[_Codemonkeyism]

" older iPads "

How did you manage that? I have some unusable iPads I was using for watching e.g. Amazon videos. I can't use them as their OS no longer updates and Amazon (as most) only support new iOS versions.

Also: After buying a max specced Dell XPS 2016 I fear that you are right, Apple has many problems but others have even larger ones. The Dell with Windows (doesn't run Linux because of nvm) is not even close to working to my satisfaction for a 2500 EUR device.

[matwood]

I don't know what you count as useable, but I have an original iPad Air here (3 years old) that still works fine for my use - some games, email, reading, and internet.

It was only this year that I stopped testing our apps on the iPad 2. It was workhorse, and for many apps was much better than the iPad 3. With the 3 Apple went to retina, but IMHO the rest of the hardware was not quite retina ready.