So, iOS 6 will make its way to devices all the way back to the 3GS… But many key features are not available at all on the 3GS, and even the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 are seeing features held back. “Some features, like the VIP List for email, the Offline Reading List, and Shared Photo Stream won’t work on the iPhone 3GS. Even flagship iOS features like Flyover, turn-by-turn navigation, and FaceTime over cellular won’t work on recent devices like the iPhone 4 or the iPad 2 – not to mention the iPhone 3GS.” Pretty scummy and misleading.
How’s it scummy? It seemed most likely Apple wouldn’t even offer iOS 6 for the iPhone 3GS. So this was a pleasant surprise. This is pretty much the way Apple has handled every upgrade since at least iPhone OS 3.
(Especially when upgrades on other mobile platforms often don’t come to even brand new devices.)
The only notable major disappointment is the lack of support for the original iPad. I find that mystifying.
The iPad 1st gen has been discontinued, where as the iPhone 3gs is still being sold. So I guess it makes more business sense to keep supporting the 3gs, even though spec-wise, these two devices are about on par with each other.
Does anyone know if Siri is coming to iPad 2 or not?
Edited 2012-06-13 00:47 UTC
I have to second this, despite my feelings about Apple. I think the fact that they brought as much as they could to devices that are three generations out of date, while Android phones made in the past six months might never see ICS or greater via official channels, probably means a lot to Apple’s customers.
If I had decided to upgrade to the 3GS from my original iPhone, rather than jumping ship to BlackBerry back in the day (and later Android and WP7), I’d likely still have an iPhone and would be thrilled with this update. Instead I am stuck with an HTC Arrive that will never see another upgrade, though I do greatly enjoy the phone as-is. I also have a Motorola Admiral that will be forever saddled with 2.3 as far as official builds go, and that phone was released barely eight months ago! I can’t even resell it; right after I bought it Motorola announced that it was EOL for OS updates. Nobody wants a device that is locked into the past.
There’s an entire new PC range every year. That doesn’t make a three year old PC “three generations out of date”.
No complaint at you, but it’s curious how accepting of the mobile-phone-way-of-doing-things people are becoming.
What Apple are doing is plain-and-straight hardware obsolescence through software. It’s wrong and nobody should be giving them credit for it.
Fair enough. But again I say, as bad as the situation is regarding Apple hardware, it’s far worse for Android and Windows phones. And I’m far from an Apple apologist.
Bingo.
I complain about Android’s update mess, and I will also complain about this. Artificially limiting hardware through software to sell more newer devices is scummy, no matter who does it.
Okay, but what about true hardware obsolescence? You have to admit there comes a time when the hardware simply won’t handle new features. I think about my fiancée’s first gen iPad, which has gotten progressively slower with each update. At some point you have to put away the old hardware to maintain the same level of usability given current software.
For the same reason, I’m not trying to encode video with the Athlon XP sitting in the corner behind me; I’ve got a dual core Athlon 64 that does it nearly three times as fast.
Or to put it in more relative terms, my old Motorola Cliq may be able to install ICS (though I doubt it) but given how horribly CM7 ran on it, I wouldn’t even attempt it.
And I do get what you’re saying, it does suck that mobile hardware is obsoleted so soon, and often for profit reasons. But for once I feel Apple is actually doing something good here: They are supporting a device (the 3GS) that they have no reason to from a profit standpoint. Please tell me how this is a bad thing for those holding on to their 3GS phones?
Turn by turn navigation should be an application on top of an OS, not part of the OS itself.
Android does this correctly. A year or so ago Apple had to update iOS to be able to share photos directly to twitter or to facebook or something. This should have been an update to the photo application, not iOS… and they still hardcoded it so that the next social site would have to wait for an iOS update to be able to accept photos.
Again, android had this right from day one. You have an application that provides photos, and you have an application that accepts photos… Android facilitates them interfacing with each other. Its beautiful. The very first Android phone without any OS updates can take advantage of a camera application and a social application created tomorrow.
I’m upset about the state of Android and getting OS updates. ICS is awesome but being stuck on Gingerbread or Froyo doesn’t limit any of my applications in any way noticeable.
I agree with you to some extent. However…
That is simply untrue. My old Cliq with 1.6 was banned from running a lot of newer apps, with the Google Market claiming they were for 2.1 and higher. Once the official 2.1 update from Motorola rolled out, I was able to install and run most of those apps. Even so, some still refused to install for unknown reasons.
I’ve noticed that this is true for the most part; my Admiral on 2.3 can run just about anything in the market today except for apps that don’t like the odd 480×640 resolution. So I would say from 2.x on, your comment above is correct. But for 1.x phones it’s a completely different story.
That’s not really accurate? They are releasing partial* iOS6 for an old device which they still actively promote and sell to (dump on?) consumers.
By now, Apple could probably drop iPhone4 prices to the level of 3GS, and they would still turn a profit (but they get so much more mark-up from the obsolete hardware of 3GS…)
* it possibly took more effort to cut some of those things out, at least for part of them there doesn’t seem to be any technical reason for exclusion.
I don’t see you calling Android companies scummy, though. And keep in mind, that Apple couldn’t get away with offering untested upgrades for older hardware. They’d end up with a lawsuit. I think offering broader support for a fee would be nice, but people would probably complain about that too. There does have to be a cutoff point where companies quit worrying about bringing nifty new features to old devices for free.
Given that Apple’s policy is the best in the industry on this, I’d like to see the other guys called scummy and misleading before Apple is called that. Otherwise, it just looks like an anti-Apple rant. Giving a 3 year old device most of the benefits of a major new release for free seems like a pretty good deal. And those who just bought one bought it with it already clearly segmented as a device with fewer software features than the higher end models.
Now you tell me, how is that an “upgrade”? If the most prominent features are held back. By my standards that is an update.
PS: Especially when “other mobile platforms” have all or nothing approach, since version I will have all the features of version I regardless of the device it runs on. Here version 6 is version 6 with that feature or without.
Edited 2012-06-13 10:53 UTC
An upgrade doesn’t mean “every feature” is available, it means one is receiving something much larger than an “update.” iOS 6 brings many significant new features even to the 3GS. If only the features going to the 3GS were offered as the sum total of iOS 6, it will still be a really nice major release.
Considering that my 3GS was in use for longer than most people keep cell phones and it is still retired at this point, I just don’t see how people can complain about this unless they just like complaining.
There is a difference about me complaining about an update situation and me complaining about your definition of an upgrade.
That’s fairly unlikely… you close yourself in the perception bubble of your atypical place (for example, one of relatively few where Apple sees any notable adoption), so you might believe so.
But most mobiles are used more than 3 years (and are actually owned by their users, the prepaid-using 2/3rd(+) out of over 5 billion mobile subscribers in the world).
Anyway, Apple doesn’t really bring things in iOS6 which make it iOS6 – it’s mostly about maintaining compatibility of new SDK with a phone they still sell; plus the name, version PR.
They update it because they want to continue dumping the obsolete hardware of 3GS, which gives them exorbitant profit margins (instead of, say, dropping the price of 4 to the level of 3GS – which most likely would still be nicely profitable)
And it probably took more effort and testing to cut some of those features out – at least for part of them there doesn’t seem to be any good technical reason for exclusion.
(features which on Android are often brought by application updates, BTW)
I agree with tbutler – I bought a 3GS when they were first released, and I’m pretty stoked that I’ll be able to run iOS6 (albeit a subset). Not all features of iOS5 were available either. In both cases, Apple’s articles about iOS contained the usual tiny-print disclaimers that not all features would be supported on all models, so I don’t think it’s misleading. I’d rather have some iOS6 features than none at all.
Apple still sells the 3GS, and that’s a surprise – I can imagine that someone buying a 3GS new might be disappointed, but then again, what do you pay for when you plonk down the extra for a 4/4S?
The lack of support for the iPhone 4 is a bit more disturbing however – it’s hard to write that off as being due to processor/memory requirements.
On a side note, my Mid-2007 MacBook Pro is the oldest Mac able to run Mountain Lion. I’m feeling pretty lucky at the moment!
Edited 2012-06-13 00:45 UTC
The important thing about getting the update is that the 3GS will still be able to run all of the newest apps (expect 3D games).
Agreed. My iPhone 4 runs Infinity Blade just fine!
“Pretty scummy and misleading.”
I’m still waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich to come to my barely 2yr old HTC G2.
I had to install Cyanogenmod just to get it to 2.3.4 version of Gingerbread last year.
The 3GS is a year older and is still getting updates. I don’t consider that scummy at all.
You can blame your carrier for failing to support your HTC G2 with the latest Google updates. The carriers like to cripple…er…”enhance”, yeah, that’s it… Android by adding their own custom skins and patches. Then, when they’re ready to put out the new models, they abandon the older ones which forces people to purchase a newer phone. This is no different from what Apple is doing, only more devious in my opinion. I for one only purchase Google phones. Sure, they’re more expensive, but they’re unlocked and receive updates directly from Google. And there’s no bullshit carrier code, just pure unadulterated Android. I just replaced my aging Nexus One with the latest Galaxy Nexus which has the latest, pure ICS build. Even my Nexus One had the very latest and greatest Gingerbread build, no root required. The Nexus One wasn’t up to snuff to run ICS and lacked hardware for its more advanced features; otherwise I’m certain Google would have released the updates within days or weeks of releasing the final code.
Edited 2012-06-13 02:05 UTC
Bullshit. You can blame HTC for being spineless and caving in to every idiotic demand that a carrier makes. Apple does a lot of crappy things and they’re down right dirty in some of their business tactics, but I do applaud them for not allowing the carriers to dictate any control over the iPhone. Perhaps if other handset makers had a bit more spine, we wouldn’t have the ridiculously fragmented versions of Android that most people are forced to deal with which, in turn, leads to the inability of the handset makers to keep up with the latest Google updates. In the end, it doesn’t matter who is to blame, from an end-user perspective. They see iPhones getting operating system updates while they do not, and draw their conclusions from what they see happening. Playing the blame game is not the answer.
Spineless? You idiot. The carriers can kill any company when they want. Only Apple managed to get in a position of force, and that was a one-off, a perfect storm of new hardware, powerful marketing and ruthless negociating. The carriers got taken by surprise, and will make sure that does not happen a second time.
Edited 2012-06-13 06:20 UTC
Apple continues to make money of iPhone after they are sold, so they have a vested interest in not having carrier crapware on their phones and up-to-date phones so all the apps that are sold via the Apple app store work.
Other manufactures just want to sell you a new phone. And you can get one cheaper if you extend your contract, which carriers want. Keeping you up-to-date costs them money, it doesn’t make them any.
The money earned through App Store sales is high in absolute, in the billions, but it is still ridiculously low in relative, compared to everything else. £Check their financial reports.
Apple DOES have a MAJOR interest in selling you a new phone, that is why their updates are artificially crippled.
When something is in the billions it doesn’t matter if it’s low compared to something else, you’d like to keep it. You want as many as revenues as possible so you don’t become depended on one.
No doubt Apple omits certain features to entice you to buy a new phone, but they go much further in providing updates to older phones than any other manufacturer does. A number of phones never get an update at all.
If the 3GS was left out of the iOS 5 update a lot of people wouldn’t have been surprised. Even more people now are surprised that it is even getting iOS 6.
Ah, devolving into personal insults before even making your argument. How very… intelligent.
This only came about because the companies like HTC did not even attempt to put up a fight. Another poster already said it perfectly, their interest is in selling you a new phone asap. They don’t give a shit about you after that, so I wouldn’t have expected them to. However, the next company that puts out a new device with the wow factor, whichever company that might be, will be able to do the same sort of rough negotiating should they wish it. The carriers can’t “kill” any company they want, far from it. The upper hand goes to the company with the most drive and the best marketing. If enough users want something, the carriers can bitch and moan all they want but eventually will have to either offer it or suffer a customer drop and therefore a loss of proffit. Just ask T-mobile what happened to a lot of their US customers when the iPhone came out on AT&T. Look at Sprint, who eventually had to bank their entire future on an iPhone deal, since their service is so horrible on most areas. I’m not saying the iPhone is the best device, far from it. But it had the wow factor, still does for many, and the carriers eventually had to face that. Whichever company has the device with the most consumer demand will be in the best negotiating position should they wish to take advantage of it when the wow factor comes around for the next time. What, or who, that will be is something we can’t know at this point, but I’m hoping it’s someone with the spine to take advantage of their position and not allow the carriers to ruin an otherwise awesome device.
Technically its not like Apple to support 3 devices, but they did it.
Is it really, when only parts of the update are applied?
Apple boasting of their update rate in those conditions is pretty misleading.
You forgot the quotation marks around “updates”.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/12/psa-which-ios-6-features-can-my-…
Em…. With Android you get these “updates” without updates to the core OS.
I’m more fascinated by the misleading bit: you already know exactly what you will and will not get a few months before it is released. In what manner were you mislead?
Indeed, this gives the user a nice window to weigh their options. I don’t see a problem here.
this is surprising. I didnt understand the facetime thing in the first place. why the hell cant a 3GS do video chat over cell data? doesnt make any sense
Maybe because it doesn’t have a camera to do it with?
For clarity: it lacks a front-facing video camera.
and iphone 4? not a helpful answer.
I’m not sure on that one. But, you asked about the 3GS.
Companies distinguish different grades of products all the time, though, so it may be as simple as that Apple wants to reserve that for their $199 model and not their $99 model. Given that it is a free upgrade, I can’t complain much on that count.
IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION, AND WE DONT KNOW THE ANSWER
I thought a defining property of a rhetorical question was that the answer was known?
“We don’t know the answer’ is actually a valid answer.(At least in the scientific community)
you thought wrong. and even if you thought right, you’d still be wrong because the answer is known by people at apple.
3GS does have a camera which could work well in videocalls, on its back.
And before you shrug it off – some time ago I stumbled on research actually exploring, for once (vs PR), how people really use mobile videocalls. It turns out that, in mobile setting, a major function of videocalls (for how little they are used overall, after the first few “novelty calls”) is to show the other person your immediate surroundings, things at which you look – not yourself. Back camera is not only perfectly capable of that, it’s better for that.
I know of at least one mobile (Sony Ericsson G502) which, despite not having front-facing camera, does include 3G videocalling; presumably for the reasons above (and some other models that, while including front-facing camera, allow for toggling to the back camera as a video source).
Of course then we have companies which prefer to tell you what you really want to / how you should be doing things on / how you should be holding your phone…
I’ve got a iPhone4 and turn by turn seems to work. I just fired up maps and noted that 3D wasn’t there, but did see turn by turn was there.
I could be wrong, I’ll actually get in the car later and see if it works, but seems to be there.
Maps seems a little slow on my iPhone 4, but that could be due to beta software, not sure. Probably due to CPU not being up to it however 🙁
As far as scummy goes, I never expected iOS6 for the 4 to have the features the 4S gets and I certainly didn’t expect 3GS support any more, even though it’s still being sold.
I know Thom has Apple products etc., but sometimes I think he gets a little too anti-Apple. It’s nice for editors to have personalities and all that, but a little bit of non-biasness would be nice from time to time. I might be reading that wrong, and sorry if I am. Either way, without all the facts and so on, Scummy is a tad strong I would suggest.
I think if you go back and listen to Jobs and now Cook at All Things Digital, you get a better picture of what they are doing (a bit of reading between the lines), their beliefs and so on. Not saying Apple is beyond reproach, far from it, but they aren’t the evil some “want” to believe, at least, not from my point of view. MS isn’t either, nor Google, nor <insert most companies here>.
The quoted statement uses conjunctions poorly; look at the actual chart at the source link on MacRumors. The iPhone4 will get turn-by-turn navigation. It will not get the 3D Flyover feature.
Never mind: I guess both flyover and turn-by-turn will be missing from the 4. Presuming it is working now so a greater number of devs can prepare for it.
Gee, now I understand why throngs of sheeple…er, Apple fans run out and wait in line to buy the very latest Apple devices. I’m not an Apple user nor would I ever use an iPhone but from my review of the tech specs, I can’t see a big difference between an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 4S. The fact that many of iOS’s most succulent features are purposely kept from such a recent earlier iteration of Apple’s latest iPhone is telling. It’s a money making scheme, nothing more and Apple knows it. Apparently they’re the only one. Considering people fall for this scheme time and time again proves that P.T. Barnum was right all along.
Well hello, Mr. Obvious. Of course it’s a money making scheme. The primary purpose of a corporation is, *gasp*, to make money. Who would have ever thought?
Wait. Apple mantra is not to think different, to bring technology revolution power into end users hands and to make life better!?
The news headlines circa Jobs death were somehow misleading then, I guess.
[sarcasm]I agree. I’m pissed my original first gen iphone that I bought in 2007 isn’t supported.[/sarcasm]
Really, they have to draw the line somewhere. At least its better than nothing.
But hey, now you get dynamic reflection off brushed metal buttons!
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/13/3082329/ios-6-button-tilt-change-…
There, I said it.
The “missing” features don’t have much impact on most apps. iOS 5 on a 3GS is already missing stuff it does have on an iPhone 4/4S and it doesn’t seem that there is a massive outcry about this.
My wife has a 3GS and sadly she’s still happy with and encounters no problems due to missing features. I say sadly, because I want to give her my iPhone 4 and get an 4S myself, although now I can probably better wait for the iPhone 5.
On my first generation iPad I did encounter 2 apps that refused to install because I didn’t meet the hardware requirements, one being iMovie.
So it’s hardly a fragmentation crisis. I do think the 3GS might get the axe when the iPhone 5 arrives. It’s not like Apple to start supporting 4 generations of one device.
I came here to type exactly that..
How do you like them (fragmented) apples?
The use of the term “scummy” is trash talk designed to get page views, so I’ll discount that one. But the use of the term “misleading” would indicate that Apple has somehow lied about what would or not work on the various models of iPhones out in use. The very fact this information is available, and FROM Apple itself, even if it is in fine print at the bottom of some PR fluff release, discounts the use of that term. There is nothing unusual about not all the features of iOS 6 working on all models of iPhones at all. Each model has different capabilities based on its hardware, and the fact this information has been put out there by Apple is a good thing. And on a side note, as Tim Cook said on stage, only 7% of Android devices are using the latest version of Android, even though it was released at the same time as iOS 5. I would call THAT sad state of affairs scummy!
It’s not trash talk, it’s the truth. Like I said a few comments up: artificially limiting hardware through software just to sell more newer devices is scummy – no matter if Apple does it, if carriers do it, or if Microsoft does it. When carriers refuse to update perfectly capable devices to sell newer ones they are the scum of the earth, but when Apple does it it’s okay, understandable, and we should all be hush-hush about it?
Fcuk that. Seriously.
Misleading does not imply anybody lied. It means that you mislead people. And you can be entirely honest and truthful and still be misleading. Apple mentions a whole bunch of new features for iOS 6, while only one (I repeat: ONE) device actually gets all these features. All other devices Apple has shipped either don’t get it, or get butchered versions, for no other reason than to sell more newer devices. That’s scummy, that’s misleading.
That’s why Microsoft forces OEMs to properly state which version of Windows 7 a computer ships with. If Microsoft did what Apple is doing now – use one name for all versions of Windows 7, no matter how butchered the versions are – they would be vilified for it, and rightfully so. But when Apple does it, it’s all okay?
As for bringing Android into the discussion – Android’s upgrade system is a goddamn mess, but that doesn’t give Apple the right to be scummy and misleading.
Edited 2012-06-13 11:29 UTC
In defense of those 7%, they do actually get all of the features of 4.0, rather than a subset. Limitation are only in hardware. While, where is Siri on iPhone4? What is the technical reason for not having FaceTime over 3G on iPhone4?
Edited 2012-06-13 12:31 UTC
Is that really your argument? 7% with 100% is better than 90% with 75% or 60% with 85% of the features and actual OS compatibility because it is 100% of the feautures? Really?
Edited 2012-06-13 13:07 UTC
Did I say better?
It’s a different approach, comparable only when capable devices are not upgraded.
In testing, it was possible to install Siri on the 3GS, but she atarted swearing like a sailor, complaining about the cramped quarters.
Hey, what about that talk that only Android suffered from version fragmentation and that all iPhones always received all iOS versions and features and all that jazz?
Not supporting iPad 1 is a bad move. As an iPad 1 owner and iOS developer I’ll seriously consider switching to Android over this. Trying to forcefeed new hardware by making perfectly good hardware obsolete is showing that Apple has no technological integrity whatsoever. This is bad for both customers and developers.
For development I’m considering switching to 100% pure C++ and OpenGL 2 ES/Direct-X abstraction layer. Goodbye iOS. Goodbye Objective-C, and good riddance to that awful language.
And no, iPad 1 has not become slower with each update.
Are you sure? Every iPad 1 I’ve seen runs slower with iOS 5 than it did with iOS 3.2. I want my iPad updated to iOS 6 as much as the next guy, but on the other hand, if iOS 6 is “heavier” than iOS 5, it would be a miserable experience.
I’m not sure I’d change my skill set because my two and a half year old device was being EOL’ed. I’m guessing the iPad 2 will get upgrades for longer. Much as I think the original iPad was great, I think Apple’s push to make it much cheaper than everyone expected before hand may have caused it to become obsolete faster than would have been ideal.
Well, but it isn’t obsolete from a developer’s point of view. Most apps on the appstore runs fine on iPad 1. Many develeopers of iPhone apps still target iOS 4.x because many don’t upgrade and you want the largest target audience for your app.
Apple is trying to make it look obsolete. The main point of having an OS is to provide an abstraction of the hardware.
I basically see a few future directions here in a market that will fracture into several incompatible development targets:
1. HTML5 based apps that don’t care about your OS.
2. Cross platform tools like MoSync or pure C++ on a tiny abstraction layer.
3. New tech like Zynq 7000 with ARM9+FPGA on a single die could make room for completely new platforms with hardware emulation and thus make the current OSes less relevant.