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hch720

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 7, 2022
253
688
How long can I stay on iPadOS 18 until I’m forced to upgrade? When will all my apps and games stop working? iPad Pro M4
 
Depends on specific apps, but you have several years at least. I’m typing from my iPad Air 5 running iPadOS 15. Compatibility is still good.

I have been running original versions of iOS since 2011. I reckon you have at least three years of pure comfort. Four-five years and you might have to seek some workarounds and you might struggle somewhere. Six major versions behind and you would probably encounter significant compatibility issues.

I have a 9.7-inch iPad Pro running iOS 12. That one is mostly incompatible today, with many websites failing to load and many apps either failing with a pop-up to update or outright loading a blank page.

I reckon you have 3-4 years of no issues at all, however, like I said. The only issue you may have before then is that of installing newly released apps. I recall that one of my first incompatibility issues with my Air 5 was the Apple-released app Freeform, launched in December 2022 and requiring the then-latest iPadOS 16.2. My Air 5 was a little over three months old (purchased August 2022), and it was running (and still runs) iPadOS 15.6. Apart from that, all is well.
 
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