iOS Devices That Are No Longer Supported (iOS13)

[loon3y]

Do we need to replace all non supported devices each time?


Ideally yes and most of the time we do, and we still do have devices that will support iOS 13 (iPad Air 2 & iPhone X) but its still fine to compile and test our apps on older apps on older iOS versions (it would be 12).


I usually replace them but its beginning to be a bit costly. I just bought 2 iPhone 6S for $240 for our dev team but I just realized they might not be supported coming iOS 14 (I usually gift them away once they're some what obsolete for development). Just wondering what everyone else does. Were a small tech business and the iOS department is complimentary to our main ERP software, so im just trying to be financially reasonable as possible since there are other expenses.


Also where's the cheapest to get refurbished iPads?

 

[casperes1996]

I'd say it depends heavily on the code. In some cases you can probably get away with almost exclusively using the simulator anyway.
Also if you build against the iOS 12 SDK, iOS 13 can still run it, and you're almost guaranteed same behaviour as an iOS 12 device. Eventually you'll probably want to upgrade, but you can stick it out a bit longer, and if your target is enterprise, I don't think they'll mind if you don't adopt the new system features immediately, like dark mode.

An entry level iPad is quite cheap, and you might even get the last gen entry level. Should last as long as the new one, since it's the same chip. Though the new one might've more RAM.
For testing on iPhone sized displays you may want to look into iPod touch. I forget when the latest Touch was made, but if memory serves it's with the iPhone 7 chip, and should be quite cheap.

I am just a one man developer for now, so I test with personal device, and have always been upgraded enough to run the latest, though sometimes just on the edge. If you have an iPad only and not an iPhone for the latest OS, you can also temporarily disable native iPad support and run the device in scaled mode on the iPad. Though I don't know if that necessarily works with all codebases. If you have code that is specific for iPad sizes or something, I'm not sure you can just untick the checkbox in Xcode without getting compiler errors.

 

[loon3y]

I'd say it depends heavily on the code. In some cases you can probably get away with almost exclusively using the simulator anyway.
Also if you build against the iOS 12 SDK, iOS 13 can still run it, and you're almost guaranteed same behaviour as an iOS 12 device. Eventually you'll probably want to upgrade, but you can stick it out a bit longer, and if your target is enterprise, I don't think they'll mind if you don't adopt the new system features immediately, like dark mode.

An entry level iPad is quite cheap, and you might even get the last gen entry level. Should last as long as the new one, since it's the same chip. Though the new one might've more RAM.
For testing on iPhone sized displays you may want to look into iPod touch. I forget when the latest Touch was made, but if memory serves it's with the iPhone 7 chip, and should be quite cheap.

I am just a one man developer for now, so I test with personal device, and have always been upgraded enough to run the latest, though sometimes just on the edge. If you have an iPad only and not an iPhone for the latest OS, you can also temporarily disable native iPad support and run the device in scaled mode on the iPad. Though I don't know if that necessarily works with all codebases. If you have code that is specific for iPad sizes or something, I'm not sure you can just untick the checkbox in Xcode without getting compiler errors.

Thanks for your reply! Yes since we have Linea pro device for the I Pod Touch I'll have to replace the current gen 6 with a gen 7.


Does the simulator now mimic the device's ram? Previously in my experience the simulator could not mimic thee ram limitations of the specific device.

So we had issues when we compiled on a physical device and we would crash. ( because would be downloading a high volume of data including images form a database).

I haven't used the simulator for this purpose since. Outside of quick reviews, but not for final/through testing.

 

[Elitegate]

Do we need to replace all non supported devices each time?


Ideally yes and most of the time we do, and we still do have devices that will support iOS 13 (iPad Air 2 & iPhone X) but its still fine to compile and test our apps on older apps on older iOS versions (it would be 12).


I usually replace them but its beginning to be a bit costly. I just bought 2 iPhone 6S for $240 for our dev team but I just realized they might not be supported coming iOS 14 (I usually gift them away once they're some what obsolete for development). Just wondering what everyone else does. Were a small tech business and the iOS department is complimentary to our main ERP software, so im just trying to be financially reasonable as possible since there are other expenses.


Also where's the cheapest to get refurbished iPads?

No. With every update there are many new features and many changes to the UI, and it takes time to get used to that. Maybe your device is slower after a major iOS update, because you know, newer software on older hardware.

I think that now unsupported devices like the iPhone 5s / 6 etc.. are fine on iOS 12.4.1. It's a very stable release, and the third-party Apps in the App Store do not require iOS 13 yet. That may change in a couple years. Since 2019, most apps currently require iOS 11.0, because they have been updated for 64-bit architecture and they dropped support for 32-bit.

There are still many users of A6(X)-powered iPads out there, like the iPad 4th gen or even older devices like the 2011 iPad 2 or 2012 iPad mini 1st gen. The 4th gen is from 2012. Yet many people use that iPad in 2019 and they now complain that they cannot install Apps anymore. I mean, there are some Apps out there, but all the popular Apps require iOS 11 by now. iOS 11 isn't supported by the iPad 4th gen. Even though the iPad 4 was therefore discontinued with iOS updates by July 2017, when the last iOS 10 update (10.3.3) was released, it was able to support Apps up until this year. (Not counting the 2019 released 10.3.4 hotfix for the cellular models, it's just a security hotfix.)

So even if your iPhone 6s doesn't get iOS 14, you can expect it to be usable for a couple more years.

For the refurbished iPads, if you are in the US, Apple has their own offering:

Certified Refurbished Products

We test and certify all Apple refurbished products and include a one-year warranty.

www.apple.com

Refurbished iPad Deals - Apple

Save up to 15% on a refurbished iPad at Apple Online Store with free delivery. All models are Apple-certified with a 1-year warranty.

www.apple.com

You can also check out Walmart or Best Buy.

Refurbished iPad in iPad - Walmart.com

Shop for Refurbished iPad in iPad. Buy products such as Restored iPad 6 128GB Silver WIFI (Refurbished) at Walmart and save.

www.walmart.com

Those iPads are really, really cheap, but they sell very old iPads and that's probably not worth it. Get atleast the iPad Air 2, which is from 2014, but it does run iPadOS / iOS 13, and therefore it's fine for a couple more years.

 

[casperes1996]

Does the simulator now mimic the device's ram? Previously in my experience the simulator could not mimic thee ram limitations of the specific device.

So we had issues when we compiled on a physical device and we would crash. ( because would be downloading a high volume of data including images form a database).

I haven't used the simulator for this purpose since. Outside of quick reviews, but not for final/through testing.

Not to my knowledge, but RAM has never been a limitation for my code. But you can see the RAM usage with the simulator, and it'll sort of warn you if you exceed device limits, though it can use as much as your Mac has I believe. But you can see RAM usage relative to device limit in Xcode when the Simulator runs.
But it does have Metal support now, so they may have enabled RAM limiting.