iPhone 6(S)/Plus iPhone 6S Plus: stay at iOS 10.1.1 or upgrade to iOS 15.5?

[FeliApple]

The Gen 1 iPad Pro is equipped with an A9X and is still officially supported by Apple as it has been updated to iPadOS 16. It is definitely not obsolete and is capable of almost anything a modern iPad is capable of.

In relation to pricing, old tech Apple tech is not worth selling as there is almost no demand in the market for outdated and near obsolete electronics.

The SE I use, which is in perfect condition, will only fetch £30-40 in the open market. It’s actually worth less than the cost of the battery replacement I organised a few weeks ago. My pristine 6S is probably worth slightly more at £50. These possessions are worth more to me sentimentally than the low amount of cash I would get for them so there is no realistic scenario in which I would part with them.

I am happy Apple have provided very basic usability with unsupported devices stuck on old iOS versions. I used my original iPad Mini 2-3 months ago, which has been updated to iOS 9, and was able to stream songs on Apple Music, FaceTime a family member, send iMessages, steam some podcasts and check e-mails. I wouldn’t say iOS 9 is website compatible because there are only a handful of websites that can format properly, such as Wikipedia, Google and BBC News/Sports. YouTube does play video however is prone to crashing so no normal person would use the device for that purpose. All in all, it was a horrific experience which resulted in me placing the device back in its original box and into the cupboard.

You are right about iPad batteries, due to their sheer battery capacity, being fine even after the devices have been updated to their iPadOS limit. There isn’t any realistic reason to stay on a particular iPadOS version on the iPad as the battery will last throughout the day regardless of which version it is on. My A8 iPad Mini 4, which is on iPadOS 15, doesn’t need charged very often because the battery is still usable despite being 8 years old and powering an underpowered device at its iPadOS limit.

All in all, like you said, Apple have been gracious to pretty much all users in the sense that updates are provided for 6+ years to their devices. They also support older iOS versions with security updates for 1-2 years and allow basic integrated functionality years after a device has been declared obsolete. I mean NO ONE uses an iPad Mini or a device from that era today but it can still FaceTime, steam audio media and send iMessages. That’s impressive in 2023!

Yeah, it is slower and with worse battery life, but it works just fine as a content consumption device.

I completely agree in terms of pricing, old Apple devices are definitely not worth selling because the sentimental value is alwsys higher than what they fetch in the used market. There’s no market for outdated technology, barring very specific - and basic - use cases.

Yeah, A9 devices in general are far too good to be sold for the prices they fetch. Battery life being worse or not, performance being worse or not, doesn‘t make much of a difference in terms of price-to-quality ratio. Yes, the SE’s battery life isn’t what it was back on iOS 9; yes, my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 has slight keyboard lag on iOS 12 which it didn‘t have on iOS 9 and it is probably significantly worse on iPadOS 16 in terms of performance and battery life: to summarise, it isn’t anywhere near iOS 9, but like I said earlier, this is not the 32-bit era. Updated devices are not perfect, and they could be even better than they are, but they remain usable. Any A9 device is totally usable today, even if updated. Current prices do not reflect that.

Yes, basic usability, like you showed with the Mini 1, is retained. That‘s the only reason for which I can still use my 6s on iOS 10! Websites are an issue, but many useful things still work, giving the device a slight sense of ”purpose” that, reduced usability notwithstanding, allows it to remain in active use for certain tasks. And yes, nobody uses extremely old (as far as full usability goes) devices anymore, but the fact that they remain perfectly usable is a testament to their quality. I would not put thr Mini 1 in that category, however (it is far too slow to qualify), but the Mini 4? Absolutely.

iPad batteries are degraded by iOS updates, but their impact is reduced because like you said, sheer battery capacity allows them to withstand battery health issues while updated a lot better than iPhones. Yes, battery life drops by 50% if updated, but that would mean that the 9.7-inch, A9X-based iPad Pro gets 7 hours of screen-on time with light use. This is the exact same case scenario that you demonstrated with your 1st-gen SE: Is it perfect? No. Is it like it was on iOS 9? Not even close. But is it usable? Absolutely, and that extends its lifespan for a very long time, because chances are, it won’t see a battery life degradation as time passes by. It will remain usable for those basic tasks even years from now. iPad 2 users have stated that battery life is still decent, and I am sure that your Mini 1 on iOS 9’s battery life is still definitely usable. An even better example is the one you gave: the Mini 4. Performance will be a lot better than the Mini 1, battery life will be decent. For the usage you described that you intended for the Mini 1, the Mini 4 will be perfect, for years. I am confident enough to say that battery life probably will not be any worse than it is now, at least for many, many years.

Like I stated earlier, my 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 (which is 6.5-years-old by now), retains the same battery life it did when it was initially forced into iOS 12, 3.5 years ago. I have no reason to believe it will encounter any significant degradation. Time will tell, but if my 6s with 63% health is fine, the iPad will probably be even better, as long as it stays on iOS 12. How many cycles do I need to put on the battery to degrade it to an unusable level? 1400 isn’t enough on the 6s, so the number required on an iPad is massive, not least because I don’t cycle it quickly enough (I have an iPad Air 5 too). It has around 650 cycles. Is 3000 enough? I don’t know, but that will take such a long time that I doubt I’ll ever get there. Even if it eventually degrades a little, I am sure it won’t be unusable. We’ll see.

I would like to give an example of battery longevity unrelated to Apple devices: I have a rechargeable bluetooth speaker. If you’re interested, the model is the Sony SRS-BTX 300. The device was launched in 2013. Sony quotes 8 hours of usage at 50% volume. I purchased it in 2014, and I used it a LOT. Device care has been equal to my iOS devices: avoid heat. I do not place it in direct sunlight. That’s all. Last year, I figured I’d run a battery test, but I used it indoors at a fairly quiet volume, about 25%. It went for 12.5 hours. Like-new. I took care of it, and I avoided heat. That’s all I did. Capacity isn’t even high, appears to be around 2600 mAh. Yet another reason why I don’t worry about battery health.