iOS 9 on iPhone 4 to Get Rid of iOS 7 Holdouts?

[im_to_hyper]

Note: I'm the kind of guy people start chatting with randomly.

At the Apple Store in Irvine/Santa Ana today one of the employees was chatting with me incessantly and "nerding out" about stuff.

He mentioned:

• Later betas may actually include support for the iPhone 4 (and thus A4) simply because of the higher performance of iOS 9 vs. iOS 8.
• He mentioned a lot of holdouts of iOS 7 are on the iPhone 4
• Speculates iOS 10/X will drop all 32-bit devices
• Goal would be to get all iOS 7/8 devices to 9 for one "final hurrah" before the "big purge" next year
• Does this make sense, or was this just an overly-caffeinated Apple store employee?

 

[MinEderPlayz]

Why would they?
iPhone 4 is dead, get over it.

 

[oldmacs]

Note: I'm the kind of guy people start chatting with randomly.

At the Apple Store in Irvine/Santa Ana today one of the employees was chatting with me incessantly and "nerding out" about stuff.

He mentioned:

• Later betas may actually include support for the iPhone 4 (and thus A4) simply because of the higher performance of iOS 9 vs. iOS 8.
• He mentioned a lot of holdouts of iOS 7 are on the iPhone 4
• Speculates iOS 10/X will drop all 32-bit devices
• Goal would be to get all iOS 7/8 devices to 9 for one "final hurrah" before the "big purge" next year
• Does this make sense, or was this just an overly-caffeinated Apple store employee?

Would be awesome but I doubt it for the iPhone 4….

Also I doubt the A6 devices will be dropped in iOS 10… I think Apple is aiming for longer support cycles.

 

[Paddle1]

Nope. The iPhone 4's performance was completely ruined with iOS 7.0 and fixed only on 7.1. With iOS 8 it would be unusable and at this point iOS 9 isn't really any better.

iOS 10 will also likely be for the 5 and up, why would the 4S have the longer lifespan?

 

[im_to_hyper]

Accidental Double-Post.

 

[im_to_hyper]

Also I doubt the A6 devices will be dropped in iOS 10… I think Apple is aiming for longer support cycles.

Makes sense - especially with more businesses using Apple products and needing that multi-year stability.

Why would they?
iPhone 4 is dead, get over it.

Until yesterday, people said the same about the iPad 2, iPhone 4S and iPod touch. Why? To get everyone off iOS 7 and onto iOS 9 to have a clear delineation before the next generation of iOS.

 

[oldmacs]

Up until WWDC people were saying the same about the 4S, iPad 2 and iPod touch.

Why would they? Same reasons as mentioned above. Get everyone off iOS 7 and onto iOS 9 before cutting off 32-bit support altogether next release.

I was saying that A5 devices would get iOS 9 because they're in extremely high usage and still sold.

Makes no sense that they'd be concerned for a device that makes up 5 percent of their market share, but then they'd go and drop all 32 bit devices that make up a huge part of their market share (and sure this will drop but not below 30 I'd estimate) the year after.

A5 devices may get dropped in iOS 10 but I doubt A6 will.

 

[Paddle1]

Up until WWDC people were saying the same about the 4S, iPad 2 and iPod touch.

Why would they? Same reasons as mentioned above. Get everyone off iOS 7 and onto iOS 9 before cutting off 32-bit support altogether next release.

The difference being the A5 devices are supported on iOS 8, the iPhone 4 has already been dropped and Apple has never undropped a device.

Also the experience is too degraded on the iPhone 4.

 

[oldmacs]

The difference being the A5 devices are supported on iOS 8, the iPhone 4 has already been dropped. Apple has never undropped a device. The experience is too degraded on it.

Well actually, Apple has also never given an an iPhone four updates or an iPad five updates, so they could always break their patterns, but it would seem unlikely.

I think that the A5 is really what Apple sees as a minimum at the moment (like how the requirements for 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11 are the same). Who knows, maybe their new approach of a 'core os' + slowly enable features + optimisation will bring the A5 devices more updates.

 

[GreyOS]

not gonna happen imo. also not everyone thought the 4S was dead/not going to get iOS 9. many argued it was likely, due to the rumoured focus on optimisation for iOS 9.

 

[masands]

Note: I'm the kind of guy people start chatting with randomly.

At the Apple Store in Irvine/Santa Ana today one of the employees was chatting with me incessantly and "nerding out" about stuff.

He mentioned:

• Later betas may actually include support for the iPhone 4 (and thus A4) simply because of the higher performance of iOS 9 vs. iOS 8.
• He mentioned a lot of holdouts of iOS 7 are on the iPhone 4
• Speculates iOS 10/X will drop all 32-bit devices
• Goal would be to get all iOS 7/8 devices to 9 for one "final hurrah" before the "big purge" next year
• Does this make sense, or was this just an overly-caffeinated Apple store employee?

If anyone of this was true Apple would most definitely show it off in the keynote.

 

[oldmacs]

If anyone of this was true Apple would most definitely show it off in the keynote.

Well if it were true, Apple could still be trying to get it running.. e.g. they didn't have it running as well as they wanted so they didn't advertise it.

Food for thought, iOS 4 wasn't ready for the iPad 1 till iOS 4.2… It was unsupported on iOS 4 and 4.1 though that was a different scenario of course.

 

[C DM]

The difference being the A5 devices are supported on iOS 8, the iPhone 4 has already been dropped and Apple has never undropped a device.

Also the experience is too degraded on the iPhone 4.

Yup, Apple didn't list it as one of the supported devices, and it wasn't even part of the previous iOS version, so the probability of them bringing it in late in the game for some reason is pretty much right around 0.

 

[entropi]

It would be nice to get chapters back on my audiobooks...
(which you get in 8.4, but so far my iPhone 4 can just run 7.1.2)

 

[Paradoxally]

It's not gonna happen. Once a device reaches end of life, it will not receive any more updates.

The iPhone 4 had a good run. Time to let go and upgrade.

 

[richwoodrocket]

The person you were talking to shouldn't be an apple employee. They're distributing false information that makes absolutely no sense.

 

[C DM]

The person you were talking to shouldn't be an apple employee. They're distributing false information that makes absolutely no sense.

Assuming that all that was said as something that's actually going to happen and not in more of just a techie "wouldn't it be cool if..." fun conversation that then the OP perhaps thought might carry more meaning for whatever reason.

 

[LordQ]

Then make it for iPad 1 too...

No way that's happening.

 

[Andres Cantu]

It's never been done before, so no. If anything, iPad 1 should have gotten iOS 6. iOS 5 or iOS 9 with just a one year difference seems too unfair (iPad 1 supported 3 versions of iOS, iPad 2 supported 6). Also, the iPod touch 3rd generation should have gotten iOS 6 as well since it had the exact same hardware as the iPhone 3GS (but then it would have made the iPod touch 4th generation look bad since that model could not support iOS 7 due to its low RAM).