Seems that the discussion becomes really hot.
I am not a specialist, or a developer. I am just a customer. Of course from customer side, product with longer support period is better than product with short support period. That means we don't need to upgrade devices at hand too often.
Of course, for example, you can keep using iPad first gen, but you will likely be able to do almost nothing, except some really simple tasks. Technology always evolve much faster than we could expect, or, is this just a short performance?
For me, I also hope apple release next gen iPod touch. When I finally realise that iPhone 6 Plus I bought is about to be the much less powerful iPhone, it is too late. That doesn't mean iPhone 6 Plus is immediately outdated and obsolete, though.
IOS 9 should be available for A5 chip, because iPad mini running iOS 8.4 beta 3 is really laggy. I hope next update could bring some performance improvement.
the the thing, companies don't run themselves to keep the consumer happy. companies run themselves to make profit, especially a company thats public.
whats more profitable having to pay a team of developers to optimize an OS for obsolete devices
or forcing the consumers to buy the new model.
Its pretty clear cut and simple.
and its not like apple has been consumer friendly specs wise for iOS devices. Other phones hardware is much more suped up. if it had tech specs as an average android then these phones would last much longer.
its all a marketing tactic. you don't want to give out suped up iPhones with crazy internals because it won't force you to buy a new model.
this is literally business 101 and common sense.
apple having as much cash as they have, they might have a team that is going to optimize and for older devices (surely they will test for the heck of it but actually optimizing it is another thing)
but its going to be a small team, and it damn sure isn't going to be the top developers working on it.
Its simply not worth it nor profitable. you're talking about a public company where investors are demanding and expected to see rise in profits and doing things that are profitable.