Apple restricts iOS 10 to iPhone 5, 4th-gen iPad or newer [u]

AppleInsider · June 13, 2016 7:50PM

Following a debut onstage at WWDC 2016, Apple seeded the first beta version of iOS 10 to developers on Monday with support limited to iPhones, iPads and iPod touch models powered by the company's A6 system-on-chip and better.

As noted at the bottom of Apple's iOS 10 preview website, the upcoming mobile operating system is compatible only with newer devices, leaving legacy models like the iPhone 4S and original iPad stuck with older iOS versions. Specifically, hardware powered by A6 chips the new minimum requirement set by iOS 10.

According to Apple, iOS 10 will run on:

iPhone

iPhone 6s & 6s Plus
iPhone 6 & 6 Plus
iPhone SE
iPhone 5s
iPhone 5c
iPhone 5

iPad

iPad Pro 12.9-inch
iPad Pro 9.7-inch
iPad Air 2
iPad Air
iPad 4th generation
iPad mini 4
iPad mini 3
iPad mini 2

iPod

iPod touch 6th generation

Unlike other platforms, Apple's iOS offers reasonably deep compatibility with older hardware. However, as the mobile OS bakes in advanced features its performance standard rises, meaning legacy devices will inevitably fall short. For iOS 10, Apple has set the cutoff at the A6 SoC.

The first iOS 10 beta was issued today, months ahead of public release this fall.

Update: Apple on Tuesday modified the iOS 10 compatibility list, raising hardware requirements to A6 SoCs and higher.

macxpress · June 13, 2016 8:00PM

I'm honestly surprised they keep supporting the iPad 2. As someone who supports hundreds of iPad 2 models, its getting to the point where its very slow, even with the latest version of iOS 9. If you stop supporting it, people might just buy a new iPad you know! I wouldn't be surprised if this is either a mistake, or it gets removed before the official release.

edited June 2016

mcsemeister · June 13, 2016 8:05PM

I just checked the apple keynote video. The screen states that the iPad 2 is not on board. iPad mini2 and up, iPod touch 6th gen, iPhone 5 and up and iPad 4th gen and up. regards.

visualseed · June 13, 2016 8:12PM

macxpress said:

I'm honestly surprised they keep supporting the iPad 2. As someone who supports hundreds of iPad 2 models, its getting to the point where its very slow, even with the latest version of iOS 9. If you stop supporting it, people might just buy a new iPad you know! I wouldn't be surprised if this is either a mistake, or it gets removed before the official release.

On one hand I agree, but so many of these have ended up in kiosks and point of sale installations that I would feel better if they got updated simply to insure security patches.

phone-ui-guy · June 13, 2016 8:16PM

mcsemeister said:

I just checked the apple keynote video. The screen states that the iPad 2 is not on board. iPad mini2 and up, iPod touch 6th gen, iPhone 5 and up and iPad 4th gen and up. regards.

They could have been specifically referring to the beta. It would be tuned more for release, so perhaps that is why the website indicates it is coming for iPad 2 and iPad mini.

rogifan_new · June 13, 2016 8:17PM

No A5 device, especially ones Apple isn't selling anymore, should get iOS 10. The user experience is bound to be crap.

redraider11 · June 13, 2016 8:23PM

rogifan_new said:

No A5 device, especially ones Apple isn't selling anymore, should get iOS 10. The user experience is bound to be crap.

I would go a step further and say only 64-bit devices should be supported. And this is coming from someone with a 32-bit iPad.

thewhitefalcon · June 13, 2016 8:41PM

rogifan_new said:

No A5 device, especially ones Apple isn't selling anymore, should get iOS 10. The user experience is bound to be crap.

So far iOS 10 feels as fast as 9 was on A7. There's some occasional animation lags (may still be indexing) but overall it's mostly the same.

melgross · June 13, 2016 8:43PM

iOS has been restricted to the iPad 2 for some time now. What's interesting is that they still are updating that old model, along with the first Mini.

wizard69 · June 13, 2016 8:44PM

macxpress said:

I'm honestly surprised they keep supporting the iPad 2. As someone who supports hundreds of iPad 2 models, its getting to the point where its very slow, even with the latest version of iOS 9. If you stop supporting it, people might just buy a new iPad you know! I wouldn't be surprised if this is either a mistake, or it gets removed before the official release.

As an iPad 3 owner I understand that some things are getting slower but on the flips side Apple has improved performance of parts of the system. In the end it is better that Apple let the user decide when something is way too slow making an upgrade mandatory. I do expect them to make a 32 bit/64 bit cutoff fairly soon. Obviously that didn't happen this year but the 32 bit hardware is getting long in the tooth. I wouldn't say performance would be the reason here, rather the simple reality of trying to support old hardware will set in.

melgross · June 13, 2016 8:45PM

mcsemeister said:

I just checked the apple keynote video. The screen states that the iPad 2 is not on board. iPad mini2 and up, iPod touch 6th gen, iPhone 5 and up and iPad 4th gen and up. regards.

The website, where they copied the info from, says it is.

melgross · June 13, 2016 8:46PM

rogifan_new said:

No A5 device, especially ones Apple isn't selling anymore, should get iOS 10. The user experience is bound to be crap.

The A5X is much better in performance.

wizard69 · June 13, 2016 8:48PM

VisualSeed said:

macxpress said:

I'm honestly surprised they keep supporting the iPad 2. As someone who supports hundreds of iPad 2 models, its getting to the point where its very slow, even with the latest version of iOS 9. If you stop supporting it, people might just buy a new iPad you know! I wouldn't be surprised if this is either a mistake, or it gets removed before the official release.

On one hand I agree, but so many of these have ended up in kiosks and point of sale installations that I would feel better if they got updated simply to insure security patches.

More importantly in many applications the performance of the iPad is fine even if it is an older model. If the machine sits there running the same app continuously performance likely won't be impacted greatly by an OS update. Many people just use their iPads as a single function device beyond the kiosk usage you mention.

iPads are literally everywhere, there is even a app that turns them into a time clock for large factories.

thewhitefalcon · June 13, 2016 8:58PM

melgross said:

rogifan_new said:

No A5 device, especially ones Apple isn't selling anymore, should get iOS 10. The user experience is bound to be crap.

The A5X is much better in performance.

It's not. The performance jump is consumed by the Retina Display.

mike1 · June 13, 2016 9:15PM

melgross said:

mcsemeister said:

I just checked the apple keynote video. The screen states that the iPad 2 is not on board. iPad mini2 and up, iPod touch 6th gen, iPhone 5 and up and iPad 4th gen and up. regards.

The website, where they copied the info from, says it is.

Whether it is or not, it's time to stop offering updates for iPad2. They were really slow starting with iOS8. Might even spur some upgrade sales now.

melgross · June 13, 2016 9:16PM

thewhitefalcon said:

melgross said:

The A5X is much better in performance.

It's not. The performance jump is consumed by the Retina Display.

Not true. Graphics isn't always using the power of the GPU. Mostly, the GPU just lounges around doing little. Apple uses the GPU for computation, and in that area, it makes a difference. Also, the ipad speeds up the SoC slightly for better performance, and so the A5X has that advantage as well.

eric_wvgg · June 13, 2016 9:26PM

It's totally true. The only A5X device is the first-retina-model iPad 3, and that thing is a dog, often benchmarks as slower than an iPad 2.

That aside, it's a real credit to Apple that so many devices are still upgradable to the latest OS versions. Those “Apple engages in planned obsolescence” types are out of their minds.

wood1208 · June 13, 2016 9:36PM

With IOS10, why not just support 64-bit hardware like iphone 5S and up. It's time to let go ancient iphone 4/4s/5/5C and move to either iphone SE if you like smaller iphone or iphone 6S or 7 if like larger.

edited June 2016

zoomigo · June 13, 2016 9:39PM

Based on my experience updating old devices, this tells me that ios9 is the last version to install on my wife's iPhone 5. It would be nice to still have a usable device at the end of its life.

melgross · June 13, 2016 9:44PM

Eric_WVGG said:

It's totally true. The only A5X device is the first-retina-model iPad 3, and that thing is a dog, often benchmarks as slower than an iPad 2.

That aside, it's a real credit to Apple that so many devices are still upgradable to the latest OS versions. Those “Apple engages in planned obsolescence” types are out of their minds.

I still have a 3 here, and while for some things, it's slower, usually concerning graphics, in other things it's slightly faster. It depends on whether what you're doing is graphics or computation oriented.

for example, if I make a 3D model in AutoCad 360, and run it on an iPad 2, which I can barely do, and run it on a 3, it computes the figure faster on the 3, but shows a slight speed up when rotating it on the 2. That's because Apple uses the GPU for computation, which adds to the speed. But when rotating it, the higher resolution of the figure slows it down somewhat, because the A5X's GPU isn't 100% equal to the higher resolution, so rotating it is slower. I'm not just guessing. I've done it.

wooloomooloo · June 13, 2016 10:11PM

melgross said:

Eric_WVGG said:

It's totally true. The only A5X device is the first-retina-model iPad 3, and that thing is a dog, often benchmarks as slower than an iPad 2.

That aside, it's a real credit to Apple that so many devices are still upgradable to the latest OS versions. Those “Apple engages in planned obsolescence” types are out of their minds.

I still have a 3 here, and while for some things, it's slower, usually concerning graphics, in other things it's slightly faster. It depends on whether what you're doing is graphics or computation oriented.

for example, if I make a 3D model in AutoCad 360, and run it on an iPad 2, which I can barely do, and run it on a 3, it computes the figure faster on the 3, but shows a slight speed up when rotating it on the 2. That's because Apple uses the GPU for computation, which adds to the speed. But when rotating it, the higher resolution of the figure slows it down somewhat, because the A5X's GPU isn't 100% equal to the higher resolution, so rotating it is slower. I'm not just guessing. I've done it.

I also have the iPad 3 (my wife as the iPad 2). The 3 is extremely slow, unless you disable almost everything (which I have). Once you're in an app, it generally works well if it's compatible (Safari aside) but switching between apps is very slow. The primary reason for that is the speed of the storage, so flushing things out of memory and reloading the new app takes a long time, because the I/O is very slow by today's standards (about 5% of the speed of an iPad Air 2). It's so bad in some cases that if you play a large movie (day 5 - 6GB is size) it will stutter in certain places as it moved from solid storage to RAM and then back to storage, especially if you have not downloaded it fully.

The biggest reason the performance is better than the iPad 2 is not because of the A5X, it's simply because it has 1GB of RAM rather than 512MBs which helps a little.

I'm really surprised they kept supporting the iPad 3, but the performance has been terrible since iOS8 so I'm not banking on it getting any better.

Apple restricts iOS 10 to iPhone 5, 4th-gen iPad or newer [u]

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