Which devices will get iOS 10?

[oldmacs]

A5 chip devices already got a "bonus" year when Apple decided to not drop a single device with iOS 9, when they normally have dropped some devices in previous years.

I'm fairly confident A5 will for sure be gone in iOS 10 (especially since they are getting sued by some people in the US that iOS 9 destroyed their A5 4s iPhone and made it "unusable".) That's what Apple gets when they actually do people a favour by extending support instead of dropping it like it was expected to be (it shocked nearly everyone that iOS 9 dropped no devices.)

the concept of a 'bonus' year seems stupid to me. There was nothing 'bonus' about supporting two devices That were on sale when iOS 9 was announced. Apple should be supporting devices while they are capable of running the latest iOS even if it is in a stripped down fashion- it's the environmentally and customer friendly thing to do. They do need to offer downgrades to people who want them. Then you'd get a loss less complaints. As I said before, Apple was more than happy charging inflated prices in order to get large profit margins for old tech by selling the iPad 2 into 2014, and the mini 1 and touch 5 WELL into 2015, so they should be more than happy to support A5 devices. It's not a favour, it's expected when you pay what Apple charges for their devices.

And no people should not have been shocked and suprised when iOS 9 supported A5 devices given that Apple was selling 2 A5 devices at the time, A5 iPads made up an even larger market share than now and the rumours from fairly reliable sources had been in circulation since May 2015 saying that iOS 9 would not drop any devices.
[doublepost=1454505952][/doublepost]

Wouldn't it be simpler to maintain backwards compatibility in pages with iOS 9..

Apple rarely ever does though. tjats just one example. Any changes to FaceTime, iMessage, any other syncing service would also render iOS 9 devices unusable for these functions.

 

[nicho]

Apple rarely ever does though. tjats just one example. Any changes to FaceTime, iMessage, any other syncing service would also render iOS 9 devices unusable for these functions.

pages currently requires iOS 8.4 or later.

iMessage currently works on all devices from iOS5 onwards and facetime is still backwards compatible with an iphone 4 on ios 4.

your examples are quite poor.

 

[C DM]

pages currently requires iOS 8.4 or later.

iMessage currently works on all devices from iOS5 onwards and facetime is still backwards compatible with an iphone 4 on ios 4.

your examples are quite poor.

Not counting FaceTime not working on iPhones 4, 4s, or 5 with iOS 6 (unless they upgrade to iOS 7 or higher).

 

[nicho]

Not counting FaceTime not working on iPhones 4, 4s, or 5 with iOS 6 (unless they upgrade to iOS 7 or higher).

ok i forgot about that. but the point is, they were capable of upgrading to software that it then worked on. those that were not capable, were also issued a fix in iOS 6.1.6

the worry was that changes would make devices stuck on ios9 unable to use many services. that particular case doesn't lend any weight to the theory.

 

[oldmacs]

pages currently requires iOS 8.4 or later.

iMessage currently works on all devices from iOS5 onwards and facetime is still backwards compatible with an iphone 4 on ios 4.

your examples are quite poor.

The most recent version of iWork has been the first one to maintain any sort of backwards compatibility in a long time.

You didn't read my post - I said "Any changes to FaceTime, iMessage, any other syncing service would also render iOS 9 devices unusable for these functions" which is true. If Apple made major changes to any of those services that depended on an update to the client in iOS, it would most likely break under iOS 9, like FaceTime for iOS 6, like iCloud document syncing for iOS 7 and under, like notes for iOS 8 and under.

 

[nicho]

The most recent version of iWork has been the first one to maintain any sort of backwards compatibility in a long time.

You didn't read my post - I said "Any changes to FaceTime, iMessage, any other syncing service would also render iOS 9 devices unusable for these functions" which is true. If Apple made major changes to any of those services that depended on an update to the client in iOS, it would most likely break under iOS 9, like FaceTime for iOS 6, like iCloud document syncing for iOS 7 and under, like notes for iOS 8 and under.

i did read your post.

facetime is not broken on ios 6, for those devices incapable of running ios7. ios 6.1.6 exists to fix that.

icloud document syncing is also not broken for ios 7 unless you choose to upgrade to icloud drive. you could call it semantics, i guess, but the point is it isn't broken...

 

[oldmacs]

i did read your post.

facetime is not broken on ios 6, for those devices incapable of running ios7. ios 6.1.6 exists to fix that.

icloud document syncing is also not broken for ios 7 unless you choose to upgrade to icloud drive. you could call it semantics, i guess, but the point is it isn't broken...

FaceTime is broken on iOS 6 except for the 3GS and Touch 5. Mobile me is broken for devices such as the 3G (stuck on 4.2) which lost the ability to use mobile me features when iCloud came out in iOS 4.3 and 5.

The point is that the changes Apple has made in newer versions of iOS have broken syncing features on older devices, and its very possible for it to happen again, thus one of the reasons I support Apple supporting A5 devices (many of which were sold only half a year ago) not being dropped for arbitrary reasons.

 

[nicho]

FaceTime is broken on iOS 6 except for the 3GS and Touch 5. Mobile me is broken for devices such as the 3G (stuck on 4.2) which lost the ability to use mobile me features when iCloud came out in iOS 4.3 and 5.

The point is that the changes Apple has made in newer versions of iOS have broken syncing features on older devices, and its very possible for it to happen again, thus one of the reasons I support Apple supporting A5 devices (many of which were sold only half a year ago) not being dropped for arbitrary reasons.

mobile me didn't "break" when icloud came out. it continued to function for a full year after both the release of ios 4.2 and the announcement of icloud. the services overlapped, in a similar way to the release of icloud drive as an upgrade you could choose to do or not do yet. mobile me ceased to work a full 2 years after the iphone 3gs stopped being sold by apple, by the way.

facetime wasn't ever possible on iphone 3GS as it was introduced with iphone 4... and iphone 4 upwards are capable of running ios 7. it isn't "broken" for anybody running the latest software.

 

[8692574]

Hopefully the 4s doesn't get ios 10.
Im forced to use the thing for work, and its slow enough already

Just don't upgrade if it gets it, it is not so hard not to

 

[C DM]

Just don't upgrade if it gets it, it is not so hard not to

Unless/until something like FaceTime stops working at some point and the only way to get it working again is to upgrade.

 

[Narcaz]

I think either they should release iOS 10 for these devices (stripped right down) or continue with 9.X updates which would security and minor other updates to ensure compatiblity. Wouldn't it suck to have bought an iPad mini mid last year only to find that when you update pages on your Mac, you can't update on your iPad and because the new version of pages predictably uses a new file format, your iPad can open your documents.

Such things can happen with third parties any time. If maintaining backwards compatibility starts to be too much of a burden, they often drop it. Sadly that is not an Apple exclusive move. But i see your point. And imo the (uninformed) mini buyer shouldn't take the hit for Apple's cheap hardware choice. That's why those buyers should at least get another update or some version with another year of full support. But from a technological standpoint Apple really needs an exit strategy for the 32 bit devices. I think they started to hold back progress. As others have said, there is quiet alot of overhead and outdated 32 bit stuff. OSX really profited from this step.

 

[cableguy84]

Just don't upgrade if it gets it, it is not so hard not to

The apps i use for work on the phone stop working if we dont upgrade iOS unfortunately

 

[lagwagon]

the concept of a 'bonus' year seems stupid to me. There was nothing 'bonus' about supporting two devices That were on sale when iOS 9 was announced. Apple should be supporting devices while they are capable of running the latest iOS even if it is in a stripped down fashion- it's the environmentally and customer friendly thing to do. They do need to offer downgrades to people who want them. Then you'd get a loss less complaints. As I said before, Apple was more than happy charging inflated prices in order to get large profit margins for old tech by selling the iPad 2 into 2014, and the mini 1 and touch 5 WELL into 2015, so they should be more than happy to support A5 devices. It's not a favour, it's expected when you pay what Apple charges for their devices.

And no people should not have been shocked and suprised when iOS 9 supported A5 devices given that Apple was selling 2 A5 devices at the time, A5 iPads made up an even larger market share than now and the rumours from fairly reliable sources had been in circulation since May 2015 saying that iOS 9 would not drop any devices.
[doublepost=1454505952][/doublepost]
Apple rarely ever does though. tjats just one example. Any changes to FaceTime, iMessage, any other syncing service would also render iOS 9 devices unusable for these functions.

It really doesn't matter when any A5 device was sold. The fact is, is that the A5 is a 2011 chip. It's old. Very old in smartphone standards. I believe iOS 7 dropped iPhone 3GS, iOS 8 dropped iPhone 4, Apple decided to not drop anything in iOS 9. It's only likely that iOS 10 drops 4s because they stretched out its updates with skipping a year and not dropping anything in iOS 9.

You talk as if all A5 devices will cease to run/work if Apple dropped that chip from iOS 10. They will all continue to run on iOS 9.x.x, just like all iPhone 4 phones continue to run on iOS 7.1.2. No one would be forced into upgrading. It's all their own choice wether or not they are happy with it on iOS 9 or if they want to upgrade to take advantage of the latest software.

 

[oldmacs]

It really doesn't matter when any A5 device was sold. The fact is, is that the A5 is a 2011 chip. It's old. Very old in smartphone standards. I believe iOS 7 dropped iPhone 3GS, iOS 8 dropped iPhone 4, Apple decided to not drop anything in iOS 9. It's only likely that iOS 10 drops 4s because they stretched out its updates with skipping a year and not dropping anything in iOS 9.

You talk as if all A5 devices will cease to run/work if Apple dropped that chip from iOS 10. They will all continue to run on iOS 9.x.x, just like all iPhone 4 phones continue to run on iOS 7.1.2. No one would be forced into upgrading. It's all their own choice wether or not they are happy with it on iOS 9 or if they want to upgrade to take advantage of the latest software.

It does matter when A5 devices were sold. If Apple wants to be greedy, then thats the price they pay. Regardless of how old the A5 chip is, Apple deemed it good enough to sell less than a year ago, and it is not too old to run a version of iOS 10 that is essentially the core with few new features, just security and compatibility updates. "Very Old" is not a good justification for arbitrarily dropping devices, it is environmentally reckless and poor customer service.

Its not as simple as that, as soon as software support ceases, you're left with a phone that is not secure, that is not app compatible etc. Pretty poor for people who will have had devices for less than a year.

But anyway, I've made my case. No point arguing anymore given it will just go around in circles, and some people seem to get some sort of enjoyment over devices getting dropped.. probably because Apple makes more money that way.

 

[Paddle1]

It does matter when A5 devices were sold. If Apple wants to be greedy, then thats the price they pay. Regardless of how old the A5 chip is, Apple deemed it good enough to sell less than a year ago, and it is not too old to run a version of iOS 10 that is essentially the core with few new features, just security and compatibility updates. "Very Old" is not a good justification for arbitrarily dropping devices, it is environmentally reckless and poor customer service.

Its not as simple as that, as soon as software support ceases, you're left with a phone that is not secure, that is not app compatible etc. Pretty poor for people who will have had devices for less than a year.

But anyway, I've made my case. No point arguing anymore given it will just go around in circles, and some people seem to get some sort of enjoyment over devices getting dropped.. probably because Apple makes more money that way.

To be fair, looking at it from another angle, some developers complain about having to support A5 devices. One reason is the smaller screen on 4s, and if a developer wants their app to run on A6 devices they are forced to allow installation on A5 too. The A5 does not appear to be up to running all of today's software, especially smoothly, (including iOS itself it seems). Browsers and apps crash due to lack of RAM. Devices lag due to lack of processing power. Many iOS 9 features aren't supported. App developers receive complaints and negative reviews from users installing on A5 devices that they don't "officially support". Another common complaint is that it "holds back innovation".

If the A5 can't run well in 2016, what is Apple's motive to support it? The iPad mini was discontinued in June 2015 and iPod Touch in July. However, the iPod Touch 4th generation was discontinued just 3 months before iOS 7 was released and dropped it. Meanwhile these A5 devices will have received over a year of support even if purchased last year. Every single iPad except the original is currently up-to-date, which is impressive, but it's going to have to end somewhere.

 

[DanielDD]

People complaining three iOS major updates for the iPad Mini is not enough
meaningwhile, some devices like the iPod 4th gen only got 2 iOS major updates (and were similarly sold almost a years before Apple dropped support on them)

 

[danleon950410]

Apple has already begun the slow dropping of 32bit. More and more new features that get added are 64bit only. I believe some of the Slide Over/Split Screen and PiP are 64bit only. Safari Content Blockers are 64bit only. And the most current addition to iOS 9, Night Shift is 64bit only. So the process is already started and moving to a 64bit only OS is happening soon. Maybe this year (iOS 10) but for sure by next year (iOS 11)

I personally can't wait for that day to come of when iOS drops all the baggage of supporting 32bit. It has to be done sooner than later in order to move iOS forward.

People will complain no matter what Apple does. ("They made my device sloooow with the newest iOS forcing me to buy a new device!!!!" or "They didn't release the new iOS on my device, forcing me to buy a new device so I can get the new iOS!!!!")

I would rather the dropped support complaints, because they will tire out after a month or so. The slow on my old device complaints would last the entire life cycle of that iOS.

I respect your opinion, and even your predictions could be accurate, but you sound very irrational.
Lots of members are from third world countries, the struggle for buying an Apple device has always been there due to them being more expensive. The dollar currency increase has really affected the prices on various countries, for example here's mine: 16Gb (USD EQ 2.000 COP = Last stable exchange value)

-iPhone 5s:750 USD
-iPhone 6:850 USD

Not so much difference here, a lot of people upgraded but still not too much because it wasn't worth it (sise change aside)
Now, take a look at thisoil price dropped)

-iPhone 6:1.100 USD
-iPhone 6s:1.400 USD

Sure, the value went from 2.000 COP to 3.000 COP per USD dollar. The number is just smaller for you, we still pay about 3.000.000 COP for the 6S.

My point is that this is the reason why A5 are still the 40% of Apple active devices and about 45-50% is still 32bit devices. Developers seem to be okay with that, 32bit support reachs way more devices, and i haven't seen the first one complaining about this.
App thinning/Slicing seems kind-of-adress this problem.

With all due respect, what you mention may be the attempt from Apple to force users to upgrade your devices. I know what technical limitations are and obviously what features will or won't run.
But unless you can give me a valid reason for a simple screen color change that doesn't really run in the background (it happens at the time user sets it and the transition lasts 20 sec) to only run in 64bit devices (see f.lux for example) then my opinion is gonna be strong in here.

 

[C DM]

I respect your opinion, and even your predictions could be accurate, but you sound very irrational.
Lots of members are from third world countries, the struggle for buying an Apple device has always been there due to them being more expensive. The dollar currency increase has really affected the prices on various countries, for example here's mine: 16Gb (USD EQ 2.000 COP = Last stable exchange value)

-iPhone 5s:750 USD
-iPhone 6:850 USD

Not so much difference here, a lot of people upgraded but still not too much because it wasn't worth it (sise change aside)
Now, take a look at thisoil price dropped)

-iPhone 6:1.100 USD
-iPhone 6s:1.400 USD

Sure, the value went from 2.000 COP to 3.000 COP per USD dollar. The number is just smaller for you, we still pay about 3.000.000 COP for the 6S.

My point is that this is the reason why A5 are still the 40% of Apple active devices and about 45-50% is still 32bit devices. Developers seem to be okay with that, 32bit support reachs way more devices, and i haven't seen the first one complaining about this.
App thinning/Slicing seems kind-of-adress this problem.

With all due respect, what you mention may be the attempt from Apple to force users to upgrade your devices. I know what technical limitations are and obviously what features will or won't run.
But unless you can give me a valid reason for a simple screen color change that doesn't really run in the background (it happens at the time user sets it and the transition lasts 20 sec) to only run in 64bit devices (see f.lux for example) then my opinion is gonna be strong in here.

The reason is likely a simple one, as has been brought up many times in discussions about Night Shift: the code for that feature has most likely been written using some 64-bit frameworks/libraries and therefore silly won't run on 32-bit devices.

 

[Narcaz]

The reason is likely a simple one, as has been brought up many times in discussions about Night Shift: the code for that feature has most likely been written using some 64-bit frameworks/libraries and therefore silly won't run on 32-bit devices.

Besides pointing out the obvious you don't really want me to believe that the company with best quarter in capitalism is unable to make it 32 bit compatible. Actually it only costs money to port it and to ensure compatibility. So it is more or less an artificial line they are drawing there. For the Contentblockers there is at least the speed argument (despite the fact that some of them worked reasonably well during the beta on the iPhone 5/iPad 4 until Apple pulled the plug). What exactly is the technical limitation in this case?

I don't think there is one. From a marketing perspective it makes sense to reserve a few requested features for the most recent devices. Same thing happened with the keyboard trackpad feature. It worked great on older iPhones until they decided to reserve it for the new model with 3D Touch. It's just a common business strategy to make the current product lineup more attractive and to lure some people into upgrades.

 

[C DM]

Besides pointing out the obvious you don't really want me to believe that the company with best quarter in capitalism is unable to make it 32 bit compatible. Actually it only costs money to port it and to ensure compatibility. So it is more or less an artificial line they are drawing there. For the Contentblockers there is at least the speed argument (despite the fact that some of them worked reasonably well during the beta on the iPhone 5/iPad 4 until Apple pulled the plug). What exactly is the technical limitation in this case?

I don't think there is one. From a marketing perspective it makes sense to reserve a few requested features for the most recent devices. Same thing happened with the keyboard trackpad feature. It worked great on older iPhones until they decided to reserve it for the new model with 3D Touch. It's just a common business strategy to make the current product lineup more attractive and to lure some people into upgrades.

It's called simple progress. The latest state of things for iOS is in the 64-bit world, so more and more is written based on that. Fairly typical progression in the computing world. They could prob sky implement various things that would still be PowerPC compatible, but we've moved on from that, same as what's in the process of happening with 32-bit.

 

[I7guy]

I respect your opinion, and even your predictions could be accurate, but you sound very irrational.
Lots of members are from third world countries, the struggle for buying an Apple device has always been there due to them being more expensive. The dollar currency increase has really affected the prices on various countries, for example here's mine: 16Gb (USD EQ 2.000 COP = Last stable exchange value)

-iPhone 5s:750 USD
-iPhone 6:850 USD

Not so much difference here, a lot of people upgraded but still not too much because it wasn't worth it (sise change aside)
Now, take a look at thisoil price dropped)

-iPhone 6:1.100 USD
-iPhone 6s:1.400 USD

Sure, the value went from 2.000 COP to 3.000 COP per USD dollar. The number is just smaller for you, we still pay about 3.000.000 COP for the 6S.

My point is that this is the reason why A5 are still the 40% of Apple active devices and about 45-50% is still 32bit devices. Developers seem to be okay with that, 32bit support reachs way more devices, and i haven't seen the first one complaining about this.
App thinning/Slicing seems kind-of-adress this problem.

With all due respect, what you mention may be the attempt from Apple to force users to upgrade your devices. I know what technical limitations are and obviously what features will or won't run.
But unless you can give me a valid reason for a simple screen color change that doesn't really run in the background (it happens at the time user sets it and the transition lasts 20 sec) to only run in 64bit devices (see f.lux for example) then my opinion is gonna be strong in here.

It's bad business to screw your customers over. A likely explanation for this has already been posted, progress. Apple is not obliged to retrofit old o/s, the same way Microsoft is not obliged to update XP.

 

[George Waseem]

Besides pointing out the obvious you don't really want me to believe that the company with best quarter in capitalism is unable to make it 32 bit compatible. Actually it only costs money to port it and to ensure compatibility. So it is more or less an artificial line they are drawing there. For the Contentblockers there is at least the speed argument (despite the fact that some of them worked reasonably well during the beta on the iPhone 5/iPad 4 until Apple pulled the plug). What exactly is the technical limitation in this case?

I don't think there is one. From a marketing perspective it makes sense to reserve a few requested features for the most recent devices. Same thing happened with the keyboard trackpad feature. It worked great on older iPhones until they decided to reserve it for the new model with 3D Touch. It's just a common business strategy to make the current product lineup more attractive and to lure some people into upgrades.

None of the features that came with iOS 9 for 64-bit devices is only 64 bit compatible, for example, split view, slide over, picture in picture, night shift. All these features can be enabled with a jailbreak tweak, I've seen videos on enabling multitasking features on older iPads, surprisingly, iPad 3 runs split view very nicely, iPad mini & iPad 2 both run them ok. iPad 4 & iPad Air run split view very beautifully. It's just about forcing people to upgrade, I will jailbreak my device as soon as 9.4 comes out. I will resist the force of Apple trying to convince me to upgrade to the next big update (iOS 10).

 

[kidflash96609]

since we all know that the current iOS 9 supports the iPhone 4s and up. but I have an iPhone 5c 16gb and I wanted to know what are the chances of iOS 10 supporting the iPhone5c?

 

[C DM]

None of the features that came with iOS 9 for 64-bit devices is only 64 bit compatible, for example, split view, slide over, picture in picture, night shift. All these features can be enabled with a jailbreak tweak, I've seen videos on enabling multitasking features on older iPads, surprisingly, iPad 3 runs split view very nicely, iPad mini & iPad 2 both run them ok. iPad 4 & iPad Air run split view very beautifully. It's just about forcing people to upgrade, I will jailbreak my device as soon as 9.4 comes out. I will resist the force of Apple trying to convince me to upgrade to the next big update (iOS 10).

It's not that those features can't be done for 32-bit devices, it's that they have to be coded with additional APIs and frameworks to work with 32-bit devices, but that coding needs to happen for it to work. So when creating some feature the decision is to go with something that would require some additional work to work with 32-bit devices and thus additional testing and all that, or focus on the current state of technology which is more and more 64-bit. Features can be written to work with PowerPC Macs as well, but that's not the current state of technology, so they aren't. This is basically along similar lines.

 

[lagwagon]

OS X dropped support for 32bit CPU's with Lion I believe, which was many years ago (it's time this year or next year for iOS to do the same) and that didn't destroy the world of desktop/laptop computers. 3rd party developers didn't go hungry from lack of "device reach" as a couple have pointed out. People who couldn't update to Lion continued to run their computers until they made the decision to upgrade, if it was right away, one year or two or three or four years. They weren't forced to update if they were happy and the computer still did what they use it for.