One more thing - iOS 18 core/light

[Reverend Benny]

Sunday daydreaming....recovering..

What if Tim would announce something tomorrow along the lines of "one last thing - for all of you who love your old devices".

"Alongside iOS 18 and iOS 18 AI we are releasing iOS 18 core/light/basic version for all of you who owns an iPhone 6S and above"
This gives you an updated OS with all the security features that we can make available for the old devices.
We have worked hard to optimize the experience and all devices will perform great but with added iOS 18 core functions.
This means we can focus on iOS 18 alone and not having to provide updates for older OS versions and all users can relax knowing they have an updated OS"

Never going to happen, its to much money at stake, but lets say they add the feature with one time off fee of $40 or similar to cover the cost of the development and continued support.
Of course the above would apply to iPad from iPad air 2 and above.

 

[jdavid_rp]

But old iOS versions also get security updates already… Also I’m sure something like this would resurface the iOS 9 issue where iPhone 4S were left in such bad performance state.

One thing I would think it could be nice would be to make newest APIs available to older devices, so apps would be able to run in older devices. But anyways I think there are not so many people using devices that old that can’t use the most common apps.

 

[Reverend Benny]

But old iOS versions also get security updates already… Also I’m sure something like this would resurface the iOS 9 issue where iPhone 4S were left in such bad performance state.

One thing I would think it could be nice would be to make newest APIs available to older devices, so apps would be able to run in older devices. But anyways I think there are not so many people using devices that old that can’t use the most common apps.

Depends on what version you are on and Apple hasn't published any info on how long they will support older OS with security updates. Sometimes they patch their phones and sometimes not, its a bit of a guessing game.

Looking at the hardware I don't think there would be an issue but on the other hand and it might make things easier for developers to test SW knowing that they only need to test things on one OS. Instead of 3 or maybe 4 versions. (12, 15, 16 and soon 18. Same goes for patches, they only need to patch one version instead of three (15, 16, 18).

 

[Pandyone]

Depends on what version you are on and Apple hasn't published any info on how long they will support older OS with security updates. Sometimes they patch their phones and sometimes not, its a bit of a guessing game.

Security patches are often released when one or multiple vulnerabilities is found. How would they know that in beforehand?
Apple released security patches for iPhone 6s (a 9 year old device) this summer which was really good.

 

[jdavid_rp]

might make things easier for developers to test SW knowing that they only need to test things on one OS

It’s all an hypothetical scenario, but if they’re releasing iOS 18 and iOS 18 “Light” those would be still two different OS because they have differences between them.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Security patches are often released when one or multiple vulnerabilities is found. How would they know that in beforehand?
Apple released security patches for iPhone 6s (a 9 year old device) this summer which was really good.

Still, there is not official word from Apple what OS they are supporting with security patches or bugfixes.
They do release some fixes even for older OS (such as iOS 12) but they are far less than for newer OS.
Same goes for iOS 15 and 16 compared to 17.

 

[Reverend Benny]

It’s all an hypothetical scenario, but if they’re releasing iOS 18 and iOS 18 “Light” those would be still two different OS because they have differences between them.

Absolutely, it just makes sense in my head that support one version is easier than supporting 3 versions and also having to plan and beta test 3 versions.
The "light" version is just an idea where they aren't introducing any new functionality but keeping the existing ones.

 

[HouseLannister]

Still, there is not official word from Apple what OS they are supporting with security patches or bugfixes.

Yes there is. They often go beyond their official word, but their official word is 5 years.

Apple will provide a minimum of five years of iPhone security updates

Google and Samsung guarantee seven years of updates.

www.theverge.com

 

[winxmac]

iOS 18 is already available in two variants, one for iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max and newer [devices supporting Apple Intelligence on-device] and the other, iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max and older [devices supporting Apple Intelligence via remote server]

Even though Apple said iOS 12 has improved the performance of the oldest supported devices, I wouldn't want iPhone 5s and iPhone 6/6 Plus to be in the same situation as iPhone 4s and iPod touch 5 running iOS 9

iPhone 6s/6s Plus and iPhone 7/7 Plus already have some performance slowdowns on iOS 15

iPhone 8/8 Plus and iPhone X already have some performance slowdowns on iOS 16