Apple Adding iPad 2 to Vintage and Obsolete Products List on April 30

[MacRumors]

Apple will be adding all iPad 2 models to its vintage and obsolete products list on April 30, according to an internal memo obtained by MacRumors.

Apple defines vintage products as those that were last manufactured more than five years ago. The iPad 2, originally released in March 2011, lived on as a lower-cost option until March 2014, complete with a 9.7-inch display with just 132 PPI, an A5 chip, and a whopping 0.7-megapixel rear camera.

What this means is that the iPad 2 will no longer be eligible for service at the Genius Bar or Apple Authorized Service Providers as of the end of the month. It's pretty impressive that this is just happening now, considering that the iPad 2 is over eight years old. It even has a 30-pin dock connector still.

The only exceptions will be in California and Turkey, where due to local laws, Apple will continue to service the iPad 2 until March 2021. At the time, the iPad 2 will finally go from "vintage" to "obsolete" worldwide.

Article Link: Apple Adding iPad 2 to Vintage and Obsolete Products List on April 30

 

[Jeaz]

Thought for a sec this was for the iPad Air 2 and went WTF. But then realised it's for the actual iPad 2. Ah the memories queueing for that one, long time ago. Fully understandable they pull the plug on it.

 

[Unity451]

My iPad 2 definitely feels Vintage and Obsolete...

'bout the only thing my iPad 2 is good for these days...

 

[macduke]

TBH I'm surprised that it's not already obsolete. I remember it feeling leaps and bounds faster than my original iPad. That 512MB RAM was like manna from heaven. But after only a few years it was crawling along worse than the original. It would have really benefited from some of the iOS optimizations in recent years—if only it could run them.

 

[ericesque]

We finally retired our iPad Gen 3 at the beginning of the year. It was WELL past it's prime but managed to remain reasonably functional given its age. I bought it expecting to get 2-3 years out of it and got over 6! I think the reports of iPad's demise were greatly exaggerated. The upgrade cycle was simply much longer than anyone could have anticipated.

 

[SBlue1]

Wow my iPad 2 is 8 years old? We still use it mostly as a baby monitor.

 

[machpost]

I still have one and it still has impressive battery life. It rarely gets used anymore and it’s painfully slow when attempting tasks such as web browsing, but it still handles streaming video just fine.

 

[LotusLord]

Well if ever there was a reason to upgrade my wife's grandma's iPad. It is an iPad 2 which was originally my wife's.

 

[Gogeta-Blue]

i really hate this move by apple, i understand that it gets to a point that the device can’t be supported any more because the hardware will be old and obsolete, then it it will run the latest software very slow, or it might not run it at all, but at least let the hardware have a honorable death instead if just killing it because it reach certain age, apple strategy forcing people to upgrade and buy new devices, mean while you can install Mojave even on a core 2 duo and run it at a considerable or acceptable speed, if you use an SSD , yes the core 2 duo can be normally use up to High Sierra but by using one file from High Sierra on Mojave you can run Mojave on a core 2 duo and that CPU is more than 10 years old, so how can a 5 year old Mac or device can be obsolete, they don’t even try or test for compatibility, they simply discard the device, add it to the black list and call it a day and let just wait until our beloved apple fans buy new devices

you guys can clap now

is all right Tim i already have the latest Mac Pro, one that i build myself, worth every penny, fully upgradable with water cooling

 

[TMRJIJ]

Still have a couple of these hanging around at my mother’s house.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I had an iPad 3 until about 3 years ago and using it was brutal. I can’t imagine anything pre iPad Air, maybe iPad Air 2 being usable.

 

[blasto2236]

Good night, sweet prince.

 

[gsurf123]

TBH I'm surprised that it's not already obsolete. I remember it feeling leaps and bounds faster than my original iPad. That 512MB RAM was like manna from heaven. But after only a few years it was crawling along worse than the original. It would have really benefited from some of the iOS optimizations in recent years—if only it could run them.

The references to memory size are of zero value as you have no idea if the iPad would have been any better with 1GB or 256MB.
[doublepost=1555359846][/doublepost]

i really hate this move by apple, i understand that it gets to a point that the device can’t be supported any more because the hardware will be old and obsolete, then it it will run the latest software very slow, or it might not run at all, but at least let the hardware have a honorable death instead if just killing it because it reach certain age, apple strategy forcing people to upgrade and buy new devices, mean while you can install mojave even on a core 2 duo and run it at a considerable acceptable speed, if you use an SSD , yes the core 2 duo can be nirmally use up to High Sierra but by only using one file from High Sierra ob Mojave you can run mojave on a core 2 duo and that CPU is more than 10 years old, so how can a 5 year old pc or device can be obsolete, they don’t even try or test fir compability, they simply discard the device, add it to the black list list, call it a day and let just wait untill our beloved apple fans buy new devices

you guys can clap now

is all right Tim i already have the latest Mac Pro, one that i build myself, worth every penny, fully upgradable with water cooling

There is nothing stopping you from continuing to use it. Apple did not turn it off.

 

[Gogeta-Blue]

i have a 2017 ipad that i only use as a screen for my phantom 4 pro remote controller, that is the only use i got for it

yes you can continue to use the ipad like you said but with an older version of ios because it won’t have suport for the latest ios, we all know what that means

since this is mac rumors let me tell you a fact cough cough, rumor

you never heard of apple slowing down older devices that updated to newer versions of ios

but of course is just a conspiracy theory, any old device that updates to a new version of ios is going to run slow

granted

but apple can also make it run a bit slower on top of that to make it even slower

cmon is not that apple do that because they want to sell you a new device

apple has so much money, they don’t need to do that

is not like they are greedy, right

 

[vicviper789]

I hate to be that one guy but I have an iPad 2 and it serves perfectly for it’s true purpose: a glorified web browser

 

[GCHASE1995]

Shouldn’t the iPod touch 5 and iPhone 4s be added too?

 

[CarlJ]

TBH I'm surprised that it's not already obsolete.

I got the impression that the iPad 2 was sold into schools and/or corporations for use in specific tasks, with the understanding (possibly enforced by contracts) that it would have a very long life. It remained on sale for a lot longer past introduction than many other iOS devices.

 

[bodonnell202]

i really hate this move by apple, i understand that it gets to a point that the device can’t be supported any more because the hardware will be old and obsolete, then it it will run the latest software very slow, or it might not run at all, but at least let the hardware have a honorable death instead if just killing it because it reach certain age, apple strategy forcing people to upgrade and buy new devices, mean while you can install mojave even on a core 2 duo and run it at a considerable acceptable speed, if you use an SSD , yes the core 2 duo can be nirmally use up to High Sierra but by only using one file from High Sierra ob Mojave you can run mojave on a core 2 duo and that CPU is more than 10 years old, so how can a 5 year old pc or device can be obsolete, they don’t even try or test fir compability, they simply discard the device, add it to the black list list, call it a day and let just wait untill our beloved apple fans buy new devices

you guys can clap now

is all right Tim i already have the latest Mac Pro, one that i build myself, worth every penny, fully upgradable with water cooling

This just means that Apple will no longer be offering repairs to them, but doesn't necessarily mean you can't have it repaired by a 3rd party vendor and/or get parts from 3rd party vendors to complete repairs yourself. From the software side it hasn't received software updates since fall 2017 but you can continue to use it for as long as you like (i.e. Apple didn't kill anything).

 

[udontno]

I got the impression that the iPad 2 was sold into schools and/or corporations for use in specific tasks, with the understanding (possibly enforced by contracts) that it would have a very long life. It remained on sale for a lot longer past introduction than many other iOS devices.

We have over a 100 of these left in my 1:1 elementary school... all are being sold at the end of the year and I cannot wait to get rid of every last one of them. So painful.

I have 6 in my library and they will be replaced with hand-me-down 2014 iPad Airs, which will be a heck of a lot better.

 

[LotusLord]

We have over a 100 of these left in my 1:1 elementary school... all are being sold at the end of the year and I cannot wait to get rid of every last one of them. So painful.

I have 6 in my library and they will be replaced with hand-me-down 2014 iPad Airs, which will be a heck of a lot better.

I can't imagine. I pulled 10 of them from an office 2 years ago and they couldn't believe how much faster and lighter their 9.7 pro replacements were. Even with the otterbox defender cases on them.

 

[macduke]

The references to memory size are of zero value as you have no idea if the iPad would have been any better with 1GB or 256MB.

Yeah I do have a really good idea, actually. My original iPad has 256MB and the tabs would reload in Safari all the time. This was helped on the iPad. Furthermore, you could actually do some work in drawing apps because you could have layers. The 256MB on the original iPad was taken up almost entirely by the OS. Why are you just making stuff up? I'll just assume you never actually owned these devices. The extra RAM on the iPad 2 was a breath of fresh air and a massive boost to productivity on the iPad at the time. Nowadays you kids have no idea what the struggle was like on the original hardware, lol.

 

[TMRJIJ]

i really hate this move by apple, i understand that it gets to a point that the device can’t be supported any more because the hardware will be old and obsolete, then it it will run the latest software very slow, or it might not run at all, but at least let the hardware have a honorable death instead if just killing it because it reach certain age, apple strategy forcing people to upgrade and buy new devices, mean while you can install mojave even on a core 2 duo and run it at a considerable acceptable speed, if you use an SSD , yes the core 2 duo can be nirmally use up to High Sierra but by only using one file from High Sierra ob Mojave you can run mojave on a core 2 duo and that CPU is more than 10 years old, so how can a 5 year old pc or device can be obsolete, they don’t even try or test fir compability, they simply discard the device, add it to the black list list, call it a day and let just wait untill our beloved apple fans buy new devices

you guys can clap now

is all right Tim i already have the latest Mac Pro, one that i build myself, worth every penny, fully upgradable with water cooling

1. You can still use the iPad. This just means that Apple will no longer offer repairs for hardware and software that it doesn’t work with anymore. What honorable death are you referring to? They no longer produce the hardware in the iPad 2.
2. You’re talking about patches for the Macs that need to modify the OS in order to work on old hardware. This causes potential issues specifically the models you are referring to which do not have Metal capable graphics cards needed to run newer Mojave applications under Apple’s upcoming cross-platform UIKit. The developer of that single file (whom I known and talked with a few times) should have given documentation on how that works and why it was deemed necessary for Apple to drop it in the first place. It wasn’t planned obsolescence because it is quite obvious why that hardware was not suppose to run Mojave. It is also guaranteed that once the whole OS drops OpenGL for metal in the next few versions, those machines will not be able to make it past the boot screen (no exceptions, no patches unless you know anyone capable of rewriting kernels, Frameworks, and Kernel Extensions).
3. Enjoy your hackintosh

Don’t tell me what to do with my hands.
(Hears Crickets)

 

[Avenged110]

I still use my iPad 2 as an alarm clock with iOS 6. It's actually pretty great because I only have to charge it twice a year haha.

 

[amssullivan28]

Still use our 2 for reading books purchased with the Books app.

 

[CarlJ]

I have 6 in my library and they will be replaced with hand-me-down 2014 iPad Airs, which will be a heck of a lot better.

Oddly appropriate that I'm reading/replying to this on my original iPad Air. It's still great for tasks that are not CPU/graphics/RAM intensive.