New: iPadOS 18 Drops Support for These iPad Models

[revelcos]

They’ll drop updates on my iPad Pro 10.5 of 2017. I will still keep using it. I don’t see any use of it other than media consumption and reading.

iPad Pro 2024 is unnecessary for me. I checked out the 11 inch in one store. The display is great, but it is not extraordinarily different to my eye.

 

[supergt]

The bigger issue with dropped support is that most apps and mobile web will only work properly for a few years. After that, the device becomes e waste even if it could have meaningful life left.

 

[jicon]

Great news for customers who use reasonably modern iPads. For everyone else, time to upgrade!

Keep in mind, that's entirely dependent on the use case. There's a 2014 Ipad Air 2 in this house. It is used to watch video streaming services, and Crouton for recipe prep. A new iPad from that perspective isn't going to do anything but hurt the pocketbook.

 

[EugW]

Keep in mind, that's entirely dependent on the use case. There's a 2014 Ipad Air 2 in this house. It is used to watch video streaming services, and Crouton for recipe prep. A new iPad from that perspective isn't going to do anything but hurt the pocketbook.

We use an iPad Air 2 for video streaming and very basic surfing. Or rather, we try. The video streaming works, but even very basic surfing just to look up recipes is utterly painful.

When I get my iPad Pro M4, I'll probably retire this to basically just using it as a big screen iPod for music playback.

 

[WU27f1xcCs]

A10X really has the power to run iOS 18. Forced obsolescence.

Unless iPadOS 18 is MacOS I agree. My iPad Pro 2017 is still very fast… looking forward to hearing the reason if this turns out to be true.

 

[sracer]

what about the vast majority of the materials that go into making your car? sure, the rubber will degrade but the steel? cracks me up people that make statements about what is eco friendly and the least eco friendly thing is the cars they drive every day.

So...
you deflect from the issue of iPad obsolescence to automobiles. Then you ask me a question about them, but instead of waiting for me to answer, you assume what my answer would be and then criticize the fictitious answer.

That's a very odd thing to do.

 

[Octavius8]

The hardware in my iPad Pro 2018 is flawless, why the IOS will not be compatible?. Great CPU, same RAM as many newer IPads. New hardware does not mean “upgrade” for me because I will be doing the same tasks I do now!, so why I am forced to buy a new iPad to do the same things I can do with my old iPad?.
What should I do with the perfectly good working old iPad?, just give to Apple for free?.
Even Microsoft with Windows is less greedy than Apple

 

[ricketysquire]

I'm not complaining about Apple's software support for iOS devices. But I think manufacturers should be obliged by law to give users the possibility to root the devices once they stop getting updates and patches.

Even better, just let us run whatever we want on them. I'd love to be able to throw a light Linux distro on an old iPad

 

[Remy149]

For me (if the rumour is true) this just further cements how good of a purchase the 2018 iPad Pro was. I absolutely love mine, battery life is still pretty good, and I still don't have a reason to upgrade to a new iPad Pro .

I finally upgraded from
A 2018 model. I didn’t realize how slow it was getting until I upgraded. My battery life was also getting bad.

 

[nick42983]

This is exactly why I won’t buy any new iPad. I’ve had three, all of them became obsolete due to Apple’s decision to stop supporting these all too soon. All three are flawless, no scratch, more than decent battery life and fast enough for the tasks I was using them for, including electronic banking. Without security updates that’s a no-go for me.
I hate to add such an otherwise perfectly alright devices to the huge pile of e-waste or to have them recycled.

Please take your environmental responsibility Apple and at least allow rooting. Or provide eternal (10+ years at least) security updates for your devices. Apple won’t do this unless forced by the market. So, I won’t buy any more iPads.

More people need to get used to selling their iPads more often. It’s the ideal Apple device for this because it’s most often used as a casual computer that sits in between iPhones and Macs.

I’ve never sold an iPhone or Mac but i’ve sold 2 iPads, the first retina iPad and more recently a 12.9” M1. I lost maybe $100 on each from the price I paid (new for the former and used for the latter) but it scratched my tech itch to try them and I basically wrote them off as rentals. Besides an OG iPad Mini I no longer use I have an iPad Mini 4 as a security camera monitor and a 2020 11” iPad Pro for daily use.

Your iPads didn’t become “obsolete” because they didn’t get the latest OS. Apple security updates continue for 1-2 years after a device no longer makes the cut. A new iPad is pretty much guaranteed 4-5 years of updates. (Or 6 for the 2018 iPad Pro!) If you plan to sell within 2-3 years you’ll recover 40-70% of the initial purchase price.

Unless you can get a great deal, iPads are also excellent to purchase used. You’ll save some money and the newest features are rarely worth paying full price for. We’ll see what WWDC has in store but on-device AI may work with M1 iPads from 3 years ago.

 

[applefan8254]

Google had a limited time deal to send them our 6th gen 2018 ipad and get new pixel tablet for free. For some reason I hesitated on that deal and missed it and I'm still upset lol.

Google’s Generous New Pixel Offer Causes A Frenzy

Google is handing over big money for your old iPad.

www.forbes.com

 

[Hrududu]

What business do you own that doesn't survive by selling things? Would you have apple stop trying to sell? Then how many updates would you get? the devices aren't doomed, you have the choice to use them if they still suit your needs. But what about security risks you will cry? Well just who creates those risks? Not Apple. But your fellow citizen. But of course it's evil Apple's fault for not supporting old equipment.

I'm not saying Apple is wrong to sell new products, and I'm certainly not suggesting they support all products for eternity. What I'm saying is Apple puts on a show when it comes to proving how "environmentally friendly" and "green" they are. Fact is, they don't go above and beyond to keep the hardware they sell out of landfills. Is it recyclable? Sure, but that doesn't change their update cycle automatically obsoleting devices every 12 months regardless of hardware capability. Apple's product is MacOS and the iOS family, but they don't sell the system software anymore. It's "free" so instead of selling users the OS to update older devices, they sell you the entire machine. Linux and the OpenCore Legacy project are both shining examples of how patching some drivers essentially makes 12 year old hardware completely capable of running Monterey quite nicely. If Apple sold MacOS to users who would rather keep good hardware out of the landfill, THEN I might have some faith that they actually want to make money AND be green.

And just because you asked, I owned a bowling center for years, so my product actually wasn't a tangible item lol.

 

[gagaliya]

While I can see where you’re coming from - is there anything rumored that you’re really looking forward to?
The point being, you don’t really need to update to it. Considering what issues I had with previous iOS/iPadOS versions, I am seriously contemplating waiting a good long while until I upgrade. If at all.

No you do, the problem is if you cannot update to the latest version the third party apps will go out of date over time and stop working as you can no longer get their latest versions and many do not do a good job to make it backward compatible over time

 

[G5isAlive]

I'm not saying Apple is wrong to sell new products, and I'm certainly not suggesting they support all products for eternity. What I'm saying is Apple puts on a show when it comes to proving how "environmentally friendly" and "green" they are. Fact is, they don't go above and beyond to keep the hardware they sell out of landfills. Is it recyclable? Sure, but that doesn't change their update cycle automatically obsoleting devices every 12 months regardless of hardware capability. Apple's product is MacOS and the iOS family, but they don't sell the system software anymore. It's "free" so instead of selling users the OS to update older devices, they sell you the entire machine. Linux and the OpenCore Legacy project are both shining examples of how patching some drivers essentially makes 12 year old hardware completely capable of running Monterey quite nicely. If Apple sold MacOS to users who would rather keep good hardware out of the landfill, THEN I might have some faith that they actually want to make money AND be green.

And just because you asked, I owned a bowling center for years, so my product actually wasn't a tangible item lol.

well I like bowling so I would say you provided a real service! thank you.

but ... you presumably had a business model that involved selling that service... and your prices were based on that model. Supporting machines with software updates costs money, that's a fact. and supporting legacy devices means supporting legacy code and that just gets harder with time, so disproportionally more expensive. that all gets built in to Apple's cost model. It's just not practical to ask them to sell you a machine and support it indefinitely.

And then you seem to be asking for Apple to decide on a case by case basis when to obsolete devices and while they do to some extent, again not practical. Customers like to know what they are buying, and they know that Apple does in fact obsolete devices on a regular basis after they have been discontinued for a set period of time.

I have heard all the virtues of hackintoshes and projects to maintain older devices with current operating systems, but they always come with compromises.. thats fine if you want to do that, but you cant really expect Apple to compromise the user experience to accommodate.

Name a computer company that is more environmentally friendly. Or really any other tech company. Apple may not live up to your ideals, but they do lead the way of admittedly an industry with a low bar. But again, all built into the price model.

 

[FeliApple]

You seriously can’t expect them to support ancient iPads forever. The iPad 6th gen got one more update than it should’ve gotten IMO. It shouldn’t have gotten iOS 17. It’s slow as heck on it. And they shouldn’t allow rooting. It’s a security risk and it doesn’t fix any security issues. iPads get 6-7 years worth of updates. That’s more than enough, and they still get security updates. And just because your iPad is flawless, doesn’t mean it’ll be fast enough to run a new major iOS version.

Agreed, I’ve used an iPad 6th-gen on iOS 12 extensively and that runs like it should.

People have way too much tolerance for garbage. Perhaps it should be kept on iPadOS 15, or even earlier.

 

[jimimac71]

Why does an iPad 7 still get support?

Must be a legal obligation in some country, somewhere, to support products sold within X years. iPad 7 was released in 2019, while iPad Pro 10.5" and iPad Pro 12.9" (2nd gen) were released in 2017.




The product will still work as good as it always had. It just won't get new features, many of which people don't really care about until it's WAY behind.

Because I happen to have an iPad 7! My concern will be only having 32 GB storage. May have to delete more apps. Otherwise this is wonderful news! I’m delighted!

 

[G5isAlive]

So...
you deflect from the issue of iPad obsolescence to automobiles. Then you ask me a question about them, but instead of waiting for me to answer, you assume what my answer would be and then criticize the fictitious answer.

That's a very odd thing to do.

odder still is you dont answer. but sure, say that I deflect

It's called using an analogy. Admittedly I am not the greatest at analogies, but I think my point should have been clear. If you are going to virtue signal that Apple should not use materials that are durable in devices that are obsoleted 7 years after stopping selling them, then do you apply that to other industries? Because I am all about the low hanging fruit, and it seems if we want to reduce waste there are better ways to go about it then singling out Apple.

 

[FeliApple]

I would not care so much about having the latest OS on a device, if it was not for the app that sooner or later drop support for an old OS. I know that some of you argue that a few years of support are okay, but it is extremely annoying if a device technically has enough resources to run an app, but it is no longer supported because of software limitations.

Think about a text messenger like WhatsApp for example. Sending text messages or some photos, videos or voice messages should basically work forever with a device you buy today. Yet in a few years your current phone will no longer support any WhatsApp versions that are still supported by WhatsApp. So even if your current iPhone 15 Pro Max would technically be good enough for most stuff, some very basic apps will no longer work on it.

I recently had to upgrade my Android version just to use an app that displays the tickets for the 2024 Olympics. There are no paper tickets available. You HAVE to use that app. Shouldn't displaying a ticket with a QR code also work on a phone from 2014 or so? Shouldn't it even work on the first iPhone from 2007, if you still own one?

I understand the need for a more recent phone if an app has some features that demand a lot of RAM and a fast CPU, but basic stuff should also work on an old and basic phone.

The other way around is even worse: Old apps that do not run on a modern device. Backwards compatibility should always exist. Apple once showed an app developer who already was over 70. Imagine she dies one day and nobody updates her app. It would be a shame if it was lost. Apple should find a way to support old 32 bit apps.

It’s the app developer’s fault. They choose what to support.

WhatsApp is especially pathetic. It’s a simple text-based communication app. Telegram, with similar features, works on iOS 5 onwards. WhatsApp requires iOS 12. Why? There’s no technical need. They support far older versions of Android.

I’m guessing it’s simply numbers. Sadly, iOS users update en masse. That obliterates devices, but they don’t care. The vast majority of users run the latest version or the second-to-latest version. So WhatsApp developers are pathetic like that and they look at the numbers and drop support. There’s no technical need.

WhatsApp should support, say, iOS 8 onwards. Or 7. Or 6. But they sadly don’t.

 

[jimimac71]

They’ll drop updates on my iPad Pro 10.5 of 2017. I will still keep using it. I don’t see any use of it other than media consumption and reading.

iPad Pro 2024 is unnecessary for me. I checked out the 11 inch in one store. The display is great, but it is not extraordinarily different to my eye.

It is my understanding Apple will continue with 2 years of security updates even after the last OS has been released. I was planning on that with my iPad 7. It is my opinion an iPad Pro from 2017 should get more support than my iPad 7. Even updates for Google Pixel products are lucky to make it to 7 years.
Maybe Apple could build a landfill in the center of their spaceship building.

 

[ironsword]

It's odd that Apple is dropping support for the iPad Pro 10.5 with A10X Fusion/4GB ram and yet will still support the 7th gen iPad with A10 Fusion/3GB ram.