Quote:
Originally Posted by dangonay
"older hardware like the air and ipad 2" Since when is the "air" older hardware?
The biggest problem with the iPad 2 is the 512MB memory. So it's always going to be hampered. That said, Apple has now made their browser engine available to 3rd party apps instead of the generic UIWebView. This means browsers like Chrome or Dolphin will perform much faster. Browser windows opened in apps like Facebook or Twitter will also benefit. How much difference this makes we'll have to see, but it was a significant complaint from developers.
I also wish Apple would stop supporting older hardware. I think the 4S and iPad 2 should have been the minimum for iOS 7 and the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 should have been the minimum for iOS 8. That would have reduced the complaints from users of the oldest devices and guarantee a minimum level of performance.
While I understand Apple wanting to make the newest version available on the widest selection of hardware, extending support for 4 years after a launch is too much, IMO. The 4S came out in Oct 2011. So it will be a full 3 years old when iOS 8 comes out. It will also receive all the point updates for another year until iOS 9 comes out. That's 4 years of operating system support & upgrades. They could cut that back to 3 years (2 year old devices getting the latest release and one year of updates). It's still generous. Especially compared to the dismal state of OS updates on many other manufacturers.
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Sorry, I was thinking of the ipad mini which has the same specs as the ipad 2 but with a smaller screen. Unless they made a new one? It's hard to tell since they use the same name over and over for completely different hardware.
Looking at this chart, it looks like they have a new one, but you can still buy the old one with 512MB of memory:
iOS 7 is too bloated for any device with such a small amount of ram. I agree that they should have set minimums for the OS, but it shouldn't be 4S and ipad 2/mini, it should be iphone 5/ipad air/ipad mini with 1GB ram whatever it's called/ipad 3 or third gen or retina or whatever it's called.
I can see why they did it though. By allowing insufficient hardware to install an OS, with no way to easily go back, they essentially just made your device instantly obsolete. So now your 2 year old iphone 4s, which is otherwise viable until software starts requiring the new OS, is completely useless and now you need a new one. It also means the ipad mini with 512MB, which apparently you can still buy, and iphone 5C which was introduced a few months ago, are obsolete the moment you buy them. This isn't "generous" it's devious and rather brilliant
