[apdinin]

Devil's advocate here... and I'm adding the caveat that I still use my iPad 1 daily (with the grandfathered, unlimited data plan).

A lot of this is about generating revenues. At the end of the day, Apple is a public corporation. It's not a charity. Apple's primary reason for existence is to generate shareholder value. It's hard for a device company to do that if they aren't... you know... selling devices.

Apple doesn't believe everyone should buy a new Apple product every 5 years. Sure, they'd love it, but that's not the market they're targeting. Apple has branded itself as a luxury technology brand. Would someone make this same argument about Lexus or Rolex or Coach?

If you can't afford that shiny new Macbook, there are plenty of alternate options. No one is forcing people to buy Apple products.

Beyond pricing, older technology can limit software innovation. What if every App developer out there -- including the folks at apple developing the latest versions of iOS -- still had to support my "ancient" iPad 1?

Legacy support would put a lot of young companies out of business. As a developer, one of things that costs me the most time is cross-device support. It's a huge drain on resources, and not every company can afford it.