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Apple Officially Obsoletes First iPad With Lightning Connector

midtoad said:
I inherited a fourth generation iPad Mini from my dad. He bought it in 2014 and passed away in 2017. I still use it from time to time, keeping it as a backup machine to take two coffee shops so I can peruse the news. I don't care about most apps and a browser works just fine on most sites. Apple stopped updating the operating system quite some time ago anyway.

For most people I fail to see why they should buy an iPad these days anyway. $700 Canadian for a mini? Are you out of your mind? Chrome OS tablets are slowly going to take over the world. They're a better choice for most people, far cheaper and also way easier to use. 90% of the population (not us techies that post on here) don't do anything more than read emails or occasional Instagram posts, and maybe the news. You don't need the latest Mac hardware to do that!
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I know Apple tablets are costly and for most users the entry level device or air works fine for consumption or business needs, but one thing we have to admire is the longevity of the products. Even after a decade most iPad 4 Gen users including myself can continue to use the device for news, video consumption, emails without major hassles. I personally have not seen such offerings with Chrome tablets which usually becomes difficult to use after 3-4 years. And ofcourse the app ecosystem for tablets are much better in iPad as compared to Chrome/Android tablets.

So, yes one does pay a premium for an iPad but then it also offers premium experience when longevity, user experience, app ecosystem is factored in.
 
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RajBan said:
I know Apple tablets are costly and for most users the entry level device or air works fine for consumption or business needs, but one thing we have to admire is the longevity of the products. Even after a decade most iPad 4 Gen users including myself can continue to use the device for news, video consumption, emails without major hassles. I personally have not seen such offerings with Chrome tablets which usually becomes difficult to use after 3-4 years. And ofcourse the app ecosystem for tablets are much better in iPad as compared to Chrome/Android tablets.

So, yes one does pay a premium for an iPad but then it also offers premium experience when longevity, user experience, app ecosystem is factored in.
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Agreed, just look at the iPad Air 2 which is still getting the latest OS updates, this will be its 8th year of getting updates now, still going strong.
 
This was my first iPad. Very solid but the apps were still in a kind of infancy. At the end I didn’t use the iPad 4 much..
 
And then to think Apple is still making new iPads (and phones, AirPods, keyboards and mice) with lightning ports. Even though the connector is better, we should be moving to all USB-C everywhere.
 
Wow, all my Macs are now obsolete, my original Home Pods are discontinued, my original iPad mini and original iPad are long ago obsolete, etc. The only current products I have are my iPhone 10x max and two Apple TV’s. I keep telling myself that I should upgrade but the old stuff is still working fine for the most part.
 
MrGimper said:
I remember being absolutely livid when this launched 6 months after I'd purchased my ipad 3... pretty much proving that the A5x was gimped.
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Glad I’m not the only one. Ipad 3 was essentially unusable shortly after. So laggy. I was so burned by this it turned me off Apple for years.

Lesson learned, the only product they won’t do this to is the iPhone. They did the same thing with the 2020 MacBook Air. Now everyone assumes you mean the M1 but they released two that year and immediately dropped the first one down the memory hole when they released the updated model seven months later.
 
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mi7chy said:
More reason to unlock the device when it's retired by Apple so a different OS can be sideloaded. I have a 2008 Thinkpad x200 that's running the latest Windows 11 and Linux so no reason for 2012 device not be able to.
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Can I ask how you got WIN 11 to run on your Thinkpad? I have a much newer desktop (2018), and MS says that my computer can’t be updated to WIN11.
 
mikiee said:
Can I ask how you got WIN 11 to run on your Thinkpad? I have a much newer desktop (2018), and MS says that my computer can’t be updated to WIN11.
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2018 is very recent and should be supported. Go into BIOS and enable TPM (Intel CPU) or fTPM (AMD CPU). If a BIOS update is available it should enable TPM by default.

Otherwise, use Microsoft's official registry bypass for TPM and CPU.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e
 
mikiee said:
OK, thanks for the info. i assume you did the TPM bypass and are having no issues running WIN 11 on your Thinkpad?
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I did the unofficial bypass back on Insider Edition then upgraded to the final release version. No issue and it pulls all the Windows updates. If you do an in-place upgrade you can revert back to previous OS version within 10 days if you change your mind.
 
mikiee said:
OK, thanks for the info. i assume you did the TPM bypass and are having no issues running WIN 11 on your Thinkpad?
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I’ve done that on a thinkpad of a similar vintage (running an unsupported AMD APU) and it works fine, though there’s no guarantee it will do so from Microsoft.
 
mi7chy said:
2018 is very recent and should be supported. ...
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A recent purchase obviously doesn't guarantee that Windows 11 will be officially supported; I had to use the unofficial bypass to get it to install on my 2019 iMac... which supposedly does have a technically compatible TPM, but it's in the CPU. (My reading suggests that W11 requires the TPM to be on the motherboard.)
 
Ahh the iPad 4, my very first iPad... I didn't have much money back then but I had been longing for an iPad for years at that point and I almost jumped on the first gen iPad right as the 2 launched but that never happened. Fast forward a couple years and I luckily avoided the disaster that was the iPad 3 and finally had the money to drop on an iPad 4 so I walked into the Apple Store and bought me a black 32GB Wifi model. I was really happy to have it for a short time but the appeal of the also launched mini got to me so before my return period was up I went back to Apple and swapped my 4 for a loaded out 64GB white wifi/cellular iPad mini. I was in love with that thing for its size, thinness and weight compared to the 4 but after a while I was sorely missing the retina screen, double the RAM and of course the A6X CPU as the mini was nothing but a shrunken down iPad 2 I knew it was already showing its age. Needless to say, I found a shop that offered me $500 in cash for my mini and I took that money and some more that I had in the bank and went back to Apple and got me a 64GB white wifi/cellular iPad 4 and a Smart Cover and never looked back.

I had the iPad 4 until the Air 2 came out and got that one. Sold the 4 to a friend of mine years later who wanted it for his son. All in all the 4 was a stalwart of its time and was still very usable years after the fact.
 
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