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The iPod Touch Gen 7 lasted just under 3 years from release. They may be better than many others but I just got bit by that one.

mikepurvis 4y ago
That is unfortunate. Certainly the trend has been for them to lengthen the support window over time— see this article for a decent summary: https://www.macworld.com/article/675021/how-long-does-apple-support-iphones.html https://www.macworld.com/article/675021/how-long-does-apple-... I wonder if Apple views the "iPod" branding as being more associated with gaming and consumption and therefore less important from a security standpoint. I don't think I necessarily would agree with such a stance when the exact same hardware can carry sensitive stuff like a password manager, banking and medical apps, and so-on. But I imagine their telemetry showed that that overwhelmingly wasn't the case, so it was easy not to prioritize it.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  No, it's more that Apple has always released iPod with older chips, and in this case it also decided to discontinue that product line, which meant that they dropped software support for it relatively soon.
GeekyBear 4y ago
Every flagship iPhone since 2011 has gotten at least five years of both OS updates and security updates, with some newer devices (including the $399 iPhone SE) getting as many as seven years. Even after official support completely ends, Apple tends to go back and issue patches for active exploits. The nine year old iPhone 5s just got another security update a couple of months ago.
gcanyon 4y ago
This may be a special case: "With the release [of iOS 16], Apple dropped support for iPhone and iPod Touch models with A9 and A10 Fusion chips (the iPhone 6S/6S Plus, the 1st gen iPhone SE, the iPhone 7/7 Plus and the 7th gen iPod Touch) due to hardware limitations and Chinese government's border stringent in response of COVID-19 pandemic." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_16_/_iPadOS_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_16_/_i...
mlyle 4y ago
> The iPod Touch Gen 7 lasted just under 3 years from release. It was released May 2019, and it just received its latest security update (15.7.3) January 23, 2023. Presumably that is not the last security update for iOS 15.
- mikepurvis 4y ago
  That’s an important note— getting the latest iOS is nice, but Apple continues to patch the 3-4 most recent versions. I’m not aware that Android gets anything like this, even in the era of Google Play Services.

mikepurvis 4y ago

That is unfortunate. Certainly the trend has been for them to lengthen the support window over time— see this article for a decent summary: https://www.macworld.com/article/675021/how-long-does-apple-support-iphones.html https://www.macworld.com/article/675021/how-long-does-apple-... I wonder if Apple views the "iPod" branding as being more associated with gaming and consumption and therefore less important from a security standpoint. I don't think I necessarily would agree with such a stance when the exact same hardware can carry sensitive stuff like a password manager, banking and medical apps, and so-on. But I imagine their telemetry showed that that overwhelmingly wasn't the case, so it was easy not to prioritize it.

saagarjha 4y ago
No, it's more that Apple has always released iPod with older chips, and in this case it also decided to discontinue that product line, which meant that they dropped software support for it relatively soon.

GeekyBear 4y ago

Every flagship iPhone since 2011 has gotten at least five years of both OS updates and security updates, with some newer devices (including the $399 iPhone SE) getting as many as seven years. Even after official support completely ends, Apple tends to go back and issue patches for active exploits. The nine year old iPhone 5s just got another security update a couple of months ago.

gcanyon 4y ago

This may be a special case: "With the release [of iOS 16], Apple dropped support for iPhone and iPod Touch models with A9 and A10 Fusion chips (the iPhone 6S/6S Plus, the 1st gen iPhone SE, the iPhone 7/7 Plus and the 7th gen iPod Touch) due to hardware limitations and Chinese government's border stringent in response of COVID-19 pandemic." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_16_/_iPadOS_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_16_/_i...

mlyle 4y ago

> The iPod Touch Gen 7 lasted just under 3 years from release. It was released May 2019, and it just received its latest security update (15.7.3) January 23, 2023. Presumably that is not the last security update for iOS 15.

mikepurvis 4y ago
That’s an important note— getting the latest iOS is nice, but Apple continues to patch the 3-4 most recent versions. I’m not aware that Android gets anything like this, even in the era of Google Play Services.