iPad iPad 2 from iOS 6 to iOS 7

Intell said:

Something as basic as email can provide anyone with a wealth of information, sometimes even personal information. Even something as simple and meaningless and ones credentials to MacRumors can provide and possibly ultimately leak personal information. In summation, an unpatched machine no matter the OS is a ticking time bomb.

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But how likely is it for that bomb to go off? Is it as likely as getting hit by a car while walking down a street? Winning a lottery? Getting hit by lightning? Or is it more like a football player spraining his leg while getting tackled? Or perhaps as frequent as rolling a double 6 in dice? What exactly is the degree of risk we are talking about?

And I think you indicated earlier that the exact risk is hard to know. So there is this unknown risk factor, vs having an iPad that is reasonably speedy. I think we all have to just decide for ourselves what we feel comfortable with.

While the risk factor is unknown, it is there and growing with each passing week. Then there is the ever enlarging chance that an outdated device may already be exploited and under surveillance. All the examples you gave are more easy to gauge because they are easy to perceive and register. Breaking into a a device, when done properly, is not easy to perceive. Monitoring the electronic communications are even more difficult to perceive. As stated before, the degree is wholly unknown, but it is there and growing ever larger with each posted CVE.

I would stick with iOS 6. Your iPad will be suffering, performance-wise on a later iOS. My general take on this is that the hardware is basically made for one version of iOS and anything that comes later will likely create a performance deficiency. Of course, it's a trade off between performance and features, which is up to the user to decide.

Stay on iOS 6 bro. Most likely that you won't get targeted, or exploited if you're using common sense while browsing. iOS 8 is a lot slower compared to iOS 6. If you want iOS 8 it would make more sense to buy a newer iPad to do so.

Do you know anyone who has an iPad 2 on iOS 8 that you could try out to assess the speed? That could make deciding a LOT easier

BittenApple said:

Stay on iOS 6 bro. Most likely that you won't get targeted, or exploited if you're using common sense while browsing. iOS 8 is a lot slower compared to iOS 6. If you want iOS 8 it would make more sense to buy a newer iPad to do so.

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Common sense doesn't apply to the SSL goto bug that exists in iOS 6 for the iPad. In this case common sense would be adverse as the site will show as a fully valid HTTPS site, but actually be using an improperly signed certificate which iOS will happily accept and valid and present it as such.

BittenApple said:

Stay on iOS 6 bro. Most likely that you won't get targeted, or exploited if you're using common sense while browsing. iOS 8 is a lot slower compared to iOS 6. If you want iOS 8 it would make more sense to buy a newer iPad to do so.

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Totally agree, preformance trumps FUD.

Abba 701 said:

Is there a way to upgrade an iPad 2 to iOS 7 from iOS 6 or it can only update to 8.1.2?

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As others have said, sadly you can only update to whatever the current release is. Today that's 8.1.2. When either 8.1.3 or 8.2 come out you'll have a window in which the older OS update will still be signed, but then you'll only be able to do the latest. Major annoyance, but so it goes with iOS devices.

As for whether or not to stay, if this is your only iOS device and you use it rather heavily (and you are also not planning on upgrading in the near future), you should update for security and compatibility purposes. Your experience will suck compared to iOS 6 and there's not much that can be done about it (other than buying a newer iPad to replace the one you're on now).

If you have imminent plans to upgrade to a newer iPad and can relegate your current one, I'd say you might as well leave it as iOS 6. I have done this with one of my now-many fifth generation iPod touches as well as my first generation iPad mini due to both performance concerns as well as wanting to still have something from iOS's prettier days.

I wish I stayed on iOS 6. I hate the look and feel of iOS 7 and 8.