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Comment by hadlock | Hacker News Reader

I think the industry has already agreed to give this product category to Apple. Everyone needs a phone, but only specific types of users need a tablet. Apple's tablet is Good Enough for everyone, and they last forever. The o.g. iPad Air we bought in Nov 2020 is still chugging along and we use it... basically only to watch movies on airplane rides etc. And I am primarily a linux/android user, but this is the one Apple device I "use".

If/when it finally dies (we're on year 6) we'll just buy another one, I guess. The biggest risk for our single household tablet is Apple drops support for it. We have no plans to upgrade it ever, so long as netflix and youtube keep working on it.

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Apple's tablets are great, but I think we're just pretty close to the limit for these entertainment devices.

I have a now 7(!) year old Tab S5e that I use to consume media, and it's 5.5mm thick, with 10 hours of battery, a 1600x2560 super AMOLED, and quad firing speakers.

Nothing on the market makes me feel I need an upgrade over what was a $400 mid range tablet, because I have an incredible media experience on all my streaming apps.

I still use my iPad mini 2 I bought in 2014 to read books. The only problem with it is that reading books is one of the very few things I can do with it these days as Safari is no longer capable of rendering most websites, most apps are not supported, and generally iOS 12 ate most of the memory device has. So yeah, it's my bookreader still, but nothing more.

I don't know whether to consider the fact that you find a device lasting 6 years an impressive feat as testament to how crappy devices, especially mobile ones, have been for the past decade, or how used everyone is to abandon perfectly good devices just because "it's X years old".

> only specific types of users need a tablet

In my case I use my 8.4" tablet to watch free to air TV with a TVHeadend client for Android (no idea if there is one for iOS.) I run a couple of YouTube alternative apps that Google would love to kill. Firefox. Not much else. It's handy as a portable TV set.

The only Apple product I still have is a 2010 ipad 1. Only use it as a clock, violin tuner, and workout timer, but am amazed it's still going like an old volkswagen.

Perhaps you can use it as a Schneidebrett: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3zm0q1

> The o.g. iPad Air we bought in Nov 2020

o.g. ?

Original gangsta, which has come to mean “original” with a tint of “I respect it”

They’re either using loosely, as in “my first iPad Air purchased”, or tightly, as in "the original iPad Air release", which was in 2013 but could be purchased used, presumably.

It's kid slang for "original", apparently.

It's been around long enough to have gained cromulence, I think.

I started using "OG" ~16 years ago to disambiguate the Motorola Droid that I had (which was the first Android phone available from Verizon) from the Droid 2, 3, and 4 that came later.

"OG Motorola Droid" has specificity, while "Motorola Droid 1" is something that never existed.

Anyway, my usage is old enough to drive a car. :)

That was my first reading but "original generation" and 2020 don't go well together.

Yeah but 10 years late to be described as the original. That said, my parents got rid of their actual OG iPad only 2-3 years ago (did not hold a charge for a long time, finally decided it was time to get one that did).

50 year old kids

first gained general use in ~1991, so 35 years ago

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/OG

are these "kids" also in the young republicans group chat?

I had an iPad that Appled forced into obsolecence. I had to throw a perfectly ok piece of hardware on the trash because it was madr unusable by the manufacturer. It's the main reason I despise Apple, including its hardware.

I replaced it with a Samsung A7. It's even better than the iPad as I could sideload a manga reader that syncs with Komga, amazing stuff to read manga.

And I can install LineageOS if need be.

Objectively a better choice than iPad for me.

How did apple make it unusable? What model?

Yes, I was wondering about this. Old iPads running iPad OS 15 received updates last month. So even an iPad Air 2 from 2014 could receive updates in 2026.

The big issue with old iPads though is that apps drop support for older iPad OS versions. Usually their older versions do keep working, though.

I don't remember the model. It waa purchased in 2012. Thrown into the trash circa 2019.

7 years lifespan. My Samsung A7 is nearly there.

Why wouldn't you just recycle it instead of throwing it in the trash? Seems wasteful.

I threw it into a recycle bin for electronic devices.

Also called trash.

wtf are you talking about apple supports their devices significantly longer than android..

This is meaningless when LineageOS exists.

My Samsung tablet will have a much longer lifespan thanks to that.

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