What Apple has done with the iPad 1 (I'll refrain from speculating on motives, as I have absolutely no idea why they actually EOL'd it) is still not as bad as what they've done with armv6 devices. A developer, if they want (and some won't), can still support the iPad 1 fairly easily (or as easily as any support for iOS 5). The iPhone 3G and older, on the other hand, are truly unsupported; it is impossible to build for these devices in the iOS 6 SDK[1], making them a nightmare to support (and impossible to support alongside armv7s code for the new iPhone).
The iPad 1
11–20 of 103 posts
Re: The iPad 1
#12I would have liked iOS 6 but you know what? My iPad still works and still does everything I bought it to do. Sure, it might be cool to have some of the new features but I'm perfectly happy without them.
Re: The iPad 1
#13Its an interesting business question, "How much do we invest in supporting the old generation vs the return?"
Apple really hasn't set a way to price it. They could of course, they could price an iPad 1 version of IOS6 to see what the market would pay for the capability. But you get maybe one shot at that.
They could do an 'upgrade today' offer where you sent them and iPad and they gave you a discount on a new iPad, but if they sold you the new iPad at the 'loaded cost' (which is COGS + warranty support + inventory costs) it might not be as much of a discount as you could get by just applying the money you got on ebay toward a new one.
Re: The iPad 1
#14The iPad 1 feels much slower than the iPhone 3GS does today. Although I don't like this move, having played with my friends iPad 1 recently. I feel that anything further than iOS6 might slow down the device considerably. When I installed iOS6 on my 4S it became much faster which is unusual for me.
Re: The iPad 1
#15I don't get why the author feels the need to rationalize the decision as not motivated by money. Sure, it isn't the whole reason. But there is just little motivation to get iOS 6 on the iPad. Apple does a better job than pretty much everyone else in this area, but dropping hardware from iOS6 is win-win from Apple's perspective. Easier engineering effort while incentivizing upgrades.
I'm one of those iPad 1 owners left out of iOS 6, and I don't begrudge Apple that. If it was that important to me, I'd plunk down the cash.
Re: The iPad 1
#16When the iPad 1 launched in germany, i bought a 64GB model with 3G. I payed more than 800 Euros. And now Apple tells me "it's to old, go and sell it on eBay for 150 bucks". Are you fucking kidding me? I'm a Apple user for ages, i have two Mac Pros, three MacBook Pros (family), one MacBook Air and all iPhones that Apple ever made. I sold every old piece of hardware or replaced it when i needed a faster or newer model.…
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.
Re: The iPad 1
#17When the iPad 1 launched in germany, i bought a 64GB model with 3G. I payed more than 800 Euros. And now Apple tells me "it's to old, go and sell it on eBay for 150 bucks". Are you fucking kidding me? I'm a Apple user for ages, i have two Mac Pros, three MacBook Pros (family), one MacBook Air and all iPhones that Apple ever made. I sold every old piece of hardware or replaced it when i needed a faster or newer model.…
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".
Re: The iPad 1
#18I'd be interested to see an iOS developer's perspective on when they're going to start requiring iOS 6. From a user's perspective, I don't see any features that are going to encourage devs to drop iOS 6 compatibility (eg. ARC; background support).
It's big these types of features and functionality that are going to determine the usefulness and longetivity of iOS 5.
Re: The iPad 1
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ha…
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Re: The iPad 1
#20As an iPhone 3G user previously, this is probably a very good thing. The iOS 4.0 update basically bricked the phone because it just couldn't handle it. I recently found out how easy it was to revert to 3.1.3 and its actually a pleasure to use again (albeit still noticeably slower than my 4S).
If Apple released iOS6 for the iPad 1 you would probably be bagging them out for making the device so slow.