Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Not the same CPU though.

Either way, it's ok if they drop support for old devices like the 6s.

I'd rather they didn't. Trying to get as long as possible out of my SE 1. iPhone 12 Mini is too big for me.

And environmentally, even Apple said it themselves. The longer they support a device the better it is for the environment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Homme
I don't doubt it .. but 15.x or 16.x may include require hardware features that are required for optimum performance.

How would you feel about it if the next update "worked", but all that smoothness was gone because the GPU is not quite up to par. In that case it would be better to call it a day at the best running OS rather than the latest.

Year after year I've said that if Apple allowed downgrades this would be fine. I'd rather get security updates for another year and deal with slower performance, but for people who'd rather smoother performance, downgrades would allow for this as well.
 
Stupid cowards. Drop support to fully functional working perfectly devices is nothing short than greedy pitiful treachery
Meh, better to drop support now than have iOS 15 cripple older devices.

I find iOS 13 and 14 are already noticeably heavier on memory compared to iOS 12. That's resulted in several crashes/respring when I browse certain media or JavaScript heavy sites on 2GB RAM devices.

Also, the Apple A9 is around Core 2 Duo Wolfdale level performance, a CPU that was released back in 2008.
 
Last edited:
While old iPhones running old versions of iOS and using old apps (except financial apps and eBay app) will work forever - Web browsers - all of them - will become more & more crippled as the years go by until they'll only work on a select few websites.

Based on how hellish iOS 9.3.5 is to use on the internet today, my guess is the 6S will experience "internet hell" in about 3-4 years from now running iOS 14.
Honestly, I found iOS 8 and 9 quite hellish to use on an iPad 3 even back in the day. I could type an entire paragraph before the display would catch up.

Mind, even back then iOS 9 wasn't compatible with a lot of websites. I still went to my laptop/desktop frequently for browsing. iOS 10 is when a bunch of stuff started to work properly.
 
I'd rather they didn't. Trying to get as long as possible out of my SE 1. iPhone 12 Mini is too big for me.

And environmentally, even Apple said it themselves. The longer they support a device the better it is for the environment.
Support does not necessarily mean being able to install an up-to-date OS's though.

Security updates and new features can be released on Older OS's for example 12.4.9 was only released a couple weeks ago.
 
Meh, better to drop support now than have iOS 15 cripple older devices.

I find iOS 13 and 14 are already noticeably heavier on memory compared to iOS 12. That's resulted in several crashes/respring when I browse certain media or JavaScript heavy sites on 2GB RAM devices.

Also, the Apple A9 is around Core 2 Duo Wolfdale level performance, a CPU that was released back in 2008.
I have not had a single crash running iOS 14 on my iPhone 6S+. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well iOS 14.2 runs on the phone. It is smooth and very responsive. And I have been visiting a lot of websites, those with embedded videos as well. I have encountered a bug along the way, which is not related to the phone. iOS 14 runs better then iOS 12 and iOS 13 did on my iPhone 6S+.
 
Last edited:
Support does not necessarily mean being able to install an up-to-date OS's though.

Security updates and new features can be released on Older OS's for example 12.4.9 was only released a couple weeks ago.

Apple doesn't have an offical policy of security updates for older devices. The 12.x rolling releases has been the first case of this, and only patches some security flaws.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Homme
Apple doesn't have an offical policy of security updates for older devices. The 12.x rolling releases has been the first case of this, and only patches some security flaws.

There may be no official policy. But even without one they do make it a habit of keeping older devices reasonably relevant.

I certainly didn't expect my 5S to see any kind of update in it's twilight years yet this is the FIFTH update of 2020
 
What is their official policy on giving any updates 1 month after selling a new phone, did they ever say your phone will get this many updates?
There is no official number minimum number of updates, only a supposed maximum. Which IOS 12 on the 5s broke.

As far as the updates, as in other things in life, they are strictly voluntary and an Apple consumer can choose to install all of them; update weekly, monthly, yearly etc.
 
There may be no official policy. But even without one they do make it a habit of keeping older devices reasonably relevant.

I certainly didn't expect my 5S to see any kind of update in it's twilight years yet this is the FIFTH update of 2020
Hard to say that it's really a habit that applies in general just yet given that this isn't something that has been done much if at all until fairly recently. That said, it's good that they are now doing that at least to some degree.
 
Hard to say that it's really a habit that applies in general just yet given that this isn't something that has been done much if at all until fairly recently. That said, it's good that they are now doing that at least to some degree.

I find that Apple does provide updates for major security vulnerabilities and issues. My iPad 4th gen received an update just last year to fix a GPS bug and they also provided an update for older devices for the Heartbleed issue.
 
I find that Apple does provide updates for major security vulnerabilities and issues. My iPad 4th gen received an update just last year to fix a GPS bug and they also provided an update for older devices for the Heartbleed issue.
It's been happening with some regularity over the past couple of years or so, not so much before that.
 
It's been happening with some regularity over the past couple of years or so, not so much before that.

Heartbleed was 2014. It seems to me the really bad bugs, they patch but they don't bother with the smaller bugs.
 
It's nice that Apple is still releasing security updates for iOS 12, which is the last OS supported on the previous cohort of devices.

I wonder whether they are aiming for the even versions (12, 14) to be "LTS" releases that keep older devices secure.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.