iOS 9 & OS X 10.11 to bring ‘quality’ focus, smaller apps, legacy iPhone/iPad support

[Graze]

Not a fan. If you're still on a 3+ year old iPhone, you're a peasant and don't deserve any of the glorious functionality of a new OS. Oh, I bet you think Vista should have ran on that PC you bought when XP first came out too...

LOL Troll hard.

But Vista did run well on my laptop that came with Windows XP in 2005. Windows 7 ran like it was built for my laptop that was released in 2008.

Um, vista didnt run well on ANYTHING!

Vista after the first service pack(I think) was a pretty good OS

 

[sweenish]

LOL Troll hard.

They're not wrong. Your old phone may say iOS 9, but it only has a sub-set of the features, usually missing the standout ones.

The best example was the iPhone 4 not getting Siri. I can guarantee hardware was not the reason.

At least when any other platform gets upgraded to a new version, they actually get upgraded to the new version. Don't know how people can keep gloating about Apple's update policies. The versions of "new" versions of iOS on the legacy devices are nothing more than glorified security patches. And there are some kudos to be had there. But older phones, even phones one year old, will not receive all the features of a new OS that they otherwise would have if anyone but Apple were pushing the update.

 

[RampantAndroid]

They're not wrong. Your old phone may say iOS 9, but it only has a sub-set of the features, usually missing the standout ones.

The best example was the iPhone 4 not getting Siri. I can guarantee hardware was not the reason.

At least when any other platform gets upgraded to a new version, they actually get upgraded to the new version. Don't know how people can keep gloating about Apple's update policies. The versions of "new" versions of iOS on the legacy devices are nothing more than glorified security patches. And there are some kudos to be had there. But older phones, even phones one year old, will not receive all the features of a new OS that they otherwise would have if anyone but Apple were pushing the update.

IIRC, jailbreaking brought Siri to the iPhone 4, and it WAS terrible. Apple has already said it didn't go to the 4 because of a lack of memory, I believe.

 

[Eug]

Actually Siri had been on the iPhone already (including the iPhone 4 or earlier), as a third party app. Then Apple bought and integrated it into iOS, and made the iPhone 4S the minimum.

There are some claims one technical reason for this is the iPhone 4S has better noise reduction hardware than the iPhone 4, but I suspect the main reason is marketing. It can't be memory because the 4 and 4S have the same amount of memory.

As for the usability of three year old iOS products, although the iPad mini is slow with iOS 8.3, the iPhone 5 is good with iOS 8.3. I suspect the iPhone 5 will remain good with iOS 9.

 

[Eug]

New iOS 9 info indicates there will be an iPad Pro, which would fit perfectly with the split-screen feature of iOS 9.

iPad Pro to feature 2732×2048 resolution according to iOS 9 code

Earlier today, a keyboard with much better support for the supposed iPad Pro, a device that has been rumored for some time now, was shown off thanks to the iOS 9 code. Steve Troughton Smith and Hiraku Wang now suggest that the iPad Pro will feature a resolution of 2732×2048, which at 12.9-inches, comes out to 263 pixels-per-inch.

It should be noted that the current iPad Air 2 has essentially the same pixel density, at 264 ppi.

The current iPad Air 2 is 197 x 148 mm. That is 7.76" x 5.83".
The diagonal measurements are 246.4 or 9.7", at 264.05 ppi.

A hypothetical iPad Pro at 2732×2048 would be 10.35" x 7.76", or 12.93", which fits that 12.9" rumour. That would also mean that each split screen half would be 2048x1366, for a decent 3:2 resolution.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Curious what the battery life is like on the older devices after 2 years?

Seems to be blind luck to some degree. My sons 2 year old ipad mini still has excellent battery life, whereas my 2 year old iphone 4s has a dead battery. Both are treated in a similar way

 

[Eug]

iOS 9 Public Beta 1 kills network support for both Infuse Pro 3.4 (latest) and vlc 2.3 (not the latest, but the version with the most support). Both apps crash when I try to access a network share.

 

[Excelsior]

I've considered downloading that update to test it on my Mini 1st gen, but that may be unwise.

 

[Eug]

I'm back on iOS 8.4 for my iPad Air 2. The current lack of Infuse compatibility with iOS 9 is a dealkiller for me.

But that's one of the benefits of beta versions of iOS. You can downgrade easily if it doesn't suit your needs. Honestly, if Infuse worked, I'd probably be OK on iOS 9.

Just make sure you do a proper backup (and archive) of your current iOS 8.4 install before you upgrade to iOS 9 beta. If iOS 9 beta works for you then great. If it doesn't, then you can manually restore to iOS 8.4. The IPSW files for it are available. Once you've restored to 8.4 (clean restore), you can then restore your original iPad mini 8.4 setup.

As for speed on the mini 1st gen... One of the claimed benefits of iOS 9 on A5-based iPads is that it's supposed to be faster than iOS 8. That said, I heard through the grapevine that iOS 9 developer beta 1 was horribly slow on everything. I don't know about iOS 9 developer beta 3 (which is I believe the same as public beta 1) in terms of speed, but in my case it's moot because Infuse doesn't work so I'm not going to bother updating my old iPad 2 (also A5 based) right now either.

OTOH, if you're still on iOS 7 on your 1st gen mini, I'd just stay there. iOS 7 is way faster than iOS 8.4 on the 1st gen mini and iPad 2. Furthmore, once you upgrade to iOS 9 public beta 1 on a 1st gen mini, you can't downgrade back to iOS 7. The earliest version you can downgrade to is iOS 8.4

 

[Excelsior]

Ironically, I was still on iOS 7 for the aforementioned reasons. So far iOS9 public beta 1 is a bit more laggy. Much more use will need to happen for me to form an opinion. I'll certainly be testing these claims of speed.