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And yet the 3GS is supported. I think I'm right in saying that almost no one would have worried too much if Apple had dropped the 3GS too. They would have under

by Watabou 14y ago

And yet the 3GS is supported. I think I'm right in saying that almost no one would have worried too much if Apple had dropped the 3GS too. They would have understood that the 3GS wouldn't be able to run the latest and greatest iOS. The fact that they are supporting the 3GS and not iPad 1 is surprising.

veyron 14y ago
The 3GS phones are still being sold. It would be a real surprise if it didn't support a product currently on the market ...
- sandipc 14y ago
  Agreed - the iPad 2 is also still being sold, so there's incentive to support that too (over the iPad 1).
- artmageddon 14y ago
  I currently have a 3GS and am planning on getting the new iPhone when it's released, and will give my 3GS to a family member when that times comes. I'm excited about the new features for iOS6, but I'm a little wary of the performance. Upgrading from iOS4 to iOS5 was quite nice, but it caused a large number of performance hits when it came to app loading and switching between apps. Even bringing up my Messages would cause delays in which I could count to "10-Mississippi" before finally being able to let me interact with it. I don't expect it to perform the same was at an iPhone 4(s)/(new one), but it does make me grit my teeth a little sometimes :)
JunkDNA 14y ago
The difference is that you can as of today get a 3GS free with contract. Don't underestimate Apple's desire to push competitors out of the low end of the smartphone market. Steve Jobs always said that the Mac went premium when they should have been going for market share and that Apple wouldn't make such a mistake again. Supporting the 3GS is critical for that. Especially when you consider global expansion. The iPad 1 does not have contract lock-in and is not actively being sold by Apple. Apple is not facing serious tablet competition right now so what incentive do they have to support the iPad 1? What are people going to do, throw out the iPad 1 for a Kindle Fire? Maybe if Windows 8 or Android get their act together, but right now, Apple is chasing demand and has little incentive to support old hardware when they can push you into the new one. This is why the tablet space needs some real competition.
- simonh 14y ago
  It's likely still a memory issue though rather than anything to do with the CPU. As with the 4th gen touch, it's smaller display on the 3G likely means it has enough memory for enough of iOS 6 features compared to the iPad 1.
  - objclxt 14y ago
    I think you're probably right - to give some context, the iPhone 3GS and iPad 1 have the same amount of RAM (256MB), but the iPad has to push roughly four times the amount of pixels as the 3GS.
- r00fus 14y ago
  > The iPad 1 does not have contract lock-in and is not actively being sold by Apple Bingo. Apple still sells new 3GS phones, so it would directly impact customers that may be buying their products today. This isn't the case with the iPad1. Apple rarely does things (solely) based on technical requirements or some architectural vision. It may be frustrating, but it is consistent - they are primarily customer focused, not specs-focused or vision-focused. Yes, there is attention to specs and an underlying vision of computing, but they are 2nd to the (paying) customers.
jsz0 14y ago
The iPad 1 has the same 256MB of RAM but it has to allocate more than double the amount of space towards VRAM than a 3GS. Also in general iPad applications have a larger memory footprint than iPhone applications. Those two factors combined pretty much doomed it. Most importantly Apple just decided to starve it of RAM. Very bad design choice.

by Watabou 14y ago

veyron 14y ago

The 3GS phones are still being sold. It would be a real surprise if it didn't support a product currently on the market ...

sandipc 14y ago
Agreed - the iPad 2 is also still being sold, so there's incentive to support that too (over the iPad 1).
artmageddon 14y ago
I currently have a 3GS and am planning on getting the new iPhone when it's released, and will give my 3GS to a family member when that times comes. I'm excited about the new features for iOS6, but I'm a little wary of the performance. Upgrading from iOS4 to iOS5 was quite nice, but it caused a large number of performance hits when it came to app loading and switching between apps. Even bringing up my Messages would cause delays in which I could count to "10-Mississippi" before finally being able to let me interact with it. I don't expect it to perform the same was at an iPhone 4(s)/(new one), but it does make me grit my teeth a little sometimes :)

JunkDNA 14y ago

The difference is that you can as of today get a 3GS free with contract. Don't underestimate Apple's desire to push competitors out of the low end of the smartphone market. Steve Jobs always said that the Mac went premium when they should have been going for market share and that Apple wouldn't make such a mistake again. Supporting the 3GS is critical for that. Especially when you consider global expansion. The iPad 1 does not have contract lock-in and is not actively being sold by Apple. Apple is not facing serious tablet competition right now so what incentive do they have to support the iPad 1? What are people going to do, throw out the iPad 1 for a Kindle Fire? Maybe if Windows 8 or Android get their act together, but right now, Apple is chasing demand and has little incentive to support old hardware when they can push you into the new one. This is why the tablet space needs some real competition.

simonh 14y ago
It's likely still a memory issue though rather than anything to do with the CPU. As with the 4th gen touch, it's smaller display on the 3G likely means it has enough memory for enough of iOS 6 features compared to the iPad 1.
- objclxt 14y ago
  I think you're probably right - to give some context, the iPhone 3GS and iPad 1 have the same amount of RAM (256MB), but the iPad has to push roughly four times the amount of pixels as the 3GS.
r00fus 14y ago
> The iPad 1 does not have contract lock-in and is not actively being sold by Apple Bingo. Apple still sells new 3GS phones, so it would directly impact customers that may be buying their products today. This isn't the case with the iPad1. Apple rarely does things (solely) based on technical requirements or some architectural vision. It may be frustrating, but it is consistent - they are primarily customer focused, not specs-focused or vision-focused. Yes, there is attention to specs and an underlying vision of computing, but they are 2nd to the (paying) customers.

jsz0 14y ago

The iPad 1 has the same 256MB of RAM but it has to allocate more than double the amount of space towards VRAM than a 3GS. Also in general iPad applications have a larger memory footprint than iPhone applications. Those two factors combined pretty much doomed it. Most importantly Apple just decided to starve it of RAM. Very bad design choice.