Will iOS 11 make an iPad 4 and 1st Gen Mini worthless?

[I Need a Drink]

My father just bought a Pro 10.5 yesterday from the Best Buy deal. He had an iPad 4. My mother had a Mini 1st Gen and she is going to take the 4 from my father. My question is, are the the Mini 1 and the iPad 4 going to be worthless when iOS 11 comes out due to most apps becoming 64 bit? Will apps be backwards compatible since these two devices can't upgrade to iOS11 or will these two iPads simply become so obsolete as to be useless?

I was thinking about taking the Mini to use primarily for reading books as it is easier to handle than my Air 2 for that function. I currently have 3 Macs an Air 2 and an iPhone 7, all of which will be upgraded to iOS 11 and High Sierra. If I add the Mini to my account will it screw up things like iMessages in the Cloud because it is not capable of being upgraded to 11 or will that work on my other devices and just work as it currently does on the Mini?

 

[Shirasaki]

Quite the contrary:
After iOS 11, they are perfect machines for retro game and old applications.
Also, since iPad 4 and mini 1 cannot be upgraded to iOS 11 anyway, 64-bit only is not much of an issue. But I can only guess Apple will retain their 32-bit package even after iOS 11 is rolled out.

 

[BornAgainMac]

Anyone that had an iPad from over 5 years ago probably doesn't realize how many 32-bit apps they use that have no 64-bit equivalent. I think the worth of the iPad 4 is more and not less with iOS 11.

 

[rui no onna]

If I remember correctly, last upgrade for the first gen iPad mini is iOS 9.3.5.

Some apps will be backwards compatible. Other apps won't. For updated apps, it doesn't really matter if the new version doesn't support your device as long as the current version already installed continues working (keep iTunes backups for those apps while you can!). Only problem with old apps is if they rely on a web service (e.g. banking apps, video streaming, etc) in order to work and the app provider stops supporting older app versions. That said, Netflix still works on iOS 3 last I checked on my OG iPhone (surprisingly).