Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPod touch For Ipod touch users who are being left behind...

D

DraziGuy

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 20, 2009
81
1
To those of us who still own perfectly working 1G Touches, are any of you concerned like I am over the looming upgrade to 4.0?

I understand that we can't expect updates to the operating system forever, and that at some point you need to let hardware become obsolete. Whether you think 3 years is too little or too long is a different debate.

My concern is what is going to happen to the App store for those of us unable to upgrade? Today, there are about 185,000 thousand apps available that my device can run. Come June/July, that number is going to plummet to nearly none. I know this from experience, as I had to upgrade to 3.0 last year when it came out, even though I was unable to use nearly all of its improvements. This was due to the fact that as soon as the new OS came out, all of the reputable developers recompiled and resubmitted their apps for the new update, so that they could advertise their new compatibility. This left me out in the cold, and I had to spend $9.99 to keep buying apps.

My worry is that as soon as 4.0 comes out, everyone is going to upgrade their apps to 4.0 mode, and there will be nothing of quality left on the store. To me, $300 for a new Ipod is about a week and a half pay, after taxes, so it really depresses me that my perfectly functioning device is going to cease to be nearly as useful in just a few months. It would be nice if Apple would implement some mechanism whereby when making a purchase, the App store would check your version, and then give you the last version which supported your OS, instead of telling you that they are no longer compatible.

I don't expect developers to keep developing for old OS's forever, but at least give me a mechanism whereby I can still shop for Apps that would otherwise be compatible if not for having been recompiled to the newest version.
 
As a former Windows Mobile user, I was only offered one upgrade and that was with the Compaq IPaq, I went through 5 devices and none of them were offered upgrades to the newest OS.

If your device is still useful to you then keep using it with what it has.
 
I'm fine still using it with what it has. My point is that they should come up with a way to keep all the currently compatible apps available in the app store rather than having them disappear once everyone resubmits an update created with 4.0 .
 
In the same boat

I'm with you...same feeling exactly. I bought my 16GB 1st gen. iPod touch on the first day they were available (which was a day or two before they were supposed to be released :D) anyway, I held off on updating to OS 3 as long as I could. But I eventually had to for the same reasons as you. I was however fortunate to wait long enough to enjoy the price drop to $5. It's not a huge change but it made me happy. Anyway, I am a little upset that I may lose some degree of functionality after OS 4 comes out. It is nice to see that I am not alone with a 1st gen. iPod touch with the 'left behind' feeling. As much as I love Apple and Steve Jobs, I think first generation owners are often the ones left behind at some point in time (this is why I am trying hard to hold off on an iPad until the 2nd gen. is released lol!)
 
It's natural that Apple will have to end support sometime. But old devices can usually be carried far past their lifespan simply by 3rd party support. I hope that Apple will release a minor update to create a level of compatibility with OS 4 applications. Or if they choose not to, they should allow developers to continue developing for the OS 3 environment.
 
Exactly. I'd be satisfied with an option to leave OS3 compatible apps in the app store after the new 4.0 versions come out. I don't expect bu fixes and whatnot for the older apps, but at least leave them available for shopping.
 
Just download as many apps as possible between now and June. >.<
There are still quite a lot of apps that work on OS 2, but I know what you mean.

I'm on a 2nd Gen and I'm a bit miffed about not having multitasking =/
I'm also jailbroken, and because of that I can download plugins that let me multitask, and I can flip through my open apps in a cover-flow interface, and I can have about 3 full apps open without much loss in performance.

Apple's special multitasking APIs mean that much less RAM is taken up and less CPU is used, so I reckon that 2nd Gen devices could handle multitasking. SWINE APPLE.

I'll probably just get a new iPod touch this september :p
 
DraziGuy said:
To those of us who still own perfectly working 1G Touches, are any of you concerned like I am over the looming upgrade to 4.0?

I understand that we can't expect updates to the operating system forever, and that at some point you need to let hardware become obsolete. Whether you think 3 years is too little or too long is a different debate.

My concern is what is going to happen to the App store for those of us unable to upgrade? Today, there are about 185,000 thousand apps available that my device can run. Come June/July, that number is going to plummet to nearly none. I know this from experience, as I had to upgrade to 3.0 last year when it came out, even though I was unable to use nearly all of its improvements. This was due to the fact that as soon as the new OS came out, all of the reputable developers recompiled and resubmitted their apps for the new update, so that they could advertise their new compatibility. This left me out in the cold, and I had to spend $9.99 to keep buying apps.

My worry is that as soon as 4.0 comes out, everyone is going to upgrade their apps to 4.0 mode, and there will be nothing of quality left on the store. To me, $300 for a new Ipod is about a week and a half pay, after taxes, so it really depresses me that my perfectly functioning device is going to cease to be nearly as useful in just a few months. It would be nice if Apple would implement some mechanism whereby when making a purchase, the App store would check your version, and then give you the last version which supported your OS, instead of telling you that they are no longer compatible.

I don't expect developers to keep developing for old OS's forever, but at least give me a mechanism whereby I can still shop for Apps that would otherwise be compatible if not for having been recompiled to the newest version.
Click to expand...
It's a good point you make but I think "cease to be usefull in just a few months" is taking it a bit far. You'll still be able to use the apps you have now (presumably you find your device usefull now). It may limit the range of future applications, but as apposed to the 3.0 upgrade, there will be a lot of people still with 1G touches that who won't be able to upgrade this time. Hopefully enough for there to be some support.
 
Consultant said:
There will still be 185,000 iPhone OS 3 compatible apps
Click to expand...

Not if they do it the same way they did last time. Within a couple of weeks, all the developers had updated to version 3 and every app I tried to download told me I needed to update to the newest version. Unless the store has changed since then, the next time any developer updates their app using the 4.0 sdk, the version 3 compatible version will disappear.
 
@.Andy

Hopefully, but not necessarily. I do get use out of it now, but I also enjoy laying in a hotel room bed and browsing the app store for something new to play with. It's that or hotel rentals, and they're brutally expensive :)
 
I was concerned about the same issue. I have a 2nd generation iPod Touch and I don't want to miss out on the new stuff. As a registered developer, I was able to install a beta of OS 4.0. As expected, it does everything but multitasking. I expect that I will pay a few dollars to upgrade the OS this summer, get a wave of app updates, and continue as before.

Another issue is that I want to support multitasking my apps, but I also want to make them available to the users who choose not to upgrade. Apple should allow multiple versions of a binary to be available. Sometimes you might just prefer the old one. You know, I've been thinking about radically redesigning the interface of one of my apps. So do I make the change, and anger all the people who don't like the change, or create a new product, and require others to re-purchase?
 
DraziGuy said:
@.Andy

Hopefully, but not necessarily. I do get use out of it now, but I also enjoy laying in a hotel room bed and browsing the app store for something new to play with. It's that or hotel rentals, and they're brutally expensive :)
Click to expand...
Yeah I've got a 1G that I love to pieces so I can relate. I found it wonderful even before the app store. But now I'm a big app shopper as well and can spend a lot of time browsing for them. Will be sad to see that slip away somewhat. But I've still a lot of apps to get through and a lot of podcasts and music in the future. My device still has a lot of legs left :).
 
Heh he... Yea I do find mine looks nicer than the newer ones. The iPhone is a fine device, but there a few cosmetics I would personally tweak on it. One is the silver rim. But that's entirely subjective.
 
DraziGuy said:
Not if they do it the same way they did last time. Within a couple of weeks, all the developers had updated to version 3 and every app I tried to download told me I needed to update to the newest version. Unless the store has changed since then, the next time any developer updates their app using the 4.0 sdk, the version 3 compatible version will disappear.
Click to expand...

I am guessing like other updates, it might be that certain features are not updated, but the base OS would be updated.

For example, original iPhone would not have GPS or video recording even though it's part of OS 3 for iPhone 3gs.
 
"The original iPhone and 1st Generation iPod touch are excluded from iPhone OS 4 compatibility, while the 3G and 2nd Generation iPod Touch exclude multitasking abilities. Customers will have to have an iPhone 3GS, 3rd Generation iPod Touch, or iPad to access the full feature set including multitasking. "

Unfortunately, that means it won't support it at all, not just a limited feature set like the 2.0 and 3.0 updates did.
 
Consultant said:
There will still be 185,000 iPhone OS 3 compatible apps
Click to expand...

If we use the OS2 to OS3 transition as an example, then for all intents and purposes, after the majority of developers have moved on from the OS3 SDK to the OS4 SDK and replaced their original OS3-compatible apps with OS4-certified updates, there will be virtually no legitimate distribution channel for any OS3-compatible apps at all.

The number of apps that used to be available is meaningless. That number only has meaning if users still have the ability to acquire those apps. And due to Apple's methods of controlling distribution, the relevant figure, apps available for distribution, will not be 185,000 apps, but something much closer to zero.

Original iPod touch users will not have a choice of 185,000 antique apps at their disposal, but a much smaller number: only those specific apps they had already acquired and added to their iTunes library before the OS4 transition took hold.
 
The App Store incompatibility issue is the only thing that I'm worried about since I have an original iPhone.

I jailbreak mine which means I'm generally content to let it sit between updates, there've been times when I've got the message "you're on 3.0 you need 3.x.x to download this app" which has always prompted me to update, which obviously isn't possible this time.

If Apple doesn't allow OS 3 versions of apps to be downloaded by older users then I'll just use installous to pick the version I want.

I'm not too worried though since I think I've got all my main app needs covered by now, just no more updates :(
 
Any Bluetooth HFP HSP support for ipod touches in OS 4?

Any Bluetooth HFP HSP support for ipod touches in OS 4?

It'd be super to use a Bluetooth MIC for Skype :)
Thanks in advance, and sharing all the details!

:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back