example I have of this is the Adobe CS4 suite, which we purchased back in 2008 and is perfectly usable (and in use on a daily basis) 12 years later across many evolutions of the Windows hardware and software landscape.
We also have Apple products, Macs, iPads, etc. I still remember Apple pushing the reset button twice; once in transitioning to the PowerPC processors and then abandoning the platform; obsoleting all existing software in the process. Twice.
Not complaining, just a historical perspective and a difference in philosophy between two segments of the market. I never go into the Apple ecosystem assuming the solutions are going to survive the test of time. On the other hand, in the PC world, it is likely safe to assume you are in full control of when you might want to obsolete the hardware and software you purchase. From a business perspective this difference is important.
Services like Steam do a way better job of keeping games running than the typical app store does for games and apps.
Even for those early days, it went from new to obsolete extremely fast.