[gruturo]

> (to counter Apple's in-house planned obsolescence program)

iPhones are famous for being supported A LOT longer than almost any other phone. There are manufacturers which abandon you after the 2nd year, and if you buy a model near the end of its sale period, that can mean as little as 13-14 months on a brand new phone.

Some iPhones have been, are, or will be supported for 6, 7, even 8 years - which is ridiculously good in comparison, and often the reasons for dropping a model are quite clear (only 1G of RAM, would swap/OOMkill like crazy, or lack of a 64-bit CPU).

You could debate some of these reasons, you could debate when none are provided, you could argue about why a certain model had so little RAM to begin with, and of course there have been poorly handled issues like batterygate or certain iOS versions being brutally slow on old models (though it's been years since it last happened).... but frankly, this is an odd choice of a hill to die on.

[drexlspivey]

I am still using my 2012 ipad with iOS 9 to watch youtube and Plex

[captn3m0]

Running iOS8 on my iPad 2 to read books and comics.

[jraph]

The iPad 2 is a perfect example.

It is good some people still find use for it. However, it is a device that would be perfectly capable of being used to surf the web… but Apple stopped releasing updates for Safari and forbids alternative browser engines for iOS. The web is essentially broken on it, and I'm not even talking about the security issues that it probably has as a consequence..

I'd say it is exactly the example of a device that is today unusable for many things its hardware could handle just fine for no good reason, and therefore obsolete for many people.

Obsolete because of its closed nature. This obsolescence was planned. Maybe not intentionally to make you buy a new one, but still bad and the consequences are the same. Many people probably replaced their iPad 2 with a new tablet for exactly this reason. Or bought a new tablet even if they still use their iPad 2 for the uses cases the iPad 2 is not capable of handling anymore. Apple should be legally forced to enable third parties to support this hardware.

Next time you consider buying closed hardware (not just Apple, and Android tablets are certainly problematic too), think about the iPad 2. Closed => Waste.

[captn3m0]

I won it as a prize, and considering how it's still being used a decade later - it's certainly not a waste yet.

I'm hoping to get Postmarket running on it, if this Linux port works out.

[jraph]

To be clear, I find it pleasant to read your comments about still finding use for such devices and I was not specifically writing to you personally. That was a you for the random reader of my comment. Actually, you specifically are not even in the target of my comment, since you still use your old device.

[mobilio]

I'm still using iPad 2 for ebooks too.