4 ms·

New Features in iOS 6 Receive Spotty Support from Older Devices

12 points by jrnkntl 14y ago

scorpion032 14y ago
* Coming to the iPhone 3GS.....iOS 6 Lite * Coming to the iPhone 4.....iOS 6 Basic Edition * Coming to the iPhone 4S.....iOS 6 * Coming to the iPhone 5.....iOS 6 Premium Edition
spobo 14y ago
Or just wait for the jailbreaked version of iOS6. I can't believe they omitted turn by turn on iPhone 4's. That's just ridiculous.
k-mcgrady 14y ago
Most of these features are restricted on older devices due to hardware requirements. Facetime over 3G is the only one I would imagine should work well on all devices.
- drewcrawford 14y ago
  Possibly an LTE vs 3G issue, or may be related to additional compression (CPU time or dedicated HW) required to fit FaceTime into a cellular connection
- NiekvdMaas 14y ago
  I'm surprised that turn-by-turn navigation won't work on the iPhone 4, I don't see how hardware requirements are the reason there. Same counts for the absence of Siri on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.
  - mjhall 14y ago
    I don't think the majority of the feature exclusivity is hardware, it's about differentiating the devices. iOS hardware seems to have hit a convergence point. Although the specs are different, the perceived difference due to the hardware is slight (if there even is one). That means Apple needs to do something else to encourage people to buy a more expensive device, software is now the discriminator instead of hardware. The iPad 1 corroborates this. It's got the CPU power of the iPhone 4 and the RAM of the 3GS, both of these devices get iOS 6, the iPad 1 does not. There's no apparent technical limitation, they're doing it to differentiate product lines.
    - unixbeard 14y ago
      iPad 1 has the same amount of RAM as the 3GS, but it has 5x the number of pixels to push.
buster 14y ago
This makes me wonder what people have to say about fragmentation now ;) To be clear, i don't think it's a problem, i only hate to see those "android (and symbian and windows and all others) are too fragmented!!!!1", when this is just the way it worked for many years. Of course you'll have fragmentation eventually. Only that the manufacturer with the smallest portfolio has it easier then many manufacturers with many more devices. Fragmentation was not seen as a major problem long before iOS or Android (on Symbian for example.. do you know how many different Symbian versions exist? Nobody cared and nobody complained).
- drewcrawford 14y ago
  None of these are developer features. I think the claim with iOS being "less fragmented" has to do with developers having a relatively solid set of APIs that they can call. There are a couple of APIs that degrade on older hardware but the number is small enough that a senior developer could write you a list in a job interview.
  - buster 14y ago
    Yes, my point just was, that this is one manufacturer with one operating system and a small set of devices. It's always compared with lots of manufacturers and lots of completely different devices. I don't see the problem. Of course, different hardware, different software, but it's so much more devices, it's not fair to compare. A fair comparison would be fragmentation on symbian devices vs fragmentation on android devices (for example).
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      The number of developers giving a damn about Symbian, compared to those who do Android and iOS is probably less by 4 or 5 orders of magnitude, that's why no one is talking about Symbian. We're not living in a dream world, many are trying to be realistic and compare the two most vibrant and important platforms because they have to make a call in their startups: Do I want to develop for iOS, or Android, or both, or first iOS and then Android. Most people on HN are developers and try not to be as stupid as average commenter on Engadget, falling into pointless, grad-scholl-link arguments about whose platform is cooler.
nicholassmith 14y ago
As someone who has an iPhone 4, and is locked in contract until next May, I'm a little annoyed some of the features aren't coming. As someone who has used Apple products for a while, I'm not overly surprised. Remember the MMS scandal when they decided that the original iPhone 'couldn't' handle it? Same thing, just more features. And no, this isn't fragmentation. What this is, annoyingly, is device boundaries. We've got to a point where Apple needs something to encourage users to move up to the next price point. Want turn by turn but thought you'd just get an iPhone 4? Come aboard the 4S train. We can all go 'well that's shitty of Apple', but businesses do actually need something to use as a demarcation between two phones that ostensibly the same thing. Still, where's my turn-by-turn and 3D mapping? I was looking forward to them.
- furyg3 14y ago
  I think your contract is the most interesting part of your comment. If the hardware can't handle it, then ok, that's a limitation. Artificial boundaries are a business reality in a world where the software is the phone, but Apple should consider people in two year contracts when they create these fake limitations. There are a lot of people who bought a 4S between it's launch (June 2010) and the 4S launch (October 2011). All of them are still stuck with that phone. Screwing them over with artificial boundaries is not very friendly... These people bought the latest and greatest at the time, they didn't skimp at the store and get the 4 instead of the 4S.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    I fail to see how only porting some _new_ features is screwing them over. The device will continue to do everything (+more) it did they day they bought it and signed the contract.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    "There are a lot of people who bought a 4 between it's launch (June 2010) and the 4S launch (October 2011). All of them are still stuck with that phone. Screwing them over with artificial boundaries is not very friendly..." I bought an iPhone 4 in july of 2010. It came with iOS 4, which had just been released. A year later, it received a free upgrade to iOS 5. This fall, iOS 6 comes out – the iPhone 4 will be able to run iOS 6 and it will be free for all users. That's 3 major releases over the lifetime of the phone, all for free. And for about a year after iOS 7 is released, Apple will provide updates to iOS 6. The new iPhone is likely to be released somewhere in the fall, at the same time as iOS 6. Last year's iPhone launch was on October 14. This means that if you bought an iPhone 4 between June and October 2010, your contract will be up before you can buy the new iPhone. And if you didn't buy your iPhone within 4 months of its release, you probably aren't someone who has to have the new iPhone on the first day when it's available anyways.
simonh 14y ago
Does this mean the New iPad has the fancy new Audience signal processor from the 4s to support Siri?
solutionyogi 14y ago
iPhone 4 is a very powerful device and I am really surprised that Apple would not push 'Map Upgrade' to them. I have tons of friends who own iPhones and few who own Android. The only single thing where iPhone lacks compared to Android is turn by turn navigation. My feeling is that there will be shit storm about this and Apple will change their stance. [None of my non techie friends care about any of these other features.]
0x0 14y ago
Usually not an Apple apologist, but... Even though there's probably no technical reason to prevent older devices from receiving these new features, I can't help but be quite surprised by the sense of entitlement everyone here puts on display. When you bought your old iPhone 3GS / 4, did you expect to be delivered Flyover, Turn-by-turn and Facetime over 3G after a year? Or are you just mad that after Apple spent $X million in R&D, you're not getting a free ride? The only thing that's quite annoying with iOS6 is the end-of-life'ing of the iPad 1. Which means that app developers can't move on to the latest and the greatest SDK without either doing a lot of testing and weak linking, or deciding to cut off old device owners. That kind of "fragmentation" is nothing compared to Android, though!

12 points by jrnkntl 14y ago

* Coming to the iPhone 3GS.....iOS 6 Lite * Coming to the iPhone 4.....iOS 6 Basic Edition * Coming to the iPhone 4S.....iOS 6 * Coming to the iPhone 5.....iOS 6 Premium Edition

spobo 14y ago

Or just wait for the jailbreaked version of iOS6. I can't believe they omitted turn by turn on iPhone 4's. That's just ridiculous.

k-mcgrady 14y ago

Most of these features are restricted on older devices due to hardware requirements. Facetime over 3G is the only one I would imagine should work well on all devices.

drewcrawford 14y ago
Possibly an LTE vs 3G issue, or may be related to additional compression (CPU time or dedicated HW) required to fit FaceTime into a cellular connection
NiekvdMaas 14y ago
I'm surprised that turn-by-turn navigation won't work on the iPhone 4, I don't see how hardware requirements are the reason there. Same counts for the absence of Siri on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.
- mjhall 14y ago
  I don't think the majority of the feature exclusivity is hardware, it's about differentiating the devices. iOS hardware seems to have hit a convergence point. Although the specs are different, the perceived difference due to the hardware is slight (if there even is one). That means Apple needs to do something else to encourage people to buy a more expensive device, software is now the discriminator instead of hardware. The iPad 1 corroborates this. It's got the CPU power of the iPhone 4 and the RAM of the 3GS, both of these devices get iOS 6, the iPad 1 does not. There's no apparent technical limitation, they're doing it to differentiate product lines.
  - unixbeard 14y ago
    iPad 1 has the same amount of RAM as the 3GS, but it has 5x the number of pixels to push.

buster 14y ago

This makes me wonder what people have to say about fragmentation now ;) To be clear, i don't think it's a problem, i only hate to see those "android (and symbian and windows and all others) are too fragmented!!!!1", when this is just the way it worked for many years. Of course you'll have fragmentation eventually. Only that the manufacturer with the smallest portfolio has it easier then many manufacturers with many more devices. Fragmentation was not seen as a major problem long before iOS or Android (on Symbian for example.. do you know how many different Symbian versions exist? Nobody cared and nobody complained).

drewcrawford 14y ago
None of these are developer features. I think the claim with iOS being "less fragmented" has to do with developers having a relatively solid set of APIs that they can call. There are a couple of APIs that degrade on older hardware but the number is small enough that a senior developer could write you a list in a job interview.
- buster 14y ago
  Yes, my point just was, that this is one manufacturer with one operating system and a small set of devices. It's always compared with lots of manufacturers and lots of completely different devices. I don't see the problem. Of course, different hardware, different software, but it's so much more devices, it's not fair to compare. A fair comparison would be fragmentation on symbian devices vs fragmentation on android devices (for example).
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    The number of developers giving a damn about Symbian, compared to those who do Android and iOS is probably less by 4 or 5 orders of magnitude, that's why no one is talking about Symbian. We're not living in a dream world, many are trying to be realistic and compare the two most vibrant and important platforms because they have to make a call in their startups: Do I want to develop for iOS, or Android, or both, or first iOS and then Android. Most people on HN are developers and try not to be as stupid as average commenter on Engadget, falling into pointless, grad-scholl-link arguments about whose platform is cooler.

nicholassmith 14y ago

As someone who has an iPhone 4, and is locked in contract until next May, I'm a little annoyed some of the features aren't coming. As someone who has used Apple products for a while, I'm not overly surprised. Remember the MMS scandal when they decided that the original iPhone 'couldn't' handle it? Same thing, just more features. And no, this isn't fragmentation. What this is, annoyingly, is device boundaries. We've got to a point where Apple needs something to encourage users to move up to the next price point. Want turn by turn but thought you'd just get an iPhone 4? Come aboard the 4S train. We can all go 'well that's shitty of Apple', but businesses do actually need something to use as a demarcation between two phones that ostensibly the same thing. Still, where's my turn-by-turn and 3D mapping? I was looking forward to them.

furyg3 14y ago
I think your contract is the most interesting part of your comment. If the hardware can't handle it, then ok, that's a limitation. Artificial boundaries are a business reality in a world where the software is the phone, but Apple should consider people in two year contracts when they create these fake limitations. There are a lot of people who bought a 4S between it's launch (June 2010) and the 4S launch (October 2011). All of them are still stuck with that phone. Screwing them over with artificial boundaries is not very friendly... These people bought the latest and greatest at the time, they didn't skimp at the store and get the 4 instead of the 4S.
- TylerE 14y ago
  I fail to see how only porting some _new_ features is screwing them over. The device will continue to do everything (+more) it did they day they bought it and signed the contract.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  "There are a lot of people who bought a 4 between it's launch (June 2010) and the 4S launch (October 2011). All of them are still stuck with that phone. Screwing them over with artificial boundaries is not very friendly..." I bought an iPhone 4 in july of 2010. It came with iOS 4, which had just been released. A year later, it received a free upgrade to iOS 5. This fall, iOS 6 comes out – the iPhone 4 will be able to run iOS 6 and it will be free for all users. That's 3 major releases over the lifetime of the phone, all for free. And for about a year after iOS 7 is released, Apple will provide updates to iOS 6. The new iPhone is likely to be released somewhere in the fall, at the same time as iOS 6. Last year's iPhone launch was on October 14. This means that if you bought an iPhone 4 between June and October 2010, your contract will be up before you can buy the new iPhone. And if you didn't buy your iPhone within 4 months of its release, you probably aren't someone who has to have the new iPhone on the first day when it's available anyways.

simonh 14y ago

Does this mean the New iPad has the fancy new Audience signal processor from the 4s to support Siri?

solutionyogi 14y ago

iPhone 4 is a very powerful device and I am really surprised that Apple would not push 'Map Upgrade' to them. I have tons of friends who own iPhones and few who own Android. The only single thing where iPhone lacks compared to Android is turn by turn navigation. My feeling is that there will be shit storm about this and Apple will change their stance. [None of my non techie friends care about any of these other features.]

0x0 14y ago

Usually not an Apple apologist, but... Even though there's probably no technical reason to prevent older devices from receiving these new features, I can't help but be quite surprised by the sense of entitlement everyone here puts on display. When you bought your old iPhone 3GS / 4, did you expect to be delivered Flyover, Turn-by-turn and Facetime over 3G after a year? Or are you just mad that after Apple spent $X million in R&D, you're not getting a free ride? The only thing that's quite annoying with iOS6 is the end-of-life'ing of the iPad 1. Which means that app developers can't move on to the latest and the greatest SDK without either doing a lot of testing and weak linking, or deciding to cut off old device owners. That kind of "fragmentation" is nothing compared to Android, though!