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Comment by 45764986 | Hacker News Reader

>I have five excellent-condition still-perfectly-working Apple products next to me, none of which have current operating system support from Apple.

If they're working perfectly, why does it matter if they have current operating support? It doesn't seem like you're dependent on Apple.

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Software drops support for certain OS versions even if the device still can run it.

The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example.

The Mac is a bit more resilient to this, but it’s still worrying as yearly improvements become subtler.

Yea, this is the bigger problem: 3rd party software developers drop support for "too old" operating systems WAY too early. Especially on mobile. Some developers only support one major previous version, which is insane.

So, Apple leaves old hardware high and dry by not supporting them with operating systems, and 3P software leaves users high and dry by dropping support for operating systems. It's like they are working together to create e-waste.

> The first iPad Pro can’t run adobe products for example.

That’s more on Adobe than Apple though right?

I'd argue it's a bit of both. In my case, I have an iPad 3, which runs iOS 9 compatible apps, but iOS itself doesn't backup the app files, so when various developers pulled their files off the app store for those old iOS versions, I lost access to the old software that did work, which really doesn't make want to buy another iOS device. Less of a problem on mac though.

I guess if it was a paid app I can see the irritation that would cause. Free apps not so much.

In terms of what I'd hypothetically feel entitled to, absolutely, but it only matters because that basic level of control isn't there

I use Macs to develop Mac OS software. I need a recent OS to run the latest XCode and I need to test on the latest OS that my customers are using.

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