Apple seems to be supporting any product they are currently selling with iOS 6. Unfortunately for anyone except AT&T the 3GS only works on the AT&T network. However, it is saying something for Apple that a phone released in 2009 is still upgradable to the latest OS release. That's not something that Android phones can match.
They don't have to support anything below the 4.0 models or anything that shipped with iOS 4.
It looks like they probably will however (because of the "uproar"), but personally I wish they wouldn't. Support of old devices, especially on such a rapidly evolving platform that's essentially in it's early days, is usually a mistake. Apple is being hobbled here by the very popularity of their products, it would be better for all concerned in the long run to cast off the 3rd generation devices.
I doubt Apple will "hobble" iOS 6 to accommodate the 3GS. It's more likely the 3CS won't be completely supported by iOS. However, Apple may be laying the groundwork to show that the iDevices are a better deal due to the extended hardware support compared to Android and others. It's just another way to "raise the bar" for the competitors to try and jump over.
Apple is distancing themselves from the "me too" companies in compelling ways.
Ios 5.1.1. iOS6? Seems like Apple is jumping the gun and jumping os versions rapidly. Why not iOS 5.5 instead of iOS6? Also why the jump in Safari versions. I am running the 5.2 beta. Why jump to Safari 6 when the 5.2 beta is not even main stream? Doesn't make sense.
Tune in Monday morning to see if the keynote reveals why it would make sense. We don't know what will be all announced yet, so given what you know today not making sense, I can understand.
Well, if the rumors are true, it makes me very comfortable about buying an iPhone and very uncomfortable about buying an iPad. The iPhone has the great virtue of being something that stays on the market for a long time, as it gradually migrates down the price points. Not so the iPad. In general I wish Apple would be more communicative about setting out some general parameters for roadmaps of their products. (For exhibit A on this, see "Mac Pro")
Rumors and truth are not compatible. The first incarnation of any Apple product is for the those who like to surf the cutting edge of technology, so lack of long term support for first gen hardware is no surprise to me. I don't see the iPad any less of a good buy than other Apple products. The product that might not be a good buy at this time is the iPod Touch; it may be replaced by the rumored 7" touch device.
Obviously Apple orphans systems to encourage upgrades, as well as to simplify their support burden. This is observably true in the many instances when an "unsupported" system update is enabled by hacks which just bypass the system ID check.
On the other hand, Apple is generally much better on this score than many of its competitors, e.g. the Android handset makers who orphan half their phones the day they're sold.
Apple may feel that not upgrading a device to the latest version gives the device owner a better user experience then upgrading would. Sometimes the right thing to do may not be as apparent as one thinks. I don't feel Apple has abandoned my with my 2006 MBP which is running 10.4.11 on 2Gb of RAM. Upgrading to Lion or Mountain Lion would give me a degraded experience in speed, while giving me the newer features (which I really don't need). I've used Mac OS for 28 years and often don't go for the latest releases for various reasons.
I do agree with you regarding Android where the hardware manufacturers have no financial reason to offer an option to upgrade the software on their recently released phones. Once the phone goes out the door, they are on to the next phone and last months hardware is old news.
It WON'T be a currently selling product when iOS 6 comes out.
You will be able to buy a 3GS like a week before iOS 6/iPhone 6th gen comes out.
So extending it's support for a year does make sense. When iOS 7 comes out, 3GS won't be on sale for a year, so it most likely will not get the update. iPhone 4 should as it'll replace 3GS' current position.
Usually Apple had 2 iPhones for sale, so you got two major updates(the OS that your phone ships with + 2), now Apple has 3 iPhone for sale at the same time and looks like they'll extend the updates to three years, which is amazing IMO!
The 3GS is a piece of crap. Everyone complained about iOS 4 on it, for heaven's sake. Now they demand 6?
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
The 3GS, however, runs iOS 4 (and iOS 5 for that matter) just fine. Sure, it's not quite as snappy as a 4S, but even today performance is still pretty good.
I do believe that 3GS will get iOS6 support, but it won't be around after iPhone 6th generation launch as iPhone 4 will take its place as the free iPhone with a 2 year contract.
Perhaps... but the production cost of an iPhone 4/4S is still likely significantly higher than the 3GS, due to the retina display, more expensive casing, and additional cameras. If Apple want to continue having a very cheap iPhone for the pre-pay market and developing economies, the 3GS might be a good choice.
Well, if the rumors are true, it makes me very comfortable about buying an iPhone and very uncomfortable about buying an iPad. The iPhone has the great virtue of being something that stays on the market for a long time, as it gradually migrates down the price points. Not so the iPad. In general I wish Apple would be more communicative about setting out some general parameters for roadmaps of their products. (For exhibit A on this, see "Mac Pro")
Apple will never tell us anything. This is a good thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Why the hell wouldn't it be supported? Now the iPhone 3GS, sure I can see that being nixed but not the iPad.
The iPhone 3GS has the same GPU as the first-gen iPad but pushes fewer pixels, so it has better performance.
Quote:
Safari 6 should be the full debut of WebKit 2.
I'd like to see them throw in support for all HTML5 tags. And animated PNGs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Industrial
So extending it's support for a year does make sense. When iOS 7 comes out, 3GS won't be on sale for a year, so it most likely will not get the update.
Except it will, according to many here who think they'll actually drop the iPhone 4 instead and actually keep a four year old phone on sale, embarrassingly, everywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rennaisance
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
The 3GS, however, runs iOS 4 (and iOS 5 for that matter) just fine. Sure, it's not quite as snappy as a 4S, but even today performance is still pretty good.
Agreed. I have a 3GS and it runs iOS 5 fine, not to mention iOS 4, which it came with when I got it. The 3G was the same speed as the original (2G) iPhone, while the 3GS is much, much faster. It's true it doesn't have the power of the 4 or 4S, but on the other hand it only needs to push 1/4th the pixels, since it has no retina display, so in use it's comparable to a 4.
What nobody on this thread is mentioning is quantity. There are a lot (over 33 million as of March) of iPhone 3GS phones out there, because this thing has been on sale for three years. There are fewer iPad 1 or iPod Touch 3rd gen devices, both of which had short selling periods of a year or less, and are discontinued. So if you look at it in terms of Apple minimizing number of supported platforms while maximizing the number of supported units, it becomes clear that the 3GS has more weight than either the 3rd gen Touch or the iPad 1, both of which will have been discontinued for at least 18 months by the time iOS 6 is released.
Following this logic, I would not worry about iPad 2 support. It was also sold in large numbers and continues to be sold. Likewise the 4th gen Touch, which will have been sold for 24 months by the time it is retired.
Again, The original iPad runs OS 5 just fine. Aside from missing features it is virtually identical to the iPad 2. Granted RAM could be an issue, depending on what is planned for the 4th Gen iPad, but in the interim, I would not expect the original iPad to be left behind, yet. The lower res display and limited features mean that it won't run some apps or exploit some features, but for basic functionality i can't see them dumping it before the next product refresh next year. I expect iOS 6 to add some iCloud related features, which if supported by the iPad 2 should be supported by the 1st gen.
As for the 3GS, the fact that it's a GSM only phone, suggested as a negative by some does not consider that it is the perfect entry-level phone worldwide which is mostly GSM. It's already in mass production, and theoretically at this point thanks to scale is a huge profit center. I don't see them discontinuing it until key components are no longer available. Again, it runs iOS 5 just find, so no reason it shouldn't run iOS 6, at least in a basic way (adding at least some new iCloud functionality if nothing else). The positives of offering it to expand the user base far outway an arbitrary decision to not support it.
I also agree the 3GS is much more likely to continue as a free phone, with the 4 being eliminated altogether in favor of the 4S. The one possible exception to this is the 4 being offered as a free phone for Verizon ... In which case that could give Verizon an advantage over AT&T, and I'm or sure Apple would do that. On the other hand, perhaps Verizon is not a big enough customer compared to the rest of the world, to justify discontinuing the 3GS just to give them a free phone.
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
The 3GS, however, runs iOS 4 (and iOS 5 for that matter) just fine. Sure, it's not quite as snappy as a 4S, but even today performance is still pretty good.
He is. My 3G ran 4, but in the beginning, there was such a slowdown, that it was annoying, to say the least. It did get much better as the updates kept coming, in the end, it wasn't bad for most things, but others were still too slow, or jerky.
My daughter's 3GS worked fine with all versions of 4, and 5 as well.
Again, The original iPad runs OS 5 just fine. Aside from missing features it is virtually identical to the iPad 2. Granted RAM could be an issue, depending on what is planned for the 4th Gen iPad, but in the interim, I would not expect the original iPad to be left behind, yet. The lower res display and limited features mean that it won't run some apps or exploit some features, but for basic functionality i can't see them dumping it before the next product refresh next year. I expect iOS 6 to add some iCloud related features, which if supported by the iPad 2 should be supported by the 1st gen.
As for the 3GS, the fact that it's a GSM only phone, suggested as a negative by some does not consider that it is the perfect entry-level phone worldwide which is mostly GSM. It's already in mass production, and theoretically at this point thanks to scale is a huge profit center. I don't see them discontinuing it until key components are no longer available. Again, it runs iOS 5 just find, so no reason it shouldn't run iOS 6, at least in a basic way (adding at least some new iCloud functionality if nothing else). The positives of offering it to expand the user base far outway an arbitrary decision to not support it.
I also agree the 3GS is much more likely to continue as a free phone, with the 4 being eliminated altogether in favor of the 4S. The one possible exception to this is the 4 being offered as a free phone for Verizon ... In which case that could give Verizon an advantage over AT&T, and I'm or sure Apple would do that. On the other hand, perhaps Verizon is not a big enough customer compared to the rest of the world, to justify discontinuing the 3GS just to give them a free phone.
It does run it fine. I have all three, and can see the differences. I don't see a slowdown in the first because of 6.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by THEMAC1NT0SH
It seems weird to have three different iPhones but only one iPod Touch?
there could be a new iPod Touch in the wings that may match the up-coming new iPhone in screen dimensions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by asdasd
2) the 3GS will be around for a while
Apple seems to be supporting any product they are currently selling with iOS 6. Unfortunately for anyone except AT&T the 3GS only works on the AT&T network. However, it is saying something for Apple that a phone released in 2009 is still upgradable to the latest OS release. That's not something that Android phones can match.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
They don't have to support anything below the 4.0 models or anything that shipped with iOS 4.
It looks like they probably will however (because of the "uproar"), but personally I wish they wouldn't. Support of old devices, especially on such a rapidly evolving platform that's essentially in it's early days, is usually a mistake. Apple is being hobbled here by the very popularity of their products, it would be better for all concerned in the long run to cast off the 3rd generation devices.
I doubt Apple will "hobble" iOS 6 to accommodate the 3GS. It's more likely the 3CS won't be completely supported by iOS. However, Apple may be laying the groundwork to show that the iDevices are a better deal due to the extended hardware support compared to Android and others. It's just another way to "raise the bar" for the competitors to try and jump over.
Apple is distancing themselves from the "me too" companies in compelling ways.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tylerk36
Ios 5.1.1. iOS6? Seems like Apple is jumping the gun and jumping os versions rapidly. Why not iOS 5.5 instead of iOS6? Also why the jump in Safari versions. I am running the 5.2 beta. Why jump to Safari 6 when the 5.2 beta is not even main stream? Doesn't make sense.
Tune in Monday morning to see if the keynote reveals why it would make sense. We don't know what will be all announced yet, so given what you know today not making sense, I can understand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by photoeditor
Well, if the rumors are true, it makes me very comfortable about buying an iPhone and very uncomfortable about buying an iPad. The iPhone has the great virtue of being something that stays on the market for a long time, as it gradually migrates down the price points. Not so the iPad. In general I wish Apple would be more communicative about setting out some general parameters for roadmaps of their products. (For exhibit A on this, see "Mac Pro")
Rumors and truth are not compatible. The first incarnation of any Apple product is for the those who like to surf the cutting edge of technology, so lack of long term support for first gen hardware is no surprise to me. I don't see the iPad any less of a good buy than other Apple products. The product that might not be a good buy at this time is the iPod Touch; it may be replaced by the rumored 7" touch device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hypercommunist
Obviously Apple orphans systems to encourage upgrades, as well as to simplify their support burden. This is observably true in the many instances when an "unsupported" system update is enabled by hacks which just bypass the system ID check.
On the other hand, Apple is generally much better on this score than many of its competitors, e.g. the Android handset makers who orphan half their phones the day they're sold.
Apple may feel that not upgrading a device to the latest version gives the device owner a better user experience then upgrading would. Sometimes the right thing to do may not be as apparent as one thinks. I don't feel Apple has abandoned my with my 2006 MBP which is running 10.4.11 on 2Gb of RAM. Upgrading to Lion or Mountain Lion would give me a degraded experience in speed, while giving me the newer features (which I really don't need). I've used Mac OS for 28 years and often don't go for the latest releases for various reasons.
I do agree with you regarding Android where the hardware manufacturers have no financial reason to offer an option to upgrade the software on their recently released phones. Once the phone goes out the door, they are on to the next phone and last months hardware is old news.
The 3GS is still a great phone, I actually prefer it's design, over my 4S... It's more comfortable to hold and much more durable.
If it gets iOS6, it will remain popular for quite a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
It WON'T be a currently selling product when iOS 6 comes out.
You will be able to buy a 3GS like a week before iOS 6/iPhone 6th gen comes out.
So extending it's support for a year does make sense. When iOS 7 comes out, 3GS won't be on sale for a year, so it most likely will not get the update. iPhone 4 should as it'll replace 3GS' current position.
Usually Apple had 2 iPhones for sale, so you got two major updates(the OS that your phone ships with + 2), now Apple has 3 iPhone for sale at the same time and looks like they'll extend the updates to three years, which is amazing IMO!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
The 3GS is a piece of crap. Everyone complained about iOS 4 on it, for heaven's sake. Now they demand 6?
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
The 3GS, however, runs iOS 4 (and iOS 5 for that matter) just fine. Sure, it's not quite as snappy as a 4S, but even today performance is still pretty good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by superjunaid
I do believe that 3GS will get iOS6 support, but it won't be around after iPhone 6th generation launch as iPhone 4 will take its place as the free iPhone with a 2 year contract.
Perhaps... but the production cost of an iPhone 4/4S is still likely significantly higher than the 3GS, due to the retina display, more expensive casing, and additional cameras. If Apple want to continue having a very cheap iPhone for the pre-pay market and developing economies, the 3GS might be a good choice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by photoeditor
Well, if the rumors are true, it makes me very comfortable about buying an iPhone and very uncomfortable about buying an iPad. The iPhone has the great virtue of being something that stays on the market for a long time, as it gradually migrates down the price points. Not so the iPad. In general I wish Apple would be more communicative about setting out some general parameters for roadmaps of their products. (For exhibit A on this, see "Mac Pro")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Effect
Apple will never tell us anything. This is a good thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Why the hell wouldn't it be supported? Now the iPhone 3GS, sure I can see that being nixed but not the iPad.
The iPhone 3GS has the same GPU as the first-gen iPad but pushes fewer pixels, so it has better performance.
Quote:
Safari 6 should be the full debut of WebKit 2.
I'd like to see them throw in support for all HTML5 tags. And animated PNGs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Industrial
So extending it's support for a year does make sense. When iOS 7 comes out, 3GS won't be on sale for a year, so it most likely will not get the update.
Except it will, according to many here who think they'll actually drop the iPhone 4 instead and actually keep a four year old phone on sale, embarrassingly, everywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rennaisance
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
… Possibly. Maybe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rennaisance
Huh? Are you confusing the 3G with the 3GS? The 3G certainly ran iOS 4 like crap ... they should probably never have released iOS 4 for that device.
The 3GS, however, runs iOS 4 (and iOS 5 for that matter) just fine. Sure, it's not quite as snappy as a 4S, but even today performance is still pretty good.
Agreed. I have a 3GS and it runs iOS 5 fine, not to mention iOS 4, which it came with when I got it. The 3G was the same speed as the original (2G) iPhone, while the 3GS is much, much faster. It's true it doesn't have the power of the 4 or 4S, but on the other hand it only needs to push 1/4th the pixels, since it has no retina display, so in use it's comparable to a 4.
What nobody on this thread is mentioning is quantity. There are a lot (over 33 million as of March) of iPhone 3GS phones out there, because this thing has been on sale for three years. There are fewer iPad 1 or iPod Touch 3rd gen devices, both of which had short selling periods of a year or less, and are discontinued. So if you look at it in terms of Apple minimizing number of supported platforms while maximizing the number of supported units, it becomes clear that the 3GS has more weight than either the 3rd gen Touch or the iPad 1, both of which will have been discontinued for at least 18 months by the time iOS 6 is released.
Following this logic, I would not worry about iPad 2 support. It was also sold in large numbers and continues to be sold. Likewise the 4th gen Touch, which will have been sold for 24 months by the time it is retired.
As for the 3GS, the fact that it's a GSM only phone, suggested as a negative by some does not consider that it is the perfect entry-level phone worldwide which is mostly GSM. It's already in mass production, and theoretically at this point thanks to scale is a huge profit center. I don't see them discontinuing it until key components are no longer available. Again, it runs iOS 5 just find, so no reason it shouldn't run iOS 6, at least in a basic way (adding at least some new iCloud functionality if nothing else). The positives of offering it to expand the user base far outway an arbitrary decision to not support it.
I also agree the 3GS is much more likely to continue as a free phone, with the 4 being eliminated altogether in favor of the 4S. The one possible exception to this is the 4 being offered as a free phone for Verizon ... In which case that could give Verizon an advantage over AT&T, and I'm or sure Apple would do that. On the other hand, perhaps Verizon is not a big enough customer compared to the rest of the world, to justify discontinuing the 3GS just to give them a free phone.
He is. My 3G ran 4, but in the beginning, there was such a slowdown, that it was annoying, to say the least. It did get much better as the updates kept coming, in the end, it wasn't bad for most things, but others were still too slow, or jerky.
My daughter's 3GS worked fine with all versions of 4, and 5 as well.
It does run it fine. I have all three, and can see the differences. I don't see a slowdown in the first because of 6.