Apple Stops Supporting Older iPads in iOs17, and That's Probably a Good Thing.

Apple will stop supporting earlier iPads with the next version of iOS for the iPad, iPadOS 17.

People always complain when Apple puts an old item out to pasture. Well, why not? Why shouldn’t I get all the cool new tools for free if everyone else does? People say that it must be a plot to get me to buy a new iPad. But even a little bit of study shows that this is not true.

Apple supports its goods for a long time, often much longer than its rivals. And sometimes it keeps old gadgets working for too long.

“Apple has a good reputation for offering support for older hardware for longer than many other computer companies. Kyle MacDonald, VP of mobile device deployment company Mojio, told Lifewire via email that Apple often supports their devices with software updates for several years after they come out.

This can be very helpful for users who want to keep their devices up to date with the latest features and security patches. “However, it doesn’t surprise me that they decided to stop serving some older iPads with iOS 17. In general, most computer companies stop making software updates for their older hardware when the machines are no longer able to run newer software.

A9 and A9x Chips Can’t Keep Up

The French Apple news site iPhoneSoft says that iPads with A9 or A9X chipsets will not be able to run iOS 17. This is the 5th generation iPad and the first iPad Pro, both of which came out in 2015.

If you own an iPad that already runs iPadOS 16, but it’s not one of those two, it will also run iPadOS 17, which, if it follows the usual pattern, will be mentioned at WWDC in June and come out this fall.

This means that even the 2017 iPad Pro, which is pretty old, can still run iOS 17. We’re starting to notice that Apple keeps updating even gadgets that are pretty old by mobile computer standards. Even though it’s 2023, you can still run the latest iPadOS on a tablet from 2015. That is about 8 years.

Getting this kind of help can make a computer last longer. For example, many apps only work with the most recent versions of iOS. Partly because it’s more work to test software updates on all those extra devices and OS versions, and partly because each new iOS update adds new features and app makers love adding new features.

“Apple is known for providing software patches for its devices for a longer time than most other computer companies. But even Apple has to stop supporting older devices at some point because of how technology works.

“The longer support for older devices may make the user experience better for those devices, but it also means that new technologies and features will take longer to spread to newer devices,” said iOS app creator Tyler Browning in an email to Lifewire.

But you can’t keep helping out old gadgets forever. In fact, Apple has sometimes updated iPads when they should have been left alone.

A Dignified Death for Older iPads

I wish I hadn’t put iOS 9 on my old iPad mini from the first version. This model came out in 2012 with iOS 6 already on it. It was a great little gadget that was just as quick and responsive as any iPad or iPhone at the time. But in 2015, iOS 9 came out and made that iPad mini useless and hard to use.

The software was clearly too much for the hardware to handle, which caused slowdowns everywhere. Actually, that’s not true. Calling them “slowdowns” makes it sound like the iPad sometimes runs quickly or normally, which it does not. It’s fine once you have an app open. The rest of it, like switching apps and opening settings screens, is painfully slow.

Everything would have been fine if I had just kept using iOS 8. Still, people must have been upset when Apple finally stopped supporting this iPad the next year.

As you can see, a lot has changed for the better. When I got my old iPad mini in early 2013, it only lasted until the fall of 2015, which is just over two years. And people bought the mini until June 2015.

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