Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight

[accarrino]

So why did Apple quietly abandon the iPad 1 with iOS 6? lack of RAM. the iPad 1 only has 256 MB of RAM. Back in 2010, that was enough to handle iOS 4 and the current crop of available apps in the App Store. But as the apps and OS got more complicated, and started running in the background, I’ve seen major performance issues on the iPad 1.

[jcromartie]

It's still the same thing it was when it came out, and that is: amazing. You're talking about a 10" handheld touchscreen with wifi and a battery that will last a month when sitting on the coffee table or bedside stand. It puts the entire internet at your fingertips and it can be used to do almost anything you want.

It's freaking Star Trek, but since it's 2 years old and it won't get some OS updates we think it's garbage now? It's the technology we had all been dreaming about for decades, since we were kids, made real. And now it's junk?

What a spoiled bunch we are.

[Drakim]

Well, unless you sync it and lose all the apps because their newest versions don't support the old iOS anymore and there is no way to "downgrade".

I agree with you that things don't need to be constantly updated and upgraded to be awesome, but there are certainly different ways to age.

[s_henry_paulson]

I own a first gen iPad, and I can tell you it won't be the same.

Apps will slowly stop working, and updates will be restricted to newer firmware only, meaning my only option is to delete the apps that I had been using and paid for... or heaven forbid I need to do a restore and get all of my apps back. Then it's just a lottery of luck on how many I'll be allowed to download, and that number will decrease with time.

I can understand dropping support for legacy products, but I've only had the thing a year and a half or something.

[kyriakos]

the problem is that your apps no longer work because most of them are based on online services which changed their interfaces and communication protocols by now but won't install on an older version of iOS. This is the case with iPhone 3GS too.

[jcromartie]

True, apps backed by web services will die off. But that's been a risk at any time, even on the latest device. Those services don't exist for you. They can (and do) pull the plug at any time.

I think the way forward for old devices like the iPad 1 is through a stable OS, jailbreaks and web apps.

[mpyne]

So iPad 1 users should have to jailbreak their iPad to get to fully utilize it longer than 2 years? I agree completely that they could at least give it a stable OS (and apps!) but "jailbreak" should never be on a list of generic end-user steps to use your hardware.

[kyriakos]

i believe this is what makes the difference with android though. there's always a strong community that usually comes up with roms a long after the OEM quit. Even on obscure chinese-made CPUs you can find today ROMs running the latest versions of android.

[threedaymonk]

That's true to some extent, but old Android devices fall by the wayside too. I took my old HTC Hero up to Android 2.3 with third-party ROMs, but it can't run anything newer: it doesn't have enough flash space, and it's limited by its CPU and RAM in any case.

[s_henry_paulson]

I agree with your first sentence, but Apple is supporting IOS6 on the 3GS.

[lloeki]

Then s/3GS/3G/ and since it didn't get iOS5 you get a better picture of what will the iPad 1 will look like in one year.

[kyriakos]

how would you feel if you bought a car 7 years ago and tomorrow they tell you they stop selling petrol for it cause cars today moved to a different kind of fuel?

[rograndom]

Well the iPad G1 still run, they're not changing the type of electricity that's running into your house. Safari, Mail, etc will run forever, most 3rd party apps will move to require iOS6 and those will stop running.

Parts for cars is a better analogy:

My last car had a U-joint on the driveshaft start to go. The entire driveshaft had to be replaced, but I could not find a OEM replacement for my specific model of car anywhere in the country. They were all on back order and had been for months. I could get a custom, carbon fiber driveshaft made for $2000, for a car with a KBB value of $3500... I don't think so.

That was a 2002 model year car, not 7 years old but close enough. I said screw it and leased a new car and put the old one on craigslist (where it sold for 2x the KBB value, but that's neither here nor there).

My wife's car is even worse, one of the wipers is "special" and can only be changed by the dealer. Same thing with the driver's side headlight. 1/5 of the moveable parts of the engine needs to be removed to change the bulb.

[josefresco]

I own 1G iPad and I've used it daily since it's launch. With each and every OS update, the device has become slower, and more unstable. Apps like StumbleUpon, Flipboard, and basically any app that uses a "wrapped" browser crashes frequently. App launch times and UI responsiveness are laughable compared to modern tablets and smartphones. To me the problem is not just iOS 6, but rather a slow and consistent degrading of the performance due to OS and app changes over time.

I'm used to this as a geek, new hardware once blazing fast quickly becomes slow with no apparent smoking gun. Do I blame Apple or the app makers? Not really, but I do wish Apple (like Microsoft) would consider 'legacy' devices more when rolling our new products.

[untog]

I wish it was possible to install Android onto my 1G iPad. Same installing RockBox onto my ancient iPod, there are motivated hackers out there that would strip out the unnecessary parts until a perfectly workable, speedy OS was running on the device. The benefits of open source, I suppose.

[srainier]

You mean like the Lumia 900 (and every other Windows Phone 7 device) and Windows 8? They sure are taking care of legacy devices there.

[dandrews50]

I too own a 1st gen iPad. I use it ever day. I don't update. You don't need to....Mine still works fine and I love it. I upgraded my iPhone 4s to OS6 and have had no issues. So my iPad has outdated software and my iPhone has the newest. They talk to each other. Try reverting back to an older OS. Also go in and have an apple geek analyze your iPad. Twice now I've had issues with slow response that were resolved through an apple analysis. Just make sure you have everything backed up.

[akadien]

I've had the same experience with a 1G iPad. Within the past few months or so, the browser started crashing frequently for no good reason, and the device has slowed down considerably. I am a soft-core iPad user and stick mainly to mobile web apps or Google apps. Pity because I like the device's form factor.

After this and other weirdness with my Macs, my next purchases will most likely have names on them like "Roku", "Kindle", "Samsung", and "Lenovo". I'm in Linux or a command line most of the day anyway. The Apple premium isn't worth it anymore.

I've started moving my iTunes library to Amazon. Any thoughts?

[zarify]

I'm curious as to what the upgrade situation is with Android devices and apps. Do developers just keep support for legacy versions in their apps? If so, do all the people sporting the new hotness have to put up with that.

On the Mac side of things, all those I've owned have kept up with OS upgrades surprisingly well, so I don't know that they should be bundled in with this. I'd sooner lose a hand that go back to a Windows laptop and I've had enough horror Linux upgrades to not want to go that way either (fine for my home server, but that doesn't get major updates, just security ones). Personal preference, anyway I guess. Good luck!

[akadien]

I have a similar situation (linux server for work and Macs for everything else). I manage media through iTunes, stream through two AppleTVs, and use MacBooks, an iMac,and iPhones. Newer Apple products don't seem to have the longevity that older ones do (my iMac is circa 2007). I'm not sure I make enough money to afford upgrading my Apple infrastructure on a two-year cycle.

I've also noticed battery life in the iPad has degenerated, and it takes a looong time to recharge. That's another new trick.

[augustl]

For music, I use sshfs to mount a folder from my own server at home, and mocp, a console based music player. Works great, and when I'm home, all the traffic is on my LAN, which is a plus. Would like to replace mocp, but it's the only linux based player I found without a database (folders + file names is enough of a database for me) and that is able to play flac gapless (no pause when switching from one flac to the next, important for continous music).

[sneak]

That's like voting democrat instead of republican, or moving to a different (but still rental) apartment.

I don't think it's going to solve the problem you think you have.

[akadien]

What problem do I think I have? Are you referring to the iTunes --> Amazon transfer?

[pi18n]

Don't worry about that post, you are being rational. Apple is increasingly unfriendly to developers and power users. Choosing Android or Linux at this point makes a ton of sense.

[padobson]

I switched from Windows to Mac in 2004 when I started college. A year after I graduated, I switched to Linux, and I haven't looked back - and this article illustrates the reason as well as anything.

The lifecycle for Apple devices are far shorter than their PC and Android counterparts. When I abandoned my PPC Mac in 2009 and suffered through iTunes withdrawal (read: wrote off the ~$500 in music and movies I had bought), I switched to Amazon for media where, funnily enough, everything worked fine right in the browser on that same Mac. Still does to this day. I'm typing this on a Dell Laptop I got a year after that Mac, running Ubuntu, and the media I bought on Amazon works fine on this too.

It makes a ton of sense for Apple as a business to sell their products at a premium and more sense still to release premium products for people to buy every year. But it makes no sense as a consumer to keep buying them cycle after cycle. I may get another two years out of this laptop, but my Mac has long since become useless to me.

[nicholassmith]

Not necessarily, I bought a Macbook just over 5 years ago off eBay that was about a year old, I gave it to my girlfriend. Still going strong, issues with the battery (not Apples fault, battery wasn't looked after) and maybe it needs some new RAM. My iPhone 1 went to my Mum, then my cousin, then my nephew. There was at least 3-4 years of life out of that.

I'll probably trade up my iPhone 4 to a 5 purely for the better camera to save lugging a DSLR as well, but then it'll go to my girlfriend and it'll get used for another year or two.

This is compared to having to constantly try and sort my girlfriends Android phone (she gave in just within a year of ownership and sold it), and the question I get every 14-18 months of "What laptop should I get? This one is so slow now".

Lifecycles are determined by the user, not by a company really, people who buy on cycles aren't being forced to buy it, they want to buy it.

[dserodio]

Android device's lifecycle is worse then iPhones: I replaced my (almost 2 years old) HTC Desire because it was stuck running Android 2.3.4 - thanks to Cyanogenmod, otherwise it would have an even older OS - which means security vulnerabilities like the recently found USSD "remote wipe by visiting a website" are exploitable.

[akadien]

I concur. My five year old iMac is just beginning to feel aged, whereas my two year old iPad and Mac Book are nearly ready for donation to the city. Thanks for sharing your positive experience with Amazon; that is helpful to me.

[bunderbunder]

Paperweight? Seems a little hyperbolic.

My 1st-generation iPhone couldn't be updated past iOS 3, and it didn't get bumped out of its hallowed place in my pocket until the iPhone 4S came out.

Sure, I couldn't have the latest version of all the apps. Was I suffering for it? Hardly.

[pat2man]

What a sad an incomplete list. Lets add a few:

•Use it as a digital photo frame.

•Use it as an eBook reader. The Kindle app works just fine.

•Use it as a media player, stream music to your stereo.

•Use it as a remote control for your Apple TV, etc.

The amazing thing about the iPad is that unlike a computer it doesn't take up a huge amount of space. You can have an old one lying around and still use it for years. I would never use an obsolete laptop due to the clunky size but an iPad as a portable screen can be useful for years.

[jws]

Or a wireless web browser connected to the entire internet plus your own vast library of music and books!

It's still Star Trek technology on your coffee table.

[mannkind]

What did it do before that it doesn't do now? Did it suddenly stop working; wifi, bluetooth, etc ... dead? Are all the apps suddenly iOS 6 only?

No.

Stop being so damn dramatic.

[Too]

> If you update an app to an iOS 6 version in iTunes on your computer and then try to sync your iPad 1, the old version of the app will just get removed from your iPad 1.

[mannkind]

It's certainly true that Apple even allowing such a thing to happen is broken (the device should reject app updates it can't run).

But that something like that could happen still doesn't make the iPad a paperweight. People will happily use their first generation iPads long into the future, despite what the FUD.

[aelaguiz]

Honestly I'm happy to know that when I receive an update to my experience it wasn't neutered out of a desire to maintain backwards compatibility with windows 3.1...I mean iPad 1G.

The backwards compatibility forever mindset may still be necessary in business but I see no reason it should continue to stand in consumer. It can be corrupted though - as long as the reasons are actual and not artificial in order to drum up profits I don't see a reasonable amount of deprecation to be harmful.

[Drakim]

2 years is pushing it. People should not get new devices every second year to have a good experience. We should certainly not limit ourselves for the sake of the past, but it should be possible to build technology that doesn't officially "expire" in two years.

[sirn]

I'm kinda surprised that Apple is breaking the 3 years software support pattern with iPad 1 (Jan 2010) and iOS 6 (Sep 2012); even when they dropped PPC, they still support PPC until Snow Leopard released in 2009, 3 years after the final PPC Mac in 2006, or the original iPhone (June 2007) and iOS 4 (June 2010).

As an iPad 1 owner, I do feel a little disappointed, although I don't really feel I miss anything. Most apps is still working like before, it's not that the device is suddenly turned into paperweight overnight. 2 years 8 months is already a long time in technology field.

[gte910h]

They made a pretty bad mistake with the 256 ram only. It just can't handle it. (Iphone4 has 512)

[microtonal]

It's sad. For a lot of iPad buyers, 500 dollar or Euro is a lot of money. One can only hope that the majority of them will be recycled, or it is an ecological disaster as well. (If mining of the necessary resources isn't already.) Of course, it's not just Apple. Many Android phones are neglected by their vendors as well.

At some point we have to consider, whether we are willing to waste that many resources and money on smartphones and tablets, where we previously used computers and dumbphones that lasted for years and years.

As a European citizen, I hope that the EU will at some point start requiring vendors to provide (at least) security updates for some fixed period after purchase.

Edit: seeing that the downvotes are coming in, doesn't make it less true. Care a little more about your children, and less about your gadget ;).

[dpark]

> where we previously used computers and dumbphones that lasted for years and years.

Those are some seriously rose-colored glasses you're wearing. Computers have always been replaced rapidly. For tax purposes, they depreciate to zero in 3 years, reflecting their short lifespan. From what I've seen, most people have replaced their PCs every 3 or so years and phones (including dumb phones) every 2-3 years. It's only the last few years that this cycle has slowed for PCs, as speeds have begun stagnating.

With that said, I do think it's crappy that Apple is abandoning the 1st gen iPad so rapidly, especially since they apparently don't have a meaningful story for out-of-date devices with respect to apps. There seems to be no way to provide a separate version of an app for an older OS. Instead, the user is prompted to update the app, at which point they are told that the app needs the new OS, and then it's removed. (I had this happen to my phone when iOS 5 arrived and I delayed upgrading.)

[sxcurry]

Really, an ecological disaster? I tend to think of a disaster in terms of oil spills, nuclear meltdowns, etc. Somehow this doesn't seem to be quite the same class. Are you sure you aren't exaggerating just a bit?

[potatolicious]

I don't think it's a huge exaggeration - is it that hard to believe that the cumulative, massive force of modern manufacturing has a much, much larger ecological effect than any single oil spill or nuclear meltdown?

Hell, just go to China, or any of the many mining towns that still exist in the US - it's like a small oil spill, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, lasting decades at a time.

[microtonal]

The mining and extraction of lithium and coltan requires massive amounts of water and energy [1][2]. In African countries with very little regulation, land, lakes, and rivers are polluted as a result of mining.

And what do we use it for? To produce some 15+ million million devices that are deprecated after two years.

Yes, that is tragic and a disaster for those countries. It's just that more attention is paid to events that unfold within days rather than years.

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/carbon-footpr... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan

[nicholassmith]

According to the internet, iPad 1 16Gb WiFi was £429. Currently you can sell it on eBay for between £175-200, so there's a loss of £200-225 over the life time from brand new, so if you're unhappy you can sell it and cover at least half the cost of a new iPad if it's on the upgrade path.

It's an expensive toy, and it is a lot of money, but no one made anyone buy one.

[microtonal]

I do agree. But it would be nice to know up-front what to expect with respect to security updates.

[panda_person]

The moral of the story is to simply not update older Apple devices. My brand new 4th gen iTouch was slow and buggy a year ago running iOS 5 right out of the box-I don't see why people think its worth the risk updating.

[sneak]

The big reveal of the article is that iOS6 is _not_ supported at all (and indeed won't install) on the iPad 1.

He goes on to say that as apps are updated to require version >= 6, your iPad 1 stuck at 5.x will become useless. I think his conclusion is bullshit (e.g. I can still word process on a 286 just as well as I could the day I got it - brick it is not).

Did you even read TFA?

[fr0sty]

> "Did you even read TFA?"

Yes. Did you miss this?

>"If you update an app to an iOS 6 version in iTunes on your computer and then try to sync your iPad 1, the old version of the app will just get removed from your iPad 1. The home screen on my iPod Touch 1G is pretty barren."

[w0utert]

Then don't sync your iOS 6 applications to your 1st-gen iPad, it only takes one checkbox in iTunes, which isn't even enabled by default. Problem solved.

[pktrnd]

You should be yelling at the developers who are requiring iOS 6. There are usually ways to incorporate new OS features, without requiring the new OS - kind of like html5 websites that are still visible and functional. It's laziness on the developers part to require a brand new OS.

[anonymfus]

>I can still word process on a 286 just as well as I could the day I got it - brick it is no

1982 — 80286 introduced;

1985 — obsoleted with introduction of 386;

1991 — Linux created without 286 support;

1992 — last 286 clone by AMD produced;

1992 — introduction of OS/2 2.0 without 286 support;

1995 — introduction of Windows 95 without 286 support;

2002 — official support of Windows 3.x dropped.

[bbx]

Problem is: a lot of apps require a recent version of iOS.

A likely solution would be to stick with old versions of your apps running on an old iOS version, but:

* you don't get the feature updates

* you don't get the bugfixes

* some old version of apps just won't work anymore (especially the news apps that connect to a server)

* if you've got an app that constantly crashes (I've had it with one game in particular), you're stuck with it

Right now, my iPad 1 is running the latest iOS 5. It's obviously slower than iOS 4 but I could update all of my apps. For now...

[TeeOff]

The moral of any story is to read the story before commenting:

"...your 1G iPad will become little more than an expensive paperweight as new apps and updates to your existing apps start to require iOS 6"

Not updating aiPad 1 will not amend this problem... Sorry.

[simias]

Do they still provide security updates for older iOS versions? Or do they drop the support altogether once a new one is out?

Having an unpatched tablet connecting to all kinds of... "wild" and untrusted networks (as tablets are wont to be) seems a bit risky.

[wesley]

did you read the story? 1st generation ipads can't update. So new apps are not available to them.

[numbsafari]

You are over generalizing. That's only true if "new apps" only support iOS6. "new apps" that choose to support iOS5 will update and download just fine.

The vast majority of apps will still run on iOS5, and likely will for at least a few more updates (based on the developer's decision).

Running the latest and greatest software usually means running the latest and greatest hardware. That's what the Apple platform is geared towards. Software developers are incentivized to keep their apps running on the latest OS, and customers are incentivized to run the latest hardware. For people who care about that, this is a good platform choice.

If you want to use the same phone for 5 years, pick a different platform. Granted, you probably won't have the latest and greatest of anything. Not the latest and greatest hardware (your choice) and likely not the latest and greatest software (because what developer thinks they'll make money off of you?). Perhaps you are okay with that. It's probably a cheaper route.

The cheapest option doesn't always provide the most value. The most expensive option doesn't always either. The question is, for the price you are going to pay, are you going to get the best value. That equation is different for everyone and no platform can possibly make it work for everyone either.

I own a SPARCstation 5. It's got a whopping 95MB of RAM in it and a cool 25MHz processor (I think). It runs lots of software just fine, but I don't expect it to run the latest FPS.

Maybe you own an iPad1. It's got a whopping 256MB of RAM. That's not even 3x the amount of RAM my SS5 had. You should be amazed it did all the stuff it did, and continues to do.

You shouldn't expect it to run the latest and greatest OS, though.

[panda_person]

My 4th gen iTouch with 256MB RAM simply runs too buggy and slow to enjoy iOS 5

[coolnow]

My 4th gen white iPod Touch (shipped with iOS 5) is on iOS 6 now and i find it much smoother than iOS 5, apart from the App Store. The low RAM does get in the way when you switch to other apps and need to wait a few seconds for it to reinitialise, but other than that, it's not a problem. However, i do regret not buying the black version on iOS 4 and comparing the speed to iOS 5.

[numbsafari]

My SS5 with 95MB of RAM simply runs to buggy and slow to enjoy GNOME.

[hnriot]

This is no different than any other first gen product. How many people are still using their first generation digital camera either. You buy the first generation of a brand new product and you have to expect to be replacing it soon enough. That's the nature of the early adopter product life cycle.

The simplest solution is to restore an iPad backup from when it worked well (using time machine) and just be happy with it and not update. Sure new apps won't necessarily work, but you have what you were happy with.

[jasonlotito]

The problem is in the syncing process. You can't sync if you've updated the app. This is especially problematic if you have more than one device. I can't sync with the computer because the older device will remove the app because it now only supports iOS6.

[dagw]

I stopped upgrading my first gen iPad at iOS 4 and have yet to find anything I want to do, but can't.

[marze]

I still use my 1st-gen iPad daily, and am always impressed by its beautiful screen. The OS updates it's got since initial release have improved the web browsing substantially. My wife has the retina iPad, which has an even more beautiful screen, but I can still switch back and forth.

I'm not bummed at all it can't handle the latest OS; in no way is it a paperweight. But, when version 4 comes out, I'll upgrade for sure.

[crgt]

My kids still love my (their?) iPad 1. It still runs all of their (highly educational!) apps just fine. There are many, many use cases for the device that don't require iOS 6.

[raesene2]

Whilst I think it is a bit hyperbolic to describe it as a paperweight, I think that one significant problem is the lack of security updates for the iPad 1. iOS6 patched a large number of CVEs http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5503 so any device which doesn't either go to iOS6 or get a maintenance release of iOS5 (which I'm not aware is planned) will be vulnerable to a variety of known security issues.

[Scramblejams]

There's nothing new here -- this is always the story when you've got resource constrained devices. When PCs make the jump from 2 GHz to 3 GHz, it's not a big deal because the 2 GHz machines still run well. But in the same period of time, tablets have gone from 256 megs to a gig of RAM and from one core to four, so of course you get left behind.

When tablets boast computing capabilities similar to today's PCs, they'll last far longer.

[dmishe]

It was slow already, and only 256mb of ram. Sad but true.

[kyriakos]

this is surprising when my chinese single core tablet i bought more than a year ago went through 2 major android version updates (currently running jelly bean) and in each iteration became faster and smoother.

this is the problem with a closed eco-system like Apple's iOS - there's no community to support the devices past their manufacturers support expiration date.

[shahidhussain]

Is there anything like whited00r available for these machines? (I installed it on my original iPhone, and it's been a lifesaver.)

[marknutter]

Can't you still jailbreak it, and wouldn't that increase its life indefinitely?

[atopuzov]

Boring the world to death with iPad 1 and iOS 6 compatibility, poor, poor me. Didn't see that many posts complaining about android and webos, and devices powered by these OS-es were left with not even 2 years of support to the latest and greatest OS.

[accarrino]

hard to believe that my iPad 1 is basically obsolete in Apple's eyes at this point. In the future, let’s hope Tim Cook adds "2-year+ lifetime" to their long term product strategy.