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Funny, I have the original iPad as well, but I haven't yet gotten the official message from Apple to sell it on eBay. Maybe they're sending them to Europe first?

Also, the strange thing is that it still runs as well as the day I bought it, and still does everything it did from Day 1, as well as new things that came with updates to iOS.

I forget, why am I supposed to be angry at Apple?

I think the problems arise when app devs have to jump through an increasing number of hoops to maintain backwards comparability...which I'm sure is additionally aggravating because, as you say, the iPad appears "to do everything it did from Day 1"

Of course, the comparability game is nothing new. The problem is that as an iOS user, you haven't choice to upgrade to the latesst compatible version of an app. You only have the choice to install thhe most recent version of the app. Or at least this is what I understand is a barrier for both devs and users. At least with PCs, devs had the option of providing 32 and 64 bit versions of their latest software

Still runs as well? I'd love to know what set up you've got.

Since iOS 5 my iPad 1 has been utterly unusable - many multi second lags and endless application quits.

Even brand new out of the box the iPad 1 and also the original iPhone were incredibly unstable - particularly in safari.

Everyone turned a blind eye to it.

Mostly browsing (new Chrome works well), Netflix, LogMeIn Ignition for remote desktop, photo viewing, Skype.

Compared to my new MacBook Air it does seems a little slow starting apps, etc, but the thing is almost 2 1/2 years old, still has good battery life, and basically does everything I want. I think I've got my money's worth already, and expect to keep using it in the future. BTW, cost of those iOS upgrades - $0. Not a bad deal compared to the $50 that software like Parallels keeps asking for every year.

I have an iPad 1 myself, and I am looking to replace it.

Browsing - complex pages (techcrunch is one particular abomination) have a tendency to crash Safari. Chrome was far too slow to bother with. Old Twitter app was crashing several times when loading in-app browser. Applications in general tend to quit a lot.

It worked wonderfully when it was out, but its barely usable now.

I get the Safari crashes too. the App Store is the worst though, seems to crash every other time I use it.

I didn't get an iPad 1, partly because I figured the 2nd or 3rd gen device would be so much better. Standing behind me in the iPad 2 line was a guy that had just sold his iPad 1 for $100 less than he'd paid for it. Essentially leasing an iPad for $100 a year sounds like a fine deal. It made me wonder why Apple doesn't do leases or some sort of hardware "subscriptions".

As opposed to getting people to buy it? I thought leasing makes more sense for much more expensive electronics.

Apple has done this already by offering 0% interest loans on their website through their credit card partner, barclaycard.

While I'm as annoyed at Apple as you are (environmentally friendly my arse), Android devices don't exactly have a history of frequent and timely software updates. The saving grace is that new apps often still support ancient OS releases.

Android in general has a quite bad version update track record, but that doesn't include the Nexus line of devices

Nexus One has just completely dropped support. Android's saving grace is that there is a community of programmers willing to support devices that are otherwise locked/unsupported. A lot like *nix in the early days. It's all grassroots from here on.

If only there was a way to distill that information to the less informed consumers.

Is there an official (by Google) upgrade to Android 4.1 for the Nexus One?

The real reason here is a technical limitation. The Nexus One and many other devices from that generation have very little ROM space. Typically <500MB. ICS+ takes anywhere from 350MB-400MB of that. So the user is left is left with hardly any space to install apps. It can fit less than 5 apps probably.

Even with custom ICS and JB roms this is a problem, but there people know what they are getting into before hand, and also for rooted devices, there's ext2sd which basically uses your sdcard to store user data.

Google fixed this with Nexus S and forwards. So we have to wait and see how long the Nexus S will be updated.

If you look at the track record, they treat the current generation Nexus very well, and older models less so. Forget about ICS, the Nexus One didn't get Gingerbread for over 4 months after it was released. It did, however, get Froyo almost instantly, just like the Galaxy Nexus recently got JB almost instantly.

Not so sure about that. What happens if you need to restore your iPad 1 and redownload all the Apps? Do you get the latest version, or the latest compatible version of the App, even if the developer dropped support for your iOS version?

The latest version (if it works) - iTunes on your Mac/PC should store the latest compatible one though. Yes, it's a mess. Apple really need some kind of plan for discontinued devices. What happens when a critical flaw is discovered in Mobile Safari 5 and suddenly the 15 million iPad users are vulnerable to drive-by downloads?

They push an update to iOS 5? Which has OTA self-updates.

Lion and Snow Leopard and Vista and countless other old OSes get updates. XP still won't get EOS-ed for another 2 years.

They haven't done this for vulnerabilities in either 3.1.3 or 4.2.1, the other two EOL versions. I guess there probably aren't enough users of these to make them attractive to exploits, but the number of users stuck on iOS5 will likely stay in the 8 digits for a while. Whereas many people have been conditioned to buy a new phone every 24 months, I doubt this applies to iPads and iPod Touches as well. I don't know if that kind of number makes them a sufficiently attractive target for criminals.

It's not like Android devices have a good track record regarding updates.

I'm an iPad 1 user bought when it launched on USA (imported, I'm on Europe) and I use it every day. From RSS (Reeder) to video streaming (Plex) and SSH (Prompt).

It's running iOS5 good enough, iOS6 is out but my iPad 1 hasn't imploded and it's still working. There may be some Apps that won't work on it in the near future, but I doubt it will bother me enough to upgrade or switch to a worse platform. Most apps still target 4.2.

So you are saying iOS 6 sucks, yet you complain you can't install iOS 6 on iPad 1? Why not just stay on iOS 5? It works great and almost all the apps work on it.

Out of interest, how long did you expect your original iPad to continue to get OS updates?

Mine is ~28 months old now. Personally I'm not all that unhappy with that sort of support lifespan for what to me was pretty much bought as a "tech toy", admittedly and expensive one, but I never expected decades of support for it… (I've got a friend who bought her iPad1 about 5 weeks before the iPad2 came out, she's somewhat less happy than I am…)

Tell me more about how you bought a smaller device two years after your iPad and it does everything the iPad did for less money.

I bought a Nexus 7 a little while back and my initial reaction was similar to yours. Now, I'd rather use my old iPad gen 1 than the brand new dual core Nexus 7, which -- among other things -- can seize up so badly when doing something as simple as typing a URL that it misses touch events altogether.

Didn't notice this by now, but i can say that i'm pretty happy with it (for now). As i said in my initial comment, Android has problems, but if you think back to the first iOS versions, there were a lot of problems. Many people dont remember that, but before iOS 4 there were a lot of pretty nasty bugs.

The other thing is, if android improves more over time, it's doesn't hurt so much when they drop support for device X after 2 years when you only paid 200-250 Euro/Dollar. If you run a 2 year cycle of devise-replacing for a price like that, i'm perfectly fine with it.

The nexus 7 is scarcely a 1.0 device (and I had an iPad on release day and it worked fine on iOS 3.x). My kindle fire, with its many flaws has never seized up this way.

Looks like you're a victim of the same bug as me: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/mobile/loqbCbK...

I'm sending it back for a replacement but in the short-term a factory reset fixes it.

I'm curious how long Google will provide updates to the Nexus 7 after they stop selling it? What's a "reasonable" time?

I would hope 3 years or so. At least in the case of the Nexus 7 being supported in AOSP it is likely community developers will keep it updated after Google drops official support.

iPad 1 (April 2010) ---- Nexus 7 (September 2012)

So that's nearly two and a half years. You would hope the Nexus could do everything the iPad could at a substantially cheaper price.