5 years of IOS support?

[Pelea]

Please read the entire post before posting...

Do you recon the iphone 5/5c will be the first phones to offer 5 years of IOS support?
(reason: 5c came out the same time as the 5s, so it should be expected to receive 4 years of ios support?)

Also:
We're slowly reaching the cpu/gpu limit since the 5s/6 (just look at their presentation graphs, the curve is diminishing), and so performance-wise.. i don't see the following generations getting over or even reaching a 50% increase in terms of specs (gpu/cpu upgrade).

Does this mean the iphone 5 and following generation phones will be able to receive more upgrades without showing signs of lag or performance decrease? or would that simply be unprofitable for apple, therefore not consider it.

 

[Intell]

The 4S has a good chance at getting it as well. Apple still has some A5 devices in the line up.

 

[Pelea]

i don't think the 4s does, it's already worse than the 4 on ios 8. i'm also guessing apple wants to get rid of the 3.5 inch lineup as fast as possible (eases app optimization, encourages people to upgrade etc)

 

[sjinsjca]

It depends on what you mean by support.

In the US, manufacturers are legally required to offer repairs, refurbs, etc. for products five years after purchase. They can charge for them after the warranty period, of course. Apple has generally been unusually generous in this respect, for example with a very affordable flat-rate repair for out-of-warranty notebook computers.

But updates and upgrades? Basic security updates are one thing. But you might not want to update a five-year-old device (phone, computer or anything else) to a new version of the OS for fear of bringing it to its knees. iOS 7 on an iPhone 4 worked tolerably for me but many others have complained about the update bringing their phone to its knees (if phones had knees, that is).

It's hard to find agreement with your contention that the CPU/GPU curve is flattening. The leap to 64 bit is still barely a year old for phones, and still effectively limited to Apple. We are just beginning to see this architectural advancement being leveraged. Mobile GPUs are advancing rapidly. New architectures are under intensive research for improving power consumption and speed, promising a quantum leap in efficiency.

These are yet early days of mobile computing. You've seen nothing yet!

 

[hovscorpion12]

I personally think that the 4S will continue to receive iOS updates, however it will not include all of the software features included due to the fact that it has a 1 GHz processor with 512MB of RAM. The iPhone 5 will most likely receive all of the iOS 9 and future software features (with exception of software tailored to the larger screen). All iPhones following the iPhone 5 have 1GB of RAM so there should be no difference in performance. The iPhone 5 does have 1.3 GHz Processor while the iPhone 5S, 6 & 6 Plus have 64Bit 1.4 GHz processors. In short, any iPhone from the iPhone 5 and above will have at least 4 years of iOS support.

 

[mtneer]

I don't think that is a good idea. Future iOS versions (rightfully) will run slower and slooower on older iPhone hardware. Prior to iOS 7, Apple had a draconian upgrade policy to force everyone to move up. Glad things have changed to make it easy for people with older hardware to maintain performance by not upgrading iOS.

 

[Pelea]

It depends on what you mean by support.

In the US, manufacturers are legally required to offer repairs, refurbs, etc. for products five years after purchase. They can charge for them after the warranty period, of course. Apple has generally been unusually generous in this respect, for example with a very affordable flat-rate repair for out-of-warranty notebook computers.

But updates and upgrades? Basic security updates are one thing. But you might not want to update a five-year-old device (phone, computer or anything else) to a new version of the OS for fear of bringing it to its knees. iOS 7 on an iPhone 4 worked tolerably for me but many others have complained about the update bringing their phone to its knees (if phones had knees, that is).

It's hard to find agreement with your contention that the CPU/GPU curve is flattening. The leap to 64 bit is still barely a year old for phones, and still effectively limited to Apple. We are just beginning to see this architectural advancement being leveraged. Mobile GPUs are advancing rapidly. New architectures are under intensive research for improving power consumption and speed, promising a quantum leap in efficiency.

These are yet early days of mobile computing. You've seen nothing yet!

if that is the case.. and there's still plenty of power to spare, i don't really see the use of it over the 6. daily tasks are as fast as can be on the 5s and 6 (the only factor limiting speed is the animation, which can be removed on jailbroken devices). Gaming has always been great on my 5s, and i don't really see where they could make such a massive leap over it, like they did with the 4s over the 4.. they could up the resolution, sure.. but the quality right now still is great.

All i'm saying is, a 5 year old phone starting from today's top-notch phones shouldn't suffer anywhere near as bad as the 4/3gs etc, which is why we should reasonably expect at least an extra year's ios upgrades, whilst still getting great performance (if apple's feeling generous).

 

[Intell]

I personally think that the 4S will continue to receive iOS updates, however it will not include all of the software features included due to the fact that it has a 1 GHz processor with 512MB of RAM. The iPhone 5 will most likely receive all of the iOS 9 and future software features (with exception of software tailored to the larger screen). All iPhones following the iPhone 5 have 1GB of RAM so there should be no difference in performance. The iPhone 5 does have 1.3 GHz Processor while the iPhone 5S, 6 & 6 Plus have 64Bit 1.4 GHz processors. In short, any iPhone from the iPhone 5 and above will have at least 4 years of iOS support.

The iPhone 4S has an 800Mhz dual core CPU. The iPhone 5S has a 1.3Ghz dual core CPU.

 

[Pelea]

I don't think that is a good idea. Future iOS versions (rightfully) will run slower and slooower on older iPhone hardware. Prior to iOS 7, Apple had a draconian upgrade policy to force everyone to move up. Glad things have changed to make it easy for people with older hardware to maintain performance by not upgrading iOS.

are people reading my thread properly 0_o..

 

[rui no onna]

Please read the entire post before posting...

Do you recon the iphone 5/5c will be the first phones to offer 5 years of IOS support?
(reason: 5c came out the same time as the 5s, so it should be expected to receive 4 years of ios support?)

Also:
We're slowly reaching the cpu/gpu limit since the 5s/6 (just look at their presentation graphs, the curve is diminishing), and so performance-wise.. i don't see the following generations getting over or even reaching a 50% increase in terms of specs (gpu/cpu upgrade).

Does this mean the iphone 5 and following generation phones will be able to receive more upgrades without showing signs of lag or performance decrease? or would that simply be unprofitable for apple, therefore not consider it.

Yes, I believe so. Well, maybe not 5 years but 5 iOS versions is extremely likely. The iPad 2 received 5 major iOS versions and given current performance of the iPhone 5 on iOS 8, I think it's on tract to follow that record or exceed it. For day to day tasks, I don't notice any performance difference between the 5/5c and the 5s/6 Plus. I found the iPad 2 to exhibit similar performance with iOS 6.