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Christoffee

Contributor
Original poster
Jul 26, 2012
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1,232
UK
I know we're a while away from iOS10, but this is on my mind.

I am not a regular phone upgrade. I had my iPhone 4S for more than 4 years, and by the time I hit iOS9 the phone was all but worthless. I have two old 4Ses about the house and they work fine for Plex and Overcast, but as a daily driver it was terrible.

I now have a 128GB 6S, and it is amazing. I would like to keep it for 4 or 5 years. Is the A9 processor and 2GB RAM now so powerful that I should upgrade without a care? It's almost a desktop class processor, and 2GB RAM is ok too.

I know this is pure speculation, but thoughts appreciated.
 
Lol! You're right, as soon as I posted I thought I it was a silly comment!

But it's getting up there with the new MacBook?
 
In the past (when Apple's software just worked) I upgraded the second a new OS was available.
Now, I'm thinking of upgrading when the OS is mature, in the end of it's cycle.
Ex : El Cap launched last September. For the sake of argument let's say I'm on Yosemite and I will upgrade to El Cap when it hits 10.11.4.

This tactic will apply only for my Retina MBP and iPad Air 2, not for my iPhone because I upgrade my phone every year.
 
Yes it will be fine for iOS 10.
6S is going to be the next 4S in terms of longevity.
 
I know we're a while away from iOS10, but this is on my mind.

I am not a regular phone upgrade. I had my iPhone 4S for more than 4 years, and by the time I hit iOS9 the phone was all but worthless. I have two old 4Ses about the house and they work fine for Plex and Overcast, but as a daily driver it was terrible.

I now have a 128GB 6S, and it is amazing. I would like to keep it for 4 or 5 years. Is the A9 processor and 2GB RAM now so powerful that I should upgrade without a care? It's almost a desktop class processor, and 2GB RAM is ok too.

I know this is pure speculation, but thoughts appreciated.
Remember, you have the latest and greatest. iOS 10 is only truly, 100% designed to work with two devices: Yours and the iPhone 7. Upgrade as long as you can.
 
Apple has pretty much proven time and time again that they refuse to support anything older than the second-oldest gen of iOS devices. Since downgrading to an OS that Apple refuses to allow downgrading to is impossible, I would never want to risk a poor-quality OS update, especially if the newer OS doesn't offer anything worth upgrading to in the first place.
 
Apple has pretty much proven time and time again that they refuse to support anything older than the second-oldest gen of iOS devices. Since downgrading to an OS that Apple refuses to allow downgrading to is impossible, I would never want to risk a poor-quality OS update, especially if the newer OS doesn't offer anything worth upgrading to in the first place.

Remember, you have the latest and greatest. iOS 10 is only truly, 100% designed to work with two devices: Yours and the iPhone 7. Upgrade as long as you can.

I think you guys are probably right. Maybe iOS10 is my limit, maybe I won't update at all.

I just don't trust Apple to truly support my device as it ages.
 
Apple has pretty much proven time and time again that they refuse to support anything older than the second-oldest gen of iOS devices. Since downgrading to an OS that Apple refuses to allow downgrading to is impossible, I would never want to risk a poor-quality OS update, especially if the newer OS doesn't offer anything worth upgrading to in the first place.

Disagree.

The poor showing of the iPhone 4 and 4S on recent iOS releases is more likely due to the weakness in the A4 and A5 processors. It's taken awhile for mobile processors to mature.

From the A6 onwards, iPhone CPUs have gotten to the point where they are no longer a limiting factor in most situations. iPhone 5 runs iOS 9.2.1 very smoothly.
 
I think you guys are probably right. Maybe iOS10 is my limit, maybe I won't update at all.

I just don't trust Apple to truly support my device as it ages.
That's too bad. They are the only company that really supports their devices for that long. If you have iPhone 6S, it should last until at least iOS 11 with good performance.
 
The only problem with never upgrading is the ONE time you need or are forced to restore.

At that point "never upgrading" goes right out the window.

Many people can manage to hang on for years, but eventually there may come a time where a restore is necessary - and thus an upgrade that we don't want happens.

For myself, I will be getting the 7 when it comes out this year so that will be a forced move to iOS 10 no doubt.
 
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Everyone complaining about Apple supporting their old phones with software should go try android, you'll be running back to Apple as soon as a major update hits and you learn that it'll be 4 months till your phone gets its first buggy update and then another couple of months for them to release a bug fix and stability improvement version.
 
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Disagree.

The poor showing of the iPhone 4 and 4S on recent iOS releases is more likely due to the weakness in the A4 and A5 processors. It's taken awhile for mobile processors to mature.

From the A6 onwards, iPhone CPUs have gotten to the point where they are no longer a limiting factor in most situations. iPhone 5 runs iOS 9.2.1 very smoothly.
Couldn't agree more. In fact, the iPhone 5 running iOS 7 vs. the iPhone 5s running iOS 7 with the exact same smoothness exemplified this. I remember seeing comparison videos of these two devices running iOS 7 and it being the first time in which the second-to-newest iPhone ran exactly like the newest one (the only exception being the iPhone 2G vs 3G, but that was because Apple kept the SoC the same in those phones).
 
I do eventually update to the latest, but I wait about half a year until X.2, X.3, etc. It avoids most of the teething issues.

That being said, Apple has set a very clear precedent of not optimizing for older devices. If an update comes out that doesn't offer compelling features, why risk it? Just stay with what works.
 
I do eventually update to the latest, but I wait about half a year until X.2, X.3, etc. It avoids most of the teething issues.

That being said, Apple has set a very clear precedent of not optimizing for older devices. If an update comes out that doesn't offer compelling features, why risk it? Just stay with what works.
The bold isn't really true at all. Sure, the 4S issue has been a problem, but that's only one of the 7 models supported on iOS 9. By and large, Apple does a good job supporting older devices relative to the rest of the market.
 
I just wish Apple would stop supporting older devices with updates like Android. Most of the newest "features" are omitted out of older devices to push new hardware sales anyways. I just want my devices to work as fast as they were on day 1 and not get dragged down by un optimized OS upgrades.
 
I just wish Apple would stop supporting older devices with updates like Android. Most of the newest "features" are omitted out of older devices to push new hardware sales anyways. I just want my devices to work as fast as they were on day 1 and not get dragged down by un optimized OS upgrades.
The easiest solution is increased regression on old devices prior to distribution. The Apple hardware offering is just too good to abandon them by omitting software updates. My colleague just sold his iPhone 4 last week to upgrade to a 5S. To win over people like him, you have to continuously update older devices.

If Apple's customer base was filled with people like us, yeah, stop updating devices. It's not. Like with cars, some people buy devices to keep them for the long haul.
 
I just wish Apple would stop supporting older devices with updates like Android. Most of the newest "features" are omitted out of older devices to push new hardware sales anyways. I just want my devices to work as fast as they were on day 1 and not get dragged down by un optimized OS upgrades.
At best I think it's perhaps closer to some new features, and usually only a few, not really most.
 
if apple don't allow you to use the pencil to scroll the UI on 9.3 then I won't be updating on my ipad pro thats for sure.
 
The bold isn't really true at all. Sure, the 4S issue has been a problem, but that's only one of the 7 models supported on iOS 9. By and large, Apple does a good job supporting older devices relative to the rest of the market.

Support, yes. Optimize, no. In my personal experience I have never had a device speed up with a major OS update. At best it stays steady, at worst it slows everything down, even basic tasks.

I'm well aware of the wide variance in personal experiences regarding this, so arguing it is pointless. Your experience is no doubt different than mine and everyone else's. If I am satisfied with the OS I'm on and don't see a compelling reason to change I won't. The lack of ability to downgrade is reason enough to be cautious.
 
Probably I will download iOS 10 on my 6s, but not iOS 11. I've had 4 iphones to date, usually the next major OS ends up not being too slow, but after that it slows down a lot and you don't get much new features. That being said, I do like that apple provides about 4-5 years of support for most iphones. While you don't get the latest apple software, you are able to download most new 3rd party apps on old devices. Android is very far away from apple in that sense.
 
When something as simple as typing and having letters appear on the screen (which my VIC 20 processor from 1980 had no problem accomplishing) is slowed to a halt on processors that had no issue on iOS6, that tells me Apple intentionally cripples older devices.

I can't say if they will continue this practice in the future since they are getting a lot of flack for it. But I would let others do the beta testing. Since if you upgrade... there's no going back.
 
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