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by Joeri 3223 days ago
I have an original ipad and netflix is pretty much the only thing that still works fine on that. You can't use it to browse the web anymore because web pages have gotten so heavy it runs out of memory trying to render them. The app store is also broken to the degree of being unusable, even if you could find apps. If it wasn't so locked down it would still make an excellent linux device, but as it stands it's basically a dedicated netflix viewer.

So in my view it's a bit of both. These devices could have a longer life with manufacturer support, but the app developers are the ones driving the obsolescence.
2 comments
PacketPaul 3222 days ago
App developer here. It is impossible to build an app for the original iPad. Apple tools will not allow you to compile backwards compatibility to iOS 6 (or is it 5?).
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g00gler 3222 days ago
App developers are only a piece of this equation, though.

From (solo) developing an sms based app in 2017 there was little incentive to target an API level lower than 19 (KitKat), which provided a standard API for SMS.

The majority of devices support it so what's the incentive to support legacy software?

Now if there are breaking changes introduced to telephony in the future I'll probably maintain 4.4 support and add a check for API level. That isn't feasible for every app, though...

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