Rumor: iOS 5 won't run on Apple's iPhone 3GS - Page 2

As a long standing rule with Apple hardware products I will skip generations. I bought the first iPhone, and skipped the 3G. I bought the 3Gs and skipped the 4. When the iPhone 5 is released, I'll upgrade to it. I'll give my mom the 3Gs without the SIM to be used as an iPod Touch with wifi. I'm not sure that I agree that Apple is making a wise choice by denying 3Gs users an upgrade to iOS 5, especially when it's selling them right now in their stores without a warning to their customers. I'd like to think that Apple would warn it's customers that their product will reach obsolescence before the calendar year is out, much less before their contract with AT&T is fulfilled. It's one thing for readers of this, and similar forums, to say that it's not a big deal because "everyone knows", but in truth, there are a lot of people who do not visit these forums who are Apple customers who stand to be screwed over by what you're suggesting. I know Steve tends to have one hell of a temper and doesn't mind pounding people into the ground for his own amusement, but it seems to me that Apple ought to forewarn current 3Gs buyers that their product won't be able to be updated in just a couple months. If the customer is cool with that, so be it, but at least they'd be warned.

People keep making the comparison to the 3G not being able to run iOS4, but there’s a big problem with that.

The problem is the 3G used a chip with a different architecture then the 3GS and 4. The code was not optimized properly for that older architecture, and that’s why it performed horribly, with glitches, freezes etc. It wasn't just that the chip was slower, and the new software more demanding. It was that the code wasn’t written for that architecture.

The 3GS, 4 and iPad 1 all share identical chip architecture. Clock for clock the chips perform identically, with full compatibility. The 3GS has fewer pixels to push, so it performs evenly with the 4 in most situations.

Knowing all this, it’s definitely a planned decision Apple is making. I thought they were above those kinds of money grubbing shady big-business techniques, but I guess not.

Iphone 3gs's are still being sold by att - if there is new revenue potential from ios 5, like for example, cloud services, Apple will definitely have a version for 3gs, it will be feature limited however.

1) Of course it’s a planned decision.

2) Being based on Cortex-A8 like the iPhone 4 is not the only consideration. What about the RAM disparity, for starters?

3) It’s just a rumor to discuss in theoretical terms yet your last sentence implies it’s a fact.




That certainly makes sense. Even though the iPhone 4 clearly outnumbers the iPhone 3GS in unit sales I’d think there are plenty in use to support an iOS 5.0 update if it is viable.

Doesn't the iPod Touch 4th Gen have 256MB RAM?
If RAM is an issue, then the 3GS should be fine, after all they have to make an update for a product that's not even a year old. >_>

Excellent point.

But you can still buy a new 3GS today in which case you are not getting 2 years of updates.

There is absolutely no way this is true.

Apple is making it increasingly difficult for developers to test on older versions of iOS. Short of owning many devices and making sure no automatic updates get installed, right now Apple really only provides the ability to easily test back to 4.0. The result of this is that App support for operating systems is moving increasingly fast towards the latest version of iOS.

That means that iPhones that can't keep up with the latest iOS also quickly stop being able to use the latest versions of old Apps as as well as most new Apps.

Given the importance of Apps to Apple's iPhone sales pitch I can't see them allowing that situation - especially considering the 3GS is still being sold and is therefore essentially a current iPhone.

My 3GS (and iPad for that matter) slows down a lot after a few days, even if I close apps in the dock. I'm guessing it's a memory issue.

Probably stated above, but this is one of the big differences btwn MS and Apple. MS, is not a hardware manufacturer and has had to write "spaghetti" code to support legacy machines. Apple, rightly, supports products for awhile and then as their hardware evolves, they cut the cord, as it were. Therefore, people like me who want the cutting edge gear, get it!

I was actually impressed with just how many updates the original iPhone received. I went from the iP1, to the 3Gs missing the 3G and then to the iP4. My original intel MacBook and original intel iMac similarly have had many, many updates. I can't complain.

Best.

I am an iOS app developer. There is a noticeable performance difference between the CPU in the 3GS vs the A4 in the iPhone 4 but I don't believe that on its own that is enough reason for Apple to drop support for that platform. RAM size would be a reason but the iPad and iPod Touch 4th gen both have the same memory size (256MB) as the iPhone 3GS and there is no rumors that those devices will not be supported. Also if the iPhone 3GS was dropped, the 3rd generation iPod Touch would almost certainly have to lose support as well.

The only technical reasons I can think of why Apple would decide not to support the iPhone 3GS are:

1. The A4 chip has some sort of secure code execution that is needed for security in iOS 5. This is pure speculation since this feature has never been disclosed. It is something that Apple would want to add and they may have done so and been waiting for an iOS version that they could turn it on across their full range of supported devices.

2. Apple wants to save money by dropping support of older platforms.This seems very unlikely considering that the 3GS is currently being sold. Google is committing to 18 months of support with their new anti-fragmentation initiative.

3. iOS 5 is such a memory hog that the overhead of the extra memory needed to run the phone software is enough to eliminate the 3GS (and only the 3GS since all other supported devices are either not phones or have double the memory).

Exactly, a_greer! Great point....just like the iP1 got updates but because of hardware limitations it didn't get everything. Got "cut & paste" but not GPS, for example. I think I have that right.

Best

That would be a BIG mistake, Apple -- iPhone 3GS is being sold today, and to thing it is EOL for OS updates is a joke.

Looking down from the performance level of an A5 the difference between an A4 and a S5PC100 isn't that big.
So if iOS 5 doesn't run on an iPhone 3GS it also doesn't run on an iPhone 4. Maybe it will be a fast crawl

Excellent hypothesis.



Thats only if you think the chip architecture is the only consideration worth considering.

Ok, I will bite -- URL and specific "policy" that states this?!

You could always jailbreak and run MyWi -- works much better than Personal Hotspot, IMHO...

http://intelliborn.com/mywi.html

don't have a URL sorry.

There were a few articles on it when they announced it ... last year?

iOS 4.x runs JUST FINE on my iPhone 3GS... Could it be better? Of course, but is by far very usable. Apple had best start more and better code optimization.

True... but let's examine this a little further.

The iPhone 3GS came out in summer 2009... and it will be supported until summer 2011. That's 2 years.

It's not Apple's fault you waited until today to buy a 3GS

And let's be honest... if you're buying a 3GS today... you're probably not the type of person who will be chasing updates.

There will always have to be a hard cutoff. There was a cutoff for MacOS 9... and for PowerPC chips... even if you just bought them yesterday.

It is not neccesarily 'planned obsolescence'. Phone advances occur on a regular basis and as a result new phones can do more, You can't expect older models to be able to perform as well, or contain as many features, as the new models. At least Apple tries and has successfully (mostly) been updating older models with new features and/or better performance.

+1 If you expect to have all the latest features and best performance then you MUST buy the newest model.

It will be interesting to see how well the manufacturers support Google's commitment since they make the actual phones. How well a phone can run with a new software update can be as important or even more important than being able to run the update. Apple has a proven history of update support, Google and most Android manufacturers not so much.

Add to this that they allowed updates of the 3g to iOS 4 with the warning that it would lack features, could have slower performance etc. Basically "you can do it but we don't recommend it" and no shock it was a mess. So they had to go back and fix it instead of focusing on the more current hardware.

This time, it seems, they aren't going to allow updates that won't meet their standard of performance. Thus avoiding the same cock up. While staying within the expectations they have set in the T&C etc



Not exactly. They said the iOS that it originally releases with, not what it ships with. Plus one upgrade and updates.

the 3gs released with iOS 3 and was supported through iOS4. There should be no expectation that they will support the 3gs with iOS 5 because they have actually said they don't promise to.

That some models shipped with iOS4 or even that they are selling the 3gs still doesn't matter because shipping and sales dates are not what they use to start the clock - original release date is.

Same here. Just got a Verizon 4 as an upgrade from 3GS, and sure the 4 is better, but the 3GS was great. The 3G... not so much. That one got slow.

I'll bet iOS 5 has some processor intensive stuff that the A5 will handle fine and the A4 will struggle with. Maybe Apple will do a reduced release for 3GS owners like they did with the 3G (only better). Its still a good phone.

2 years of updates is 6 months better than Google Android which, for future handsets will offer 18 months of updates (if the hardware partners can prep and issue them in time).

The problem is, you might be cut off from the app store, which would be a valid complaint if it happens. Historically, Apple required apps to be native to the newest iOS within a month or two in order to remain listed, and that generally prevents use on older versions of iOS.

Has anybody got a link to Apple's "commitments" here?

I think the real argument and difference here is that Apple is still currently selling the 3GS. It would strike me as odd for a customer to walk into a store the day that iOS 5 is release, buy a 3GS and have an Apple store employee tell them on the way out the door that they can't install the latest and greatest (aka current) iOS on their shiny new iPhone. Of course, I'm also suspecting that with the release of the iPhone 5 Apple will ditch the 3GS and move the low end to a 8GB iPhone 4, or something similar.

While it's true that the 3G had been discontinued by the time iOS4 was generally available, it was only by a matter of days. In practical terms, there were many customers who had bought brand new iPhone 3G devices recently enough that they had 18+ months of contract left during which they could look forward to abysmal performance and usability thanks to Apple's near-forced OS upgrades and complete refusal to allow downgrades. I doubt the 3GS will be completely barred from the iOS5 world, but I will not be at all surprised if, much like the 3G and iOS4, it gets an abridged version of the new OS with nearly no new desirable features but a major performance hit. In that case, its only potentially redeeming quality will be that it allows 3GS owners to stay in the app store ecosystem a little longer.

There is a huge difference between making something that has not been sold for a while obsolete and something that is sold obsolete over night

My dual G5 is obsolete as it does not work with 10.6 Office 2011, Firefox 4 but so what 10.6. But is was discontinued in 2006 and then rendered obsolete late 2009 by 10.6 and that is OK

However, selling G3 GS right up to the the arrival of an iOS that it has no spport for would be really bad...