No. They just put their users ahead of developers.
And the huge success of the App Store model proves they were correct.
Users can go fuck themselves the day Apple decides to stop supporting hardware they bought but still prevent other vendors to provide alternative, up-to-date browsers on it.
I know, I inherited an iPad 2 that was lying around in a drawer. This machine is way less useful than what it could be because of its ancient Safari version.
This is the second time I read this sentence in this thread, it sounds like a cult.
True, but for many Android devices, you can install a custom ROM when the vendor decided to stop supporting their product. Still not good enough though, those custom ROMs are usually built using outdated drivers anyway, usually eventually blocked on a given Android version because the kernel can't be upgraded, and it is not trivial to install them.
What's more, Apple is a bit better than Android for this, but that's because Android is incredibly bad at it to begin with. Both are pretty bad. The mobile scene is clearly in a bad shape in this respect. We are happy when a mobile device is supported for a few years, but I'm used to being able to run an up-to-date OS on a desktop computer or a laptop for decades, until it dies.
That iPad 2 probably pre-dates Windows 8, and Google went and dropped support for Windows 8 just last month. Plus the OS wouldn't have gotten security updates. Here's a serious question: what good is a web-browsing device that you wouldn't trust to log in to anything on?
> This is the second time I read this sentence in this thread, it sounds like a cult.
It's a fairly popular meme in Apple-developer circles that Apple prioritizes itself first, users second, and developers third. This priority list tends to crop up often when complaining about Apple's developer tools and/or (lack of) documentation. It's something one tends to hear alongside complaints like "I like Swift the language, but the compiler crashes all the frigging time" on the Apple-developer podcasts I listen to.
I use Firefox. Windows 7 was out 2 years before the iPad 2 and the latest Firefox supports it.
> Here's a serious question: what good is a web-browsing device that you wouldn't trust to log in to anything on?
There are still plenty of useful things you can do without logging in. But my counter question would rather be: why don't Apple let people write alternative OSes for its hardware then? You can install an up-to-date Linux distribution on computers from the 90s. The iPad is a popular product, I'm sure there would be enough people interested in building a Linux-based OS for it.
The problem is that perfectly good hardware is just getting disposed of instead. An heresy, from an environmental standpoint.
>> This is the second time I read this sentence in this thread, it sounds like a cult.
> It's a fairly popular meme in Apple-developer circles that Apple prioritizes itself first, users second, and developers third
Okay, thanks for the context, I didn't know that.
Microsoft doesn't even support Windows 7 anymore. I wouldn't recommend anyone use an OS that isn't getting security updates.
> But my counter question would rather be: why don't Apple let people write alternative OSes for its hardware then? You can install an up-to-date Linux distribution on computers from the 90s. The iPad is a popular product, I'm sure there would be enough people interested in building a Linux-based OS for it.
I'm not sure if Apple is lifting a finger to help, but https://asahilinux.org is a thing.
I'm less than convinced Linux people want to bother, in large numbers, to install Linux on devices that were insanely RAM-constrained until only very recently, when Apple started putting M1 and M2 chips in its iPads. For all I know, there are additional patent minefields around implementing Linux drivers for iPads' hardware.
The only other thing that I can think of that would incentivize them to actively block alternate-OS development is security. If someone else can install a backdoor host OS and then stick iOS on top of it before selling the phone to you, that's a way to compromise a Real Computer that usually isn't possible with an iOS device.
> The problem is that perfectly good hardware is just getting disposed of instead. An heresy, from an environmental standpoint.
Apple will _happily_ buy old iPads for a pittance (or $0.00) and reuse the gold and aluminum and whatnot in it. Because of that, I'm not quite as moved by the anti-e-waste arguments that pop up in discussions of rapidly-advancing hardware. That said, an iPad 2, which pre-dates Retina support on iPads, is going to be slow and RAM-constrained, and anyone who decides to support hardware that old ten years later is going to be in for a world of hurt.
As an aside, one of the ways in which Apple actually helps its developers is by dropping iOS/iPadOS/watchOS support for old, slower hardware, basically giving developers license to require newer versions of the operating system and/or newer hardware models for newer versions of their apps. I listen to <https://www.relay.fm/radar>, and the sighs of relief that David Smith, the watch-app guy, breathes when the old slow watch model gets phased out are palpable even at 1.3x speed.
> Microsoft doesn't even support Windows 7 anymore. I wouldn't recommend anyone use an OS that isn't getting security updates.
I mentioned Windows because you mentioned it, but I would not neither. You can install an up-to-date Linux distro on any computer that ran Windows 7 or 8 though.
> I'm not sure if Apple is lifting a finger to help, but https://asahilinux.org is a thing.
I was only speaking about iOS devices. Apple Desktop/Laptops have a better story on this.
> Apple will _happily_ buy old iPads for a pittance (or $0.00) and reuse the gold and aluminum and whatnot in it
Apple's handling of e-waste is not exactly great [1]. Anyway, recycling is way more costly than just being able to use hardware that exists.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon...
> Apple released its Environmental Responsibility Report Wednesday, an annual grandstanding effort that the company uses to position itself as a progressive, environmentally friendly company. Behind the scenes, though, the company undermines attempts to prolong the lifespan of its products.
[...]
> Apple rejects current industry best practices by forcing the recyclers it works with to shred iPhones and MacBooks so they cannot be repaired or reused—instead, they are turned into tiny shards of metal and glass.
> As an aside, one of the ways in which Apple actually helps its developers is by dropping iOS/iPadOS/watchOS support for old, slower hardware, basically giving developers license to require newer versions of the operating system and/or newer hardware models
But that's not a good thing! Saying this as a dev, we ought to spend effort not to turn working hardware into waste because it's more convenient.
Please show me a single device from 2011 that "other vendors" aka Google or even Mozilla support [1].
Not saying it's a good thing, but spite and hatred shouldn't replace facts.
[1] Probably apart from desktop. And even there: windows 8 was released in 2012. Chrome droped support for it in 2022, Mozilla will drop support for it this year.
The iPad 2 is blocked on Safari 9, which was released in 2015, only 4 years later.
The Samsung Galaxy S II was released in 2011 too [0]. It was running Android 2.3.3, but could be upgraded to Android 4.1.2. The latest Firefox version to support this version of Android, Firefox 68.11.0, was released July 27, 2020, 9 years later. The web is way more usable today on a 2020 browser than on a 2015 browser. And in 2020, the browser was current on this device!
But the story does not end there. Today, you can install Lineage 18.1 / Android 11 on this device [1]. To be fair, many things don't work on this port, but there's an official Lineage 14.1 / Android 7 Lineage ROM [2] for this device, last built on 2018, 7 years later, on which current versions of Firefox mobile work, because Firefox supports Android 5 and later [3]. And since it is an official Lineage release, you'd expect the device to work correctly on it.
You can have a current browser on this 12 years old device. This is possible because most Android devices are not completely locked out from custom OS development.
> Probably apart from desktop
But that's my point actually. To be fair, the Galaxy sII is an incredibly lucky device compared to most Android devices (however, iPhones and iPads are also usually compared to the Samsung Galaxy ones). And don't be mistaken, I also strongly dislike Android. A computer bought from 2012 can be upgraded to an up-to-date Linux distribution without any issue. There's nothing fundamental to mobile devices that should prevent this.
[0] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_II
[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-unofficia...
[2] https://lineageosroms.com/i9100/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_Android#Platforms
> The latest Firefox version to support this version of Android, Firefox 68.11.0, was released July 27, 2020, 9 years later.
Android 4.1.2 was released in 2012, a year later.
The latest version of iOS for iPad 2 was 9.3.6 released in 2019, 8 years later.
Apple's support for its mobile and portable hardware far exceeds any other manufacturer.
And though I agree that it's a sad state if affairs, but very very very few people will have the knowledge and the skills to install unofficial unsupported versions of whatever on their phones and tablets.
It does not mean there were no security patches after this though. But let's say you have a point here, security support on Android is usually a complete joke.
> The latest version of iOS for iPad 2 was 9.3.6 released in 2019, 8 years later.
Okay, but that's not the complete story. The previous version, 9.3.5, was released in 2016. It seems 9.3.6 only contains a GPS related fix. It's good they provided this fix (I guess it makes the iPad 2 way more useful, as a GPS device) but it's nothing substantial. Still stuck on a late 2015 browser with some fixes in 2016 when the Galaxy S II could run a up to date browser in 2020
So...
> Apple's support for its mobile and portable hardware far exceeds any other manufacturer.
Yes and no. I agree that they provide support for far longer than any other manufacturer. But after this, you are dead stuck. I'd rather have an Android device supported by the manufacturer for 3 years (Android One) and be able to install and use up to date apps and browsers on it for years after this, and be able to install a Lineage OS on it. The support won't come from the manufacturer and this is a shame, but at least you have reasonable support for years on many device thanks to Lineage.
> very very very few people will have the knowledge and the skills to install unofficial unsupported versions of whatever on their phones and tablets.
Indeed. Though they can still find help from a knowledgeable friend. I suspend most people don't though.
That said, I'm done with Android too, because of this "sad state of affairs" you mention. I am lucky to never have got people used to me having the usual messaging suspects that require an Android or an iOS device so I can get away with avoiding them altogether.
And Apple ahead of both, of course.