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No, historically OS's haven't been linked to hardware like iOS is. Imagine if every time you got a new webcam, you had to buy a new version of Windows. XP was supported for 12 years, iOS 12 was officially discontinued after 1 year. You're talking about orders of magnitude difference in time.

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> XP was supported for 12 years, iOS 12 was officially discontinued after 1 year.

Also a pretty false equivalence, though.

Windows 7 was a paid upgrade from Windows XP.

iOS 13 was a free upgrade from iOS 12.

Devices that shipped with iOS 10 got 11, 12, 13, and 14 for free.

(Some/many/most/all) will probably continue getting future iOS versions for free.

I didn't make the equivalence of iOS to XP, the commenter did. I did pick iOS 12 to make a point, but you're right it is apples to oranges, and that's also proving my original assertion.

The original comment was that Apple should charge for iOS versions, to which I was saying that is a bad idea. By your comment, (I think), you would agree with my statement.

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