Another no-win situation for Apple. The same set of low lifes would be seeking a class action suit if the same iDevices that are reported to be unusable with iOS 9 were excluded from upgrading to iOS 9. Frankly, I run the latest iOS 9 on an iPhone 4s, iPad 2, iPad Mini 1, and iPod 5 and it's perfectly usable and fully acceptable for all of my use cases.
I'd like to see some real instrumented measurements that quantify the reduction in consumed value that these plaintiffs are experiencing that justifies a class action lawsuit. Show us some real data. Then we can start to talk about quantifying the loss that they're supposedly experiencing with their outdated devices. Of course we'll now have to factor in and offset those "losses" against the increases in value that they're getting from vastly improved security, a bunch of totally new features, and improvements to existing features.
That's only one aspect of the upgrade cycle that these whinasaurs are neglecting to mention: iOS upgrades always bring additional value to existing devices. It's up to you as a consumer to weigh the cost-benefit of upgrading, knowing very well that some of the new and more advanced software features depend on hardware features and capabilities that older device simply cannot fully support at the same quality of service that the newest devices can. This tight interdependency between computing device hardware and software evolution has existed since the dawn of personal computers, and the iPhone and similar devices are simply the latest incarnation of personal computers. Was there ever an expectation that an older device with far less computing hardware capacity and capability than the latest generation of hardware will work with the latest software as well as the latest hardware does? If your answer is "yes" then you must believe that computer evolution has ceased.
Unless the judge in this case is a total Neanderthal or flat world believer this class action suit will be thrown in a dumpster and the plaintiffs invited to dive in as well.
I remember watching a guy Kawasaki speech once where he mentioned having to buy a new Mac about once every year because he personally felt it was slowing down and time to get a new one. He wasn't saying anything negative about the Mac, of course. He said it as an observation of fact, for him. I myself have been a Mac user since my 128K in 1984. I don't feel my experience has been quite as bad as Mr. Kawasaki's has apparently been, but I will agree that if you continue to update MacOS year by year, at some point your Mac will begin to feel slower and slower. And after about six years of doing that, performance can become quite painful. But the pain comes more swiftly and is perhaps more pronounced in the iOS world. I purchased my iPad 3 in 2012. Performance and responsiveness were acceptable through iOS 6. But from iOS 7, I began to experience lags and other performance slowdowns that were not resolved in iOS 8 or in iOS 9. In fact, iOS 8 and iOS 9 made performance slightly worse, despite the advertising. Unsurprisingly, I read similar experiences from others over and over again in the media.
It's a fact that Apple wants us to upgrade all of our Apple hardware as often as possible. But whether that translates into them willfully slowing down our devices or their simply not spending enough time to optimize their operating systems for "slightly older devices" is something that no one can definitively prove, except for genuine "Apple insiders." Maybe they can make performance better on slightly older devices (within the past 3 years or so) but choose not to because they feel it would be a waste of ther time. "Apple is never wrong" defenders would say "that's their right as a business" and "they have no ill intent," while folks at the opposite extreme sue Cupertno, claiming Apple is willfully defrauding people. The truth probably lies in between -- willful ignorance and apathy toward what Apple deems "aging hardware."
There many times I wish I had never upgraded my iPad3 past iOS 6. But the fact is that a lot of new apps require a minimum of iOS 7 to run. So either I have to, as a family man, take my family resources and buy a new iPad, or I avoid using a large number of apps which require iOS 7 or higher. I bought my daughter a refurbished iPod touch for Christmas last year that can only run up to iOS 6, and over the past year she has complained to me that she cannot install a lot of apps on it because she gets a message saying they require iOS 7 or higher. One could effectively argue that is not the responsibility of Apple, but it is a severe limitation and eye-opening reality to the end-user.
I personally feel that we ought to be able to keep the latest iOS on our Apple devices for at least three years after purchase without performance being noticeably degraded. This is something that I personally would like Apple to work very hard to guarantee.
Regardless, I am against lawsuits in pretty much any situation. I don't care if one has been defrauded and done wrong. Our litigious society has set me against most lawsuits of any kind, especially lawsuits against Apple which are, by far, more frivolous than others I've seen. It's time we turn the other cheek, and yes, that applies to corporations as well as individuals. America sues way too much. It's time to stop.
People are expecting far too much here. The average (non-Mac) computer lasts 3 years tops before it's an old slow piece of junk with outdated ports. It's pretty much always been that way except for the times when they last even less.
Of course Macs tend to be more useful for a longer period of time, but expecting any 4, 5, or 6 year old computer to be anything but a slow PoS (even if it takes the latest software) is an unjustified expectation.
As for your ideal world of three years of reasonable working conditions until a device becomes unusable, it's already here. Even a crap Windows laptop will generally last three years at the same or similar level of performance. I've never heard of a Mac ever, that wouldn't also qualify.
Its gotten quite bad now.. If only I would have known that they were going to bug me every single day to upgrade to latest iOS 9 update, then I would not have upgraded from iOS 8. Very annoying. No way to turn it off as far as I can tell. If iOS 10 comes out with this nagware, I won't upgrade. I am sick of the nagging and hopefully it will stop when they stop updating iOS 9.
I agree, but your complaint is not about performance, but about Apple's shitty move to put advertisements in all it's OS's lately. It's like the advert that pops up every single time you open the Music app asking you to upgrade to Apple Music or listen to "Beats 1" even though you've told it a hundred times already that you aren't interested.
Apple is all about adverts and intrusive, chatty promotions for it's own services now.
It reminds me of some other company beginning with "Mic ..." that I purposely abandoned when they started doing the same things in the 1990's. Trouble is there is no place to jump now. It's Apple's way or the highway.
My contact database stalls on search now. Is the only difference the 'upgrade'? I was happy prior, and didn't expect being search stalled when a term such as 'upgrade' is promoted. Would a caution or easy iOS revert option help? Does the annual upgrade cycle support developers more than users....?
Apple should just allow people to revert to earlier iOS versions.
This.
This is a great idea. Or at least revert the upgrade. That said, you should always have a backup on your Mac before you upgrade in case something like this happens.
If Apple really wanted to make "old" devices obsolete, it can just limit iOS9 to more recent devices and exclude iP4 devices entirely right? A user will realize that more and more software will not run on an older OS and they can either accept that, or upgrade to a more modern phone.
Of course, there will be those typical whiners then that will complain that Apple is then excluding old handsets from the newest OS, when it should be up the the user's "choice" to do it or not.
If Apple really wanted to make "old" devices obsolete, it can just limit iOS9 to more recent devices and exclude iP4 devices entirely right? A user will realize that more and more software will not run on an older OS and they can either accept that, or upgrade to a more modern phone.
Of course, there will be those typical whiners then that will complain that Apple is then excluding old handsets from the newest OS, when it should be up the the user's "choice" to do it or not.
Even if people weren't forced to upgrade, they had no way to know that it would be this slow, especially coming from a company that advertises a lot its attention to detail. In this case people were misguided or Apple pushed an update they shouldn't have pushed. All this doesn't justify the ridiculous amount that is asked though.
I know what risk I'm taking in holding onto old devices. Of course they will be slower with new OS'es. But I choose to take that risk and appreciate that Apple hasn't put them on the obsolete and unsupported list sooner than I'm ready to update them.
How about a class action suit against predator class action attorneys who take our options away with any excuse to claim some stupid person might be deceived?
As an iOS developer, I saw an increase in crashes due to memory pressure when people started installing iOS 9 on their second and third generation iPads, so it does seem that the new iOS version is more resource intensive to the point of creating problems on some supported devices.
I think it's natural to have a gray area where the new OS is not great but usable on older hardware. Where I think Apple could improve is to be more honest about this, instead of pushing users to thoughtlessly update to the latest iOS versions the day they are released. I don't know why the adoption rate of iOS versions is one of the metrics Apple is most proud of. Some users do understand that new iOS versions can create problems and that they should consider waiting and doing a little research first, but with Apple promoting exactly the opposite message, I bet these users are becoming more rare.
People are focusing on the software but what about the hardware? iPhone 6 and 6 Plus absolutely should have come with 2GB RAM. Same with the first iPad Air. How many of these devices run poorly because Apple has been stingy with RAM?
On a semi-related note, El Capitan is noticeably smoother than Yosemite on my 2011 MBP when it comes to graphic-intense things like activating Mission Control on my 30" Cinema Display and built-in screen with a dozen windows open. That used to look like a slide show, but is now smooth as butter — not bad for a machine pushing 5 years old now, probably thanks to Metal. Just saying.
El Capitan originally worked fine on my late-2008 MBP, but after the latest update to 10.11.2, I'm having all kinds of browser problems that I think may be related to memory issues and/or Flash compatibility.
Frankly, I don't blame these iPhone 4s users for being pissed. If an OS update is going to deteriorate performance on any given older device, Apple should simply recommend not downloading it or making it impossible to do so. If I could easily downgrade the Mac OS back to 10.11.1, I would.
I am worried that Apple will make newer versions of iOS available to fewer devices because of this lawsuit, and Apple has the advantage of supporting hardware longer than Android devices. However, iOS should be better optimized for older devices even if it means just security updates with no new features to keep older devices up to date. Also, it's downright shameful that even the 6s + has UI lag and stutter.
These people with the class action lawsuit really disgust me. These people should be privileged that iPhone 4S runs iOS 9. First off, I want them to show me another phone from 2011 that can run the latest firmware. 2nd, these people are complaing that they have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new phone because their iPhone 4S is too slow, well if you're running a smartphone from 2011, you should be ready to shell out hundreds of dollars for a new phone because common sense would tell you that the iPhone 4S is almost near the end of its lifespan. Anyways, these ungrateful people disgust me and I hope they lose terribly in court.
The average (non-Mac) computer lasts 3 years tops before it's an old slow piece of junk with outdated ports. It's pretty much always been that way except for the times when they last even less.
Of course Macs tend to be more useful for a longer period of time, but expecting any 4, 5, or 6 year old computer to be anything but a slow PoS (even if it takes the latest software) is an unjustified expectation.
As for your ideal world of three years of reasonable working conditions until a device becomes unusable, it's already here. Even a crap Windows laptop will generally last three years at the same or similar level of performance. I've never heard of a Mac ever, that wouldn't also qualify.
That's dubious and pretty self-contradictory to boot. The i5 750 Windows system I built in 2009 is still perfectly fine, and I expect my current three y/o i5 4670 system to last at least as long. I built the 4670 mainly because I wanted to retask the 750 as my gaming system, replacing a long in the tooth Core 2 Duo. I also appreciated the AES-NI for use with Truecrypt and now Bitlocker, along with my very occasional use of Intel QSV. Upgrading the gaming system to the 4670 is the only reason I can currently imagine for wanting to build yet another new system to use day-in, day-out, or since the current system is beyond adequate, maybe I would just build a new gaming system, as I don't really need more performance for my usual PC, which is something I've always sought when building a new main computer. That's a weird realization.
As for outdated ports, the 750 had an eSATA, while the 4670 has USB3. I now use a different HD dock, but it's not really an upgrade. In three years, I haven't found any other use for USB3.
Besides, isn't the main reason for declining PC sales the fact that most PCs made in the last six years or so remain good enough for almost all tasks?
Following this line of thought would make sense sue Samsung for failing to release Android updates. Or, maybe they should sue Google for failing to ensure that all smartphone makers are able to update Android in every device released.
Microsoft has been guilty of this for decades on the PC. Until recently new versions of Windows almost always needed new hardware to run properly. Is it frustrating? Yeah probably. But it is not the cause of financial damages.
But updates weren't automatically downloaded thus sitting there taking up precious space.
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I'd like to see some real instrumented measurements that quantify the reduction in consumed value that these plaintiffs are experiencing that justifies a class action lawsuit. Show us some real data. Then we can start to talk about quantifying the loss that they're supposedly experiencing with their outdated devices. Of course we'll now have to factor in and offset those "losses" against the increases in value that they're getting from vastly improved security, a bunch of totally new features, and improvements to existing features.
That's only one aspect of the upgrade cycle that these whinasaurs are neglecting to mention: iOS upgrades always bring additional value to existing devices. It's up to you as a consumer to weigh the cost-benefit of upgrading, knowing very well that some of the new and more advanced software features depend on hardware features and capabilities that older device simply cannot fully support at the same quality of service that the newest devices can. This tight interdependency between computing device hardware and software evolution has existed since the dawn of personal computers, and the iPhone and similar devices are simply the latest incarnation of personal computers. Was there ever an expectation that an older device with far less computing hardware capacity and capability than the latest generation of hardware will work with the latest software as well as the latest hardware does? If your answer is "yes" then you must believe that computer evolution has ceased.
Unless the judge in this case is a total Neanderthal or flat world believer this class action suit will be thrown in a dumpster and the plaintiffs invited to dive in as well.
People are expecting far too much here. The average (non-Mac) computer lasts 3 years tops before it's an old slow piece of junk with outdated ports. It's pretty much always been that way except for the times when they last even less.
Of course Macs tend to be more useful for a longer period of time, but expecting any 4, 5, or 6 year old computer to be anything but a slow PoS (even if it takes the latest software) is an unjustified expectation.
As for your ideal world of three years of reasonable working conditions until a device becomes unusable, it's already here. Even a crap Windows laptop will generally last three years at the same or similar level of performance. I've never heard of a Mac ever, that wouldn't also qualify.
I agree, but your complaint is not about performance, but about Apple's shitty move to put advertisements in all it's OS's lately.
It's like the advert that pops up every single time you open the Music app asking you to upgrade to Apple Music or listen to "Beats 1" even though you've told it a hundred times already that you aren't interested.
Apple is all about adverts and intrusive, chatty promotions for it's own services now.
It reminds me of some other company beginning with "Mic ..." that I purposely abandoned when they started doing the same things in the 1990's. Trouble is there is no place to jump now. It's Apple's way or the highway.
Am I missing something?
How about a class action suit against predator class action attorneys who take our options away with any excuse to claim some stupid person might be deceived?
I think it's natural to have a gray area where the new OS is not great but usable on older hardware. Where I think Apple could improve is to be more honest about this, instead of pushing users to thoughtlessly update to the latest iOS versions the day they are released. I don't know why the adoption rate of iOS versions is one of the metrics Apple is most proud of. Some users do understand that new iOS versions can create problems and that they should consider waiting and doing a little research first, but with Apple promoting exactly the opposite message, I bet these users are becoming more rare.
Frankly, I don't blame these iPhone 4s users for being pissed. If an OS update is going to deteriorate performance on any given older device, Apple should simply recommend not downloading it or making it impossible to do so. If I could easily downgrade the Mac OS back to 10.11.1, I would.
As for outdated ports, the 750 had an eSATA, while the 4670 has USB3. I now use a different HD dock, but it's not really an upgrade. In three years, I haven't found any other use for USB3.
Besides, isn't the main reason for declining PC sales the fact that most PCs made in the last six years or so remain good enough for almost all tasks?