Fragmentation

[visegripmikey]

At what point in a Mac's / iPhone's life do you feel that the fragmentation of Apple's hardware and services cause a major disruption to owning it?

This question was borne out of a previous complaint I saw where the new Lightning Earpods don't work with all Lighting-equipped devices (but iOS 9 locked). Those devices should easily be compatible but are not. Also Apple Music is iOS 8.4 and above.

Siri is locked to Sierra-compatible computers, Apple Music to Mavericks and above.

What other examples are there? A three-year old device with the correct connector but not software is pretty bad. Imagine if the headphone jack was disabled rather than removed, is that worse?

In other words, how many years of perfect synergy of services and hardware can one expect in iOS and macOS before they fragment? So far I'm seeing about 8 years on Mac and 3 on iOS, would that be correct?

 

[mobilehaathi]

Did you consider that these are intentional limitations imposed to direct consumers towards upgrading their hardware?

 

[visegripmikey]

I know all about planned obsolescence. My issue is, is it my imagination or is it getting shorter with Apple? How short is it? How much fragmentation is there? Dang, I just remembered the Apple Pen only works with iPad Pro... not even the highest end iPhone 7+ can use it.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Did you consider that these are intentional limitations imposed to direct consumers towards upgrading their hardware?

Not completely. When iOS 6 was released with turn-by-turn navigation, loads of people were angry that it wasn't supported on the iPhone 4, but was on the 4S. Same with Siri. Well, I jailbroke my iPhone 4 and enabled those features. They ran appallingly, to the point I would class them to be unusable.

Honestly, there's a lot of stuff about 'planned obsolescence'. But Apple are one of the best with supporting older devices.

In answer to the OP's question, the phones are getting more capable and more powerful these days. The longevity is far better than it was with, say, the iPhone 3G. The power in a 5S still has enough grunt for the next few OS iterations. So if anything, I think we'll see a slight increase with legacy iOS support, from 3 years to possibly 4-5.

Of course there will always be newer features that aren't supported on the older devices, but that's to be expected.

 

[visegripmikey]

Turn by turn works fine on my 4G iPod Touch - using Google maps. And I'm fine with that - a third party giving support. It's the Apple hardware / software support that is getting more fragmented to me. iOS Apple accessories are fragmented between Tablet and iPhone, plus iOS versions, plus some services. I'm sure I'm forgetting some. iCloud is limited on Snow Leopard right? I mean, yes it's an 8 yr old OS but, iCloud is the net, so...

 

[mobilehaathi]

Not completely. When iOS 6 was released with turn-by-turn navigation, loads of people were angry that it wasn't supported on the iPhone 4, but was on the 4S. Same with Siri. Well, I jailbroke my iPhone 4 and enabled those features. They ran appallingly, to the point I would class them to be unusable.

Oh, yes, I agree that every little thing that isn't supported isn't necessarily a product of planned obsolescence. But still, one should keep that firmly in mind.