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No iOS 5 for iPhone 3GS?

UK-MacAddict said:
This is not surprising at all. By the time iOS 5 is released we will have a new iPhone and the iPhone 4 will drop down the product line to be the cheaper option as the 3GS is now. As a result Apple wont even be selling the 3GS later this year.

As the post above me states other manufacturers dont even bother supporting older phone models once new software releases become available. Apple has given full support to the 3GS for nearly 2 years now.
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iPhone 1 got 3 years of support. (1.x through 3.x)
iPhone 3G got 3 years of support. (2.x through 4.x)

Stopping 3GS at 4.x would only be 2 years of support, which is inconsistent with past practices.
 
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Hellhammer said:
Apple's A4 is based on Cortex-A8... A few hundred MHz difference isn't the deal-breaker here. Retina display and gyroscope have nothing to do with 3GS' capability, it could still run iOS 5 with those features disabled unless Apple prohibited it. The minor difference in CPU and the extra RAM are the only differences that affect the performance.
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You are not counting the design changes that iOS5 may bring. Which could take advantage of the retina display in a new way.
 
I just realised that the tweet reads that the 3Gs will not be able to run iOS 5.x, this changes things a little bit as it could imply that it will run iOS 5, but not necessarily all maintenance updates thereafter.

This would make it the same as the 3G with iOS 4, for which support was dropped after 4.3.

Thoughts?
 
And you guys give Android a hard time over fragmentation. A phone that's still being sold will not support the next OS is really messed up. Way to go Apple.
 
Hellhammer said:
The fact that Apple is still selling the iPhone 3GS makes this pretty ridiculous. At least 3G supported some versions of iOS 4, although it didn't get much of the new features and made it laggy as hell. Buy a brand new phone today and you won't be able to get the newest OS in few months. Well, I guess it is Apple's way to make money.
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Apple and their partners still sold the iPhone 3G until a few months ago and now that phone is also no longer supported and you cannot even get the latest iOS 4 updates for it.

It won't surprise me at all when iOS 5 will only run on the iPhone 4 and later models. It also won't surprise me when the AppStore rules will be changed so that all new(!) apps must have full retina display support.

But don't worry - the iPhone 4 won't have much life left in it either. It's a safe bet that the next iPhone models will have dual core CPUs (because everybody else in the industry is already using them), and it's only a question of time when a dual core CPU will be required to run new versions of iOS. Maybe that will already happen with the first point update of iOS 5.

After that, LTE capability could be a must-have hardware feature to phase out iPhone models that don't have it. Or maybey the just "draw the line somewhere" else. Apple won't run out of shallow excuses to drop the support for older hardware.
 
I don't think this is bad. The 3G and 3GS are some what outdated models. To abandon them is fine. However, I don't like how they're refering to the iPhone 4 as being old. I'm buying one tomorrow, after it's been out for about a year. It is still the latest in technology. I hope it continues to get all the major updates.
 
Hellhammer said:
Apple's A4 is based on Cortex-A8... A few hundred MHz difference isn't the deal-breaker here. Retina display and gyroscope have nothing to do with 3GS' capability, it could still run iOS 5 with those features disabled unless Apple prohibited it. The minor difference in CPU and the extra RAM are the only differences that affect the performance.
Click to expand...

Yes true, but the previous poster was implying they are the same or in his words identical when in fact they are not. A few hundred MHz difference just might be the deal breaker when Apple decides if the 3GS will support iOS 5 or not.
 
Skika said:
You are not counting the design changes that iOS5 may bring. Which could take advantage of the retina display in a new way.
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Possible, but supporting different resolutions is a given since the ipad and iphone 4 do not share resolutions.
 
mack pro said:
And you guys give Android a hard time over fragmentation. A phone that's still being sold will not support the next OS is really messed up. Way to go Apple.
Click to expand...

Currently two iPhones are sold by Apple.

How many Android devices are there by how many different manufacturers?

Please ... :rolleyes:
 
So let's assemble all facts here :

The original iPhone and the iPhone 3G both got 3 releases of iOS.
The iPhone 3GS has the same amount of RAM as the iPad 1
The iPhone 3GS has a very similar SoC as the iPhone 4.
The iPhone 4/5 will have a different resolution than iPad 1/2 anyhow.

Yet this is telling us that the iPhone 3GS is only going to get 2 releases of iOS, with no details as to what would be blocking the latest iOS from working on it.

Doesn't. Make. Sense.
 
More importantly, what will iOS 5 bring? iOS 4 was multitasking, I don't see what iOS 5 will bring. Unless there is some great feature that will be much more hardware intensive, I think cutting out the iPhone 3GS would be fairly moot as they are still selling it right now and probably will right up to the release of iPhone 5 + iOS 5. Also needing to be considered is the iPod Touch 4G which has only 256mb ram, just like the 3GS. Real difference being the screen and A processor.

Other than if they bring on some new feature that is required OS wide, it would just be kicking out a lot of people with phones that can be what most people do with their smartphones quite well.
 
There is a simple reason and hardly anyone has touched on it.

The 3GS is more than capable of running what ip4 can do but it's all about the $$$$$

They need to push more newer phones - make it enticing for those to upgrade because let's face it cellphones are getting close to where computers are

U don't need to upgrade ever year or two
 
If 3GS can't run iOS 5

It means that Apple will have to continue supporting (feature and bug fix releases) iOS 4 for at least two more years. Just don't get confused when you want to update your phone next time which OS you need to use.
 
decimortis said:
With my 3GS getting kicked in the balls by iOS 4.death, I wouldn't consider installing iOS 5 even if I could.

D.
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^ This.

Won't be buying an iPhone 5 either; haven't got much time for companies who issue software updates (4.3) that hamper current hardware (battery drain) in order to force the user into an upgrade.
 
It is clear that the decision is a strategic one. They do NOT want to bother to invest more money into testing and development of iOS on older devices.

It is also clear that the ORIGINAL iPhone could run iOS 4.0 as easily as it’s the case on the iPhone 3G. Especially judging the latest firmware upgrades really sped things up.

Wonder what they will do to the iPad classic as it has only 256 MB of RAM, though? :rolleyes:
 
Capt Underpants said:
Laziness and planned obsolescence on Apple's part. It's going to piss a lot of people off.
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Laziness? Unlike stupid MS who is STILL stuck supporting WinXP, Apple is expecting people to at least know that they can't expect the world when buying a sub-$50 smartphone. When the new phone and OS comes out, people can buy the current iPhone4, which will then drop in price and replace the 3GS on the low end. If that's too much to ask, then go buy a Razr or Jitterbug, because clearly Apple's not the company for you. They should continue to focus ahead, not kowtow to a bunch of cheap stragglers.
 
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