I'd be rather miffed if I'd bought an iPad 3 around the time of release and thought, as us geeks often do, 'Well, we'll see what happens next year... I can always sell this one if it comes to it!'. By which I mean, 'Gotta justify this!'

I know two people in my office alone who aren't impressed (and they're not geeks), though another girl's sister who is about to get an iPad as a present said, 'it's really scummy, but I'll take advantage of it!' I think that was a conversation about the iPad at least

I'm afraid the situation is more complex than you might imagine. Take one example, a very popular iOS game called 'Cut The Rope'. I had that on my iPad. It worked fine on my iPad. Then the developers released an update and now the app requires iOS 6. I can't apply that update. That means I also can't get on the leaderboards & etc, because they all require you to have the latest version of the app.

Also, should I have to reset my iPad for some reason, I won't be able to download the app again, because Apple only make the latest version available for download.

So I can still run that app now. But it's functionality is reduced and it's a 'state of grace' until some event means I can't any more.

I'd agree that the fundamental functions of the device (web browsing, video watching etc) will always function but I suspect I will increasingly see apps that I currently use being updated with requirements I can no longer meet. In a somewhat short time, most new apps will require iOS 6, so I won't be able to buy any new apps - and all the old apps I can run that I want, I've pretty much already got. So even if I'm not actually denied access to the app store, I'm functionally denied access to the contents of the app store, which pretty much amounts to the same thing.

Here's the thing : my iPad is, in internal terms, more or less identical to the iPhone 3GS, which can and does run iOS 6. There is no hardware restriction in place. By limiting certain useful APIs to versions of the OS which is not provided for my iPad (iCloud syncing, for example) and by requiring certain things for certification of apps which my iPad does not have access to, they have effectively implemented a 'software controlled cut off' of my device. It still does have useful functions, but it's effectively cut off from the back end infrastructure that makes a 'smart device' smart.

I'm not going to upgrade it for several reasons, but I'm under no illusion that Apple have done anything other than cut iPad 1 owners adrift.

Before I buy anything techy I spend ages deciding how it will fit in my life. If it fits then I can get it, but then deciding on the version and that depends on price. I have not really looked closely at the new mini iPad but it might have a place in the kitchen or living room. The price difference is not enough to make me pick it over a full sized iPad.

Wired comments

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/ipad-3-owners-do-not-buy-the-ipad-4/

Can you not back-up the apps using iTunes or something?

iTunes backups only allow you to recover the whole device as far as I know. You might be able to backup the specific app file on whatever PC you sync with and replace any updated copy with that one but you'd have to do it each time the app got updated. Plus it shows up in the device's own update queue but won't actually apply the update, so the update marker never goes away. It's a right pain in the arse basically.
It's partly the app makers fault for updating an existing app to be incompatible with an iOS version it previously worked with but it doesn't change the fact Apple's app system doesn't deal with this situation at all, which is poor on their part.

I think you would have to avoid making any updates if the apps become iOS 6 dependant. When I reset my iPad I had all the OS and apps on my hard drive. So avoided the need to upgrade.

I am away from my Mac thud weekend, but I am sure you can reinstate apps from iTunes by dragging them to the device on one if the panes in the iOS device's settings.

It was also possible to install iMovie on an iPad 1 using Apple's iPhone admin software. Officially, iMovie was not supported on that iPad, but it seemed that the only thing that was blocking that was an artificial software limitation.

iOS 6 makes it much simpler to integrate Facebook and Twitter into an app. This will encourage devs to support this version, but it's not a barrier to supporting earlier apps. The app you are missing could well work in iOS5, but the devs made that choice.

I guess there will come a time when Apple decide that if your app goes into the store, it will have to support the latest hardware at the expense of older systems. As an example, if your new Mac App is to be accepted into the Apple App Store, it has to be sandboxed. That requires Mountain Lion, and that means making perfectly good Macs artificially obsolete.

Not.. Exactly. You can do that to move an app between pages on a 'docked' iPad but you can't drag & drop apps to install them unless they're already in iTunes. And in this case, the next time you start up itunes after that it will update its own version of the app and the time you sync the iPad after that it will attempt to update the app, decide its now incompatible and remove it.


Yep. However the next time you sync the iPad with iTunes it will spot the sync is out of sync (if you get what I mean) and do a full refresh, erasing the app. So you get to use the app, at the cost of never syncing the device again ever. If you can get everything through 'the cloud' then fine, but I (for example) still buy CDs and this solution would mean I couldn't rip them to the iPad.

Believe me, I've already tried pretty much all the usual and even unusual solutions. They all effectively break syncing in one way or another. Apple just haven't accounted for this possibility at all.


Indeed so, as I said the app vendor is also responsible. But Apple deserves some stick for not building a useable solution into the system for something that was bound to happen sooner or later.


Again, agreed. In this case, I think this may be down to support for retina iPads. However macs with lion are less reliant on the Mac app store than iDevices are on the iOS app store and iTunes syncing.

Amazon does a very visible dig at the ipad mini
clicky

I suppose everyone has a right to be snarky every once in a while (although they've done a pretty poor job of it to be honest), but surely the only differentiator between the Fire HD and the IPad Mini anyone is going to actually care about is the price?

Yes but there will always be the name and the app store. Apple still have other advantages. I will go and see one in the flesh before I buy one. The small size can be handy but since I have an iPad 2 all my apps would work on it.