New Features in iOS 6 Receive Spotty Support from Older Devices

[throys]

Just join the apple wagon from iPhone 4 and have been reading researching etc since then and I must say that apple does support thier devices more than any companies out there. We found one of our old iPod the other day and we could put iOS 5 on it which I think what apple does best and support thier devices to certain extent as a company. They are in a business to make profit and also customer satisfaction. Any device after two years which still gets any software updates no matter if it's big or small should be appreciated as a software update it's not compulsory when purchase only if a company decides to.
For some users they will be angry but trust me if you have a 1 year android device your lucky to get a update for it with ICS or you will get it after they release there new one.
I will only get a iPhone 5 it's a 4inch device or I will keep my iPhone 4S with iOS. My 0.2 cents.

 

[kdarling]

Re: arguments that older phones can't handle it...

- Automobile speed navigation doesn't require that much processing power. A lot of us were using a TomTom navigation app on our Windows Mobile phones almost a decade ago.

- Voice controlled navigation doesn't require anything as fancy as Siri AI (which is done off-phone anyway). It only needs to be told to where, what or whom.

 

[ericrwalker]

- Automobile speed navigation doesn't require that much processing power. A lot of us were using a TomTom navigation app on our Windows Mobile phones almost a decade ago.

Funny you mention that, I just came across my 6 Tomtom disc that it took to install it on my window mobile palm Treo with the bluetooth GPS receiver I had along with it.

 

[jlnr]

About the iPad…

Unfortunately the device was almost a year old when you bought it. It was first revealed in March of that year. To stay ahead of the game they really had to continue on. There are just so much hardware missing from this one that it it would be feature poor to continue to support it.

Since iOS6 is a grab-bag of random features already - why not give the iPad security fixes, FB support and multiple photo streams? Or did you mean "ahead of the game" in financial terms? Then let me pay for parts of this upgrade.

Jailbreaking is getting more interesting every single day.

 

[ncaissie]

The turn by turn requires the A5's dual processor and additional graphics power to provide the experience Apple wanted, including not killing your phone in an hour if you forget to it plugged in. My At&t turn by turn will do just that..

That’s Bull. I purchased a Navigation application that does turn by turn with my 3GS and ipad 2 just fine.

 

[26139]

Read what he said again

That’s Bull. I purchased a Navigation application that does turn by turn with my 3GS and ipad 2 just fine.

He said that hardware was required for Apple to give the experience it WANTED, not that it was required to work.

But man, you have a three-year-old phone. How long do you expect to have every one of the latest software updates?

 

[I WAS the one]

Why iPhone 4 is not capable of almost any feature and the iPad 2 (same structure based) is in fact capable of all of them? Fishy. I bet they don't want to hurt iPhone 4s sales.

 

[26139]

Yeah...

Why iPhone 4 is not capable of almost any feature and the iPad 2 (same structure based) is in fact capable of all of them? Fishy. I bet they don't want to hurt iPhone 4s sales.

Yes...and?

 

[dshearn]

Well, it seems we now have to live with being told what hardware you have. Its a joke really, especially when lots of people are on a 2 year contract every time they want the newest iphone. Iphone 4 to 4s, a slightly faster processor, so how come facetime over 3g isnt available on the 4? Siri? Well, we all know that it works on a JB phone, so thats not an excuse. Nope, this is totally Apples new way to sell hardware and lets face it, now they don't even feel the need to give the customer a real update (4s, wasn't much of an update really, most 4 owners didn't feel it was a big enough to force an upgrade). Apple are playing a dangerous game, one which make them the next "bad guy" or make people jailbreak.

Hold up there Cap


so what your saying is I REALLY want these new things on the NEW iphone.......and then follow it up saying not enough has changed from the OLD iphone to the NEW iphone.....


Make your mind up.....

Either you WANT this stuff on the new phone....or you dont.


Most of that stuff looks like its intergraded in to siri.... Siri was built around a duel core system.

 

[416049]

Well i guess this had to happen sometime, although i don't understand some of the features like siri and facetime and the hearing aids... the *** why can't the iphone 4 use the same one... there wasn't that much of a difference between them.

 

[tbrinkma]

3-4 ? Try 2 :

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

API level 8 contains both 2.3.3+ and 2.2 which cover 85% combined of Android users.

No need to support different versions, just target a damn API level. It's there in the documentation! Why won't people bother to read it before complaining ?

Because, despite your claims that it's easy/simple/baked-in/whatever, multiple *experienced* developers have *very publicly* explained that doing that doesn't work like it's *supposed* to. Going back to Temple Run as the example, 'picking the API level' has resulted in successfully supporting 707 of roughly 4000 Android phones & tablets.

If it's supposed to be so dang simple, why doesn't it *work*?

 

[KnightWRX]

Because, despite your claims that it's easy/simple/baked-in/whatever, multiple *experienced* developers have *very publicly* explained that doing that doesn't work like it's *supposed* to. Going back to Temple Run as the example, 'picking the API level' has resulted in successfully supporting 707 of roughly 4000 Android phones & tablets.

If it's supposed to be so dang simple, why doesn't it *work*?

It works. What makes you think Temple run didn't pick its API level to aim at 707 devices ? There are API levels that are more restrictive than others (the higher you go, the less devices are supported, since newer OSes are required).

Not to mention API levels are 1 aspect of it. There's also screen size/densities. There's another dashboard with simple instructions for that :

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html

Supporting 2 combos (normal/hdpi and normal/mdpi) gives you 75% of devices.

No need to support tons of different screens/resolutions, just follow the charts. There's profiles configured in the phone. If your app is normal/hdpi, it'll work on devices that are, regardless of their actual pixel count/size (as long as they fit in the general guidelines for normal/hdpi).

 

[tbrinkma]

No need to support different versions, just target a damn API level.

...API levels are 1 aspect of it. There's also...

Ok, so all you have to do is pick an API level, but that's not all you have to do? This whole time you've been saying that all you have to do is pick an API level. You've finally acknowledged that it's *not* as simple as you've been claiming, and that platform fragmentation *is* a real concern for Android developers. (Which is what those Android developers have been saying all along.)

Thank you.

----------

API level 8 contains both 2.3.3+ and 2.2 which cover 85% combined of Android users.

Supporting 2 combos (normal/hdpi and normal/mdpi) gives you 75% of devices.

So, between using a 3+ year-old API, and supporting 2 screen 'types', you get an application that *in theory* supports as much as 64% (75% * 85%) of Android devices, assuming there's no device-specific gotchas (of which there have been many documented examples, including devices which improperly report *hardware support* for certain features).

Good to know it's so 'simple' to support the entire range of Android devices.

----------

you know that your post is showing some rather ignorate things about android. You have to jump threw a several extra hoops if you want allow only list and not use the API level.

More common thing is you list what hardware is required and let the market handle the rest. That hardware list is not hard get as chances all it it would require some type of permission set up in the manifest file and you just set it up in there. It is really easy to do.

No, my post is showing a familiarity with the differences between how things work *in theory* versus how they work *in practice*. Temple Run shows no sign of trying to pick specific, limited, subsets of hardware to support (beyond the basics of 'does it have enough power?'. Despite this, the developer has reported that better than 99% of it's Android support requests amount to "Why doesn't this run on my Android device?" They don't seem to have a similar issue on iOS (despite KnightWRX's attempts to equivocate the levels of fragmentation between the two platforms).

Android's fragmentation problem is neither imaginary, nor as simple to resolve as some here would claim.

 

[coolbreeze]

Why all the whining? I did not purchase my iPhone 4 with the intent on being able to use Siri, turn-by-turn navigation, FaceTime over 3G, etc. Those things would be a bonus, but I certainly did not expect them.

One point I haven't seen in this forum is that Apple offers updates for FREE. If they charged for them, you would probably get turn-by-turn navigation and FaceTime over 3G.

Thus, you buy new hardware, which supports new software (and hardware) development. They are in business to make money. If you think otherwise, you are sadly mistaken.

Let's see. Mountain Lion is $19.99.

I'll gladly toss $9.99 Apple's way for all iOS 6 features to work on my iPhone 4.

But the only option is to purchase completely new hardware. I don't have to purchase a new MBP for Mountain Lion.

Greed is all this is about.

 

[kdarling]

Why all the whining? I did not purchase my iPhone 4 with the intent on being able to use Siri, turn-by-turn navigation, FaceTime over 3G, etc. Those things would be a bonus, but I certainly did not expect them.

True, anything you get after you buy a device is gravy. For example, an old beat up original Droid sitting in my lab recently automatically updated itself to the latest Google Maps and Street View. Not expected, but nice to get "for free".

That brings up an interesting observation:

Two year old iPhone owners might get the latest numerical version of iOS, but not necessarily the latest Apple apps that go with it.

Two year old Android owners might not get the latest numerical version of Android, but they do usually get the latest Google apps which are more independent of OS version.

One point I haven't seen in this forum is that Apple offers updates for FREE. If they charged for them, you would probably get turn-by-turn navigation and FaceTime over 3G.

Nothing is free. Apple has stated that part of the revenue from each iOS device is laid aside for software updates via subscription accounting.

 

[blackcrayon]

Let's see. Mountain Lion is $19.99.

I'll gladly toss $9.99 Apple's way for all iOS 6 features to work on my iPhone 4.

But the only option is to purchase completely new hardware. I don't have to purchase a new MBP for Mountain Lion.

Greed is all this is about.

Or a combination of greed and practicality. I'd think full greed would keep any update at all from the iPhone 4 or 3GS. After all, it already got one major OS upgrade, 2 for the 3GS. Why even offer it another? Let greed force more purchases!

 

[NedBookPro]

There is absolutely no logic in why some of these features aren't going to be included in iphone 4.

It's starting to get beyond the ridiculous...
If I bought a iphone 5, and handed down my iphone 4 to my wife... we can't use facetime over 3g?????

No turn by turn? TomTom does it on iphone 4. WTF????

I know you can jailbreak, but it's not my preferred way.
It's getting to a point where you feel like jumping off the apple phone wagon.

I am a very loyal apple customer, but HTC and Samsung are looking more and more attractive as time goes by.

I've love to be able to have a discussion with Tim Cook on this one.

So Tim, if you happen to read this... drop me an email.

 

[blackcrayon]

There is absolutely no logic in why some of these features aren't going to be included in iphone 4.

It's starting to get beyond the ridiculous...
If I bought a iphone 5, and handed down my iphone 4 to my wife... we can't use facetime over 3g?????

No turn by turn? TomTom does it on iphone 4. WTF????

I know you can jailbreak, but it's not my preferred way.

Jailbreak? You could just, you know, download any number of GPS apps in the store, some of them free. I can't imagine many iPhone 4 users that wanted a turn by turn app were just waiting for the uncertain day Apple would include one in the OS.

It certainly would be nice if Apple added the features into the iPhone 4, assuming they would run well. But this one is really not a big deal. It would be different if Apple turned off precise location services on anything except the 4S or something.

 

[dukebound85]

True, anything you get after you buy a device is gravy. For example, an old beat up original Droid sitting in my lab recently automatically updated itself to the latest Google Maps and Street View. Not expected, but nice to get "for free".

That brings up an interesting observation:

Two year old iPhone owners might get the latest numerical version of iOS, but not necessarily the latest Apple apps that go with it.

Two year old Android owners might not get the latest numerical version of Android, but they do usually get the latest Google apps which are more independent of OS version.

Nothing is free. Apple has stated that part of the revenue from each iOS device is laid aside for software updates via subscription accounting.

so if apple were to adopt this same philosophy with their computer line, that would be fine? partial os upgrades? its a paradigm shift from what the standard mo has been

 

[NedBookPro]

Apple AU site says this on the footnote:

http://www.apple.com/au/ios/ios6/#facetime

4. FaceTime over a cellular network requires iPhone 4S or iPad (3rd generation) with cellular data capability. Carrier data charges may apply. FaceTime is not available in all countries.



It would appear that they changed it.

----------

Jailbreak? You could just, you know, download any number of GPS apps in the store, some of them free. I can't imagine many iPhone 4 users that wanted a turn by turn app were just waiting for the uncertain day Apple would include one in the OS.

It certainly would be nice if Apple added the features into the iPhone 4, assuming they would run well. But this one is really not a big deal. It would be different if Apple turned off precise location services on anything except the 4S or something.

I realise this, and I have TomTom navigation app already which is great.

The point here is something like Facetime. Why they would enable it for 4S and not 4 is beyond me (apart from the obvious selling point). There's no logical or technical reason for it - and that's what gets my goat, and no doubt will for millions of iphone 4 users around the world.

I do plan to get a 5 when my contract runs out this year, but my 4 will go to my wife who currently has a 3GS. At the moment we can't use facetime, and we STILL WONT BE ABLE TO USE FACETIME. That's the outrage.

Common Tim - explain to us all.

 

[blackcrayon]

I realise this, and I have TomTom navigation app already which is great.

The point here is something like Facetime. Why they would enable it for 4S and not 4 is beyond me (apart from the obvious selling point). There's no logical or technical reason for it - and that's what gets my goat, and no doubt will for millions of iphone 4 users around the world.

Common Tim - explain to us all.

For this one I actually thought there might be a technical reason. I would imagine the A5 could handle tighter compression at the same bandwidth than the A4, considering it has that additional CPU core and far more powerful GPU and all. We've seen examples of this numerous times in the past. When iChat was first introduced, you could only host the multiple user chats if you had a certain level of PowerPC (G5 and above if memory serves).

That might not be the case here, but it's at least a plausible explanation that I'm sure someone will experiment with once iOS 6 ships. Perhaps AT&T said "hell no, 400Kb/sec is too much" but using the A5 Apple was able to get it down to 300Kb/sec for the same quality... Who knows.

 

[NedBookPro]

He said that hardware was required for Apple to give the experience it WANTED, not that it was required to work.

But man, you have a three-year-old phone. How long do you expect to have every one of the latest software updates?

Dude... people are annoyed because 3rd party apps work, but apple decides to not include it's native apps that would clearly be handled by the hardware.

This is especially true for iphone 4 users - yes - like myself and millions of others around the world.

I'll repeat - I WILL buy (upgrade to) a new iphone (5) I'll be out of my 2 year contract, and it's the obvious thing to do.
Apple will get their money, but at least give functionality to hardware that can *honestly* handle it.

 

[Mr.damien]

"Android is fragmented. But iOS isn't." Where's the sandbox so I can put my head in there with all the other people claiming this ?

Android fanboys...

Stupid enough to compare API fragmentation with some end user features disabled...

----------

Dude... people are annoyed because 3rd party apps work, but apple decides to not include it's native apps that would clearly be handled by the hardware.

This is especially true for iphone 4 users - yes - like myself and millions of others around the world.

I'll repeat - I WILL buy (upgrade to) a new iphone (5) I'll be out of my 2 year contract, and it's the obvious thing to do.
Apple will get their money, but at least give functionality to hardware that can *honestly* handle it.

The funny part with all this crap is whatever Apple could have done for the GPS for example, people would complain anyway:

1. Apple gives the GPS to anyone: *******g Apple, they killed all competitions by giving for free a GPS for all. Poor devs that were living with GPS software will now die in the street.

2. Apple restrict the GPS to latest model: *******g Apple, they rip their customers by restricting the software that could run on my device despite I have it from many years and already bought a GPS.

...

 

[twoodcc]

i'm not surprised by this, but why not give the original iPad a little love?

 

[cleanup]

And Apple's money-grubbing continues!

There was no reason that Siri couldn't work on the iPhone 4, since it was all done by Apple's servers anyways, and there's no reason turn-by-turn and FaceTime over 3G won't work on the 4 now.

All of these "features" are really just mechanisms to sell new iPhone models; actually adding functionality is far from Apple's first priority. It's just a means to an end.