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chuckd83

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2010
177
15
I have an iPad 2 currently on iOS 6.1. I never upgraded to iOS 7, 8, or 9 after experiencing (with another iPad 2) the lagging caused by the new iOS. I really like it except for the lack of Facetime. I am left with the decision to either have a functioning iPad or have Facetime. Is there a way to request from Apple a certificate to use Facetime?
 
I have an iPad 2 currently on iOS 6.1. I never upgraded to iOS 7, 8, or 9 after experiencing (with another iPad 2) the lagging caused by the new iOS. I really like it except for the lack of Facetime. I am left with the decision to either have a functioning iPad or have Facetime. Is there a way to request from Apple a certificate to use Facetime?
Why not get a new iPad?
 
You can get an air 2 for a good price nowadays. You can't hold onto the 2 forever
But his point is that the iPad 2 works just fine for the OP except that Apple has disabled a feature - a feature that worked when the iPad shipped - for no good reason.

This issue sticks in my craw as a former iPad 2 owner who refused to upgrade from iOS 6.
 
The only way to use FaceTime is to upgrade the iPad. I guess you could also jailbreak it. Your other choices are to get a new iPad or use a different app like Skype. Sorry for the bad news....
 
So buy a new one is Apple's solution. Great.

You can't expect your device to go on forever running the latest and greatest software and services. Apple updates all its main apps to take advantage of the latest features in iOS, and they don't waste time maintaining compatilbity with older releases. I think it's the best solution too, it avoids bloat and prevents your past from inhibiting the future.

Buying a new iPad is the best solution. If you upgrade to iOS 9 your iPad will drive you mad because of how slow and laggy everything is. You simply need new hardware because iOS has marched way forward since iOS 6 was released, and it needs more RAM and processing power than your iPad 2 can offer.
 
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To be fair, Apple supports its devices much longer than any Android devices ever get. Go find a 2011 Android tablet and see what features are supported.
[doublepost=1473731801][/doublepost]The school I teach at actually has a set of iPad 2's. To be honest, I'm really impressed how well they run iOS 9.
 
To be fair, Apple supports its devices much longer than any Android devices ever get. Go find a 2011 Android tablet and see what features are supported.
[doublepost=1473731801][/doublepost]The school I teach at actually has a set of iPad 2's. To be honest, I'm really impressed how well they run iOS 9.

It's sort of impressive that it can run iOS 9 given the specs. But I'm no way impressed with the experience. It's pretty terrible. I wouldn't want any kids coming away from school thinking this is what an iPad experience is.
 
It's sort of impressive that it can run iOS 9 given the specs. But I'm no way impressed with the experience. It's pretty terrible. I wouldn't want any kids coming away from school thinking this is what an iPad experience is.

I'm a high school teacher. Most of the kids actually have their own devices that are much more current than the iPad 2, so don't worry about it.

But really, having played around on a few of the units myself, the only thing that was really jarring to me is how awful a non-Retina display looks. It functioned well enough loading apps and switching between them. Obviously not the best but usable.
 
You should have upgraded to ios7 and your FaceTime would have been fixed.

Too late now of course, but that was the answer.

I FaceTime with my sister every week just fine. (7.1.2)

The answer to what is the best iOS of the iPad 2 isn't v6 like some have posted.
 
I'm a high school teacher. Most of the kids actually have their own devices that are much more current than the iPad 2, so don't worry about it.

But really, having played around on a few of the units myself, the only thing that was really jarring to me is how awful a non-Retina display looks. It functioned well enough loading apps and switching between them. Obviously not the best but usable.

Yeah some things work OK, some apps are quite usable.

I was installing a bunch of apps on an iPad 2 yesterday. Navigating the app store is very slow, search is also horribly laggy (and sometimes doesn't work at all), and once you start downloading a few apps the iPad 2 almost grinds to a halt. I would say it takes about 200x longer to install 12 apps onto the iPad 2 versus an iPad Pro and even iPad Air 1. I have no idea why it's so slow at doing this, it seems to hang for many minutes at "Loading" before any real progress happens.

Safari is also terrible to use - made worse by the lack of support for content blockers so you get all the bloated stuff on sites eating up the already very limited resources available on an iPad 2. I'd guess you might lock down access to things like Safari in the classroom though, so it's not really a problem for you?

I agree, I find that non-retina display depressing to look at. It looks so bad these days. I also have some 27" non-retina monitors around here and I hate using them for similar reasons. There is no real good path to using 4k/5k monitors with the hardware I have kicking around here atm. So I try to keep myself in front of retina laptop displays as much as possible, and avoid connecting the big monitors most of the time.
 
You can't expect your device to go on forever running the latest and greatest software and services. Apple updates all its main apps to take advantage of the latest features in iOS, and they don't waste time maintaining compatilbity with older releases. I think it's the best solution too, it avoids bloat and prevents your past from inhibiting the future.

Buying a new iPad is the best solution. If you upgrade to iOS 9 your iPad will drive you mad because of how slow and laggy everything is. You simply need new hardware because iOS has marched way forward since iOS 6 was released, and it needs more RAM and processing power than your iPad 2 can offer.

Buying a new iPad is not the best solution because I don't have the money. I don't expect my device to work forever, but it does right now. The only reason Facetime does not work is because it lacks a certificate from Apple.
 
Buying a new iPad is not the best solution because I don't have the money. I don't expect my device to work forever, but it does right now. The only reason Facetime does not work is because it lacks a certificate from Apple.
Sell it and put the money toward a new iPad.
 
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