

Why iOS 6 Just Turned Your iPad 1G Into a Paperweight - accarrino
http://www.methodshop.com/2012/10/ios6-ipad-paperweight.shtml
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.

~~~
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.

------
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.

------
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.

------
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.

------
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)

------
danieldk
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 ;).

~~~
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.

------
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.

------
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.

