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Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

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Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#41

Post by srainier »

josefresco wrote: post #20

I own 1G iPad and I've used it daily since it's launch. With each and every OS update, the device has become slower, and more unstable. Apps like StumbleUpon, Flipboard, and basically any app that uses a "wrapped" browser crashes frequently. App launch times and UI responsiveness are laughable compared to modern tablets and smartphones. To me the problem is not just iOS 6, but rather a slow and consistent degrading o…

You mean like the Lumia 900 (and every other Windows Phone 7 device) and Windows 8? They sure are taking care of legacy devices there.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#42

Post by kyriakos »

jcromartie wrote: post #38

It's still the same thing it was when it came out, and that is: amazing. You're talking about a 10" handheld touchscreen with wifi and a battery that will last a month when sitting on the coffee table or bedside stand. It puts the entire internet at your fingertips and it can be used to do almost anything you want. It's freaking Star Trek, but since it's 2 years old and it won't get some OS updates we think it's garb…

the problem is that your apps no longer work because most of them are based on online services which changed their interfaces and communication protocols by now but won't install on an older version of iOS. This is the case with iPhone 3GS too.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#43

Post by Drakim »

jcromartie wrote: post #38

It's still the same thing it was when it came out, and that is: amazing. You're talking about a 10" handheld touchscreen with wifi and a battery that will last a month when sitting on the coffee table or bedside stand. It puts the entire internet at your fingertips and it can be used to do almost anything you want. It's freaking Star Trek, but since it's 2 years old and it won't get some OS updates we think it's garb…

Well, unless you sync it and lose all the apps because their newest versions don't support the old iOS anymore and there is no way to "downgrade".

I agree with you that things don't need to be constantly updated and upgraded to be awesome, but there are certainly different ways to age.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#44

Post by padobson »

I switched from Windows to Mac in 2004 when I started college. A year after I graduated, I switched to Linux, and I haven't looked back - and this article illustrates the reason as well as anything.

The lifecycle for Apple devices are far shorter than their PC and Android counterparts. When I abandoned my PPC Mac in 2009 and suffered through iTunes withdrawal (read: wrote off the ~$500 in music and movies I had bought), I switched to Amazon for media where, funnily enough, everything worked fine right in the browser on that same Mac. Still does to this day. I'm typing this on a Dell Laptop I got a year after that Mac, running Ubuntu, and the media I bought on Amazon works fine on this too.

It makes a ton of sense for Apple as a business to sell their products at a premium and more sense still to release premium products for people to buy every year. But it makes no sense as a consumer to keep buying them cycle after cycle. I may get another two years out of this laptop, but my Mac has long since become useless to me.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#45

Post by nicholassmith »

microtonal wrote: post #16

It's sad. For a lot of iPad buyers, 500 dollar or Euro is a lot of money. One can only hope that the majority of them will be recycled, or it is an ecological disaster as well. (If mining of the necessary resources isn't already.) Of course, it's not just Apple. Many Android phones are neglected by their vendors as well. At some point we have to consider, whether we are willing to waste that many resources and money…

According to the internet, iPad 1 16Gb WiFi was £429. Currently you can sell it on eBay for between £175-200, so there's a loss of £200-225 over the life time from brand new, so if you're unhappy you can sell it and cover at least half the cost of a new iPad if it's on the upgrade path.

It's an expensive toy, and it is a lot of money, but no one made anyone buy one.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#46

Post by jcromartie »

kyriakos wrote: post #42
jcromartie wrote: post #38

It's still the same thing it was when it came out, and that is: amazing. You're talking about a 10" handheld touchscreen with wifi and a battery that will last a month when sitting on the coffee table or bedside stand. It puts the entire internet at your fingertips and it can be used to do almost anything you want. It's freaking Star Trek, but since it's 2 years old and it won't get some OS updates we think it's garb…

the problem is that your apps no longer work because most of them are based on online services which changed their interfaces and communication protocols by now but won't install on an older version of iOS. This is the case with iPhone 3GS too.

True, apps backed by web services will die off. But that's been a risk at any time, even on the latest device. Those services don't exist for you. They can (and do) pull the plug at any time.

I think the way forward for old devices like the iPad 1 is through a stable OS, jailbreaks and web apps.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#47

Post by augustl »

akadien wrote: post #9

I've had the same experience with a 1G iPad. Within the past few months or so, the browser started crashing frequently for no good reason, and the device has slowed down considerably. I am a soft-core iPad user and stick mainly to mobile web apps or Google apps. Pity because I like the device's form factor. After this and other weirdness with my Macs, my next purchases will most likely have names on them like "Roku",…

For music, I use sshfs to mount a folder from my own server at home, and mocp, a console based music player. Works great, and when I'm home, all the traffic is on my LAN, which is a plus. Would like to replace mocp, but it's the only linux based player I found without a database (folders + file names is enough of a database for me) and that is able to play flac gapless (no pause when switching from one flac to the next, important for continous music).

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#48

Post by kyriakos »

jcromartie wrote: post #38

It's still the same thing it was when it came out, and that is: amazing. You're talking about a 10" handheld touchscreen with wifi and a battery that will last a month when sitting on the coffee table or bedside stand. It puts the entire internet at your fingertips and it can be used to do almost anything you want. It's freaking Star Trek, but since it's 2 years old and it won't get some OS updates we think it's garb…

how would you feel if you bought a car 7 years ago and tomorrow they tell you they stop selling petrol for it cause cars today moved to a different kind of fuel?

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#49

Post by Drakim »

aelaguiz wrote: post #28

Honestly I'm happy to know that when I receive an update to my experience it wasn't neutered out of a desire to maintain backwards compatibility with windows 3.1...I mean iPad 1G. The backwards compatibility forever mindset may still be necessary in business but I see no reason it should continue to stand in consumer. It can be corrupted though - as long as the reasons are actual and not artificial in order to drum u…

2 years is pushing it. People should not get new devices every second year to have a good experience. We should certainly not limit ourselves for the sake of the past, but it should be possible to build technology that doesn't officially "expire" in two years.

Re: Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

#50

Post by raesene2 »

Whilst I think it is a bit hyperbolic to describe it as a paperweight, I think that one significant problem is the lack of security updates for the iPad 1. iOS6 patched a large number of CVEs http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5503 so any device which doesn't either go to iOS6 or get a maintenance release of iOS5 (which I'm not aware is planned) will be vulnerable to a variety of known security issues.
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