I was digging through my closet and found an ipad that was given to me years ago that's great shape, barely used.<p>iOS is running 9.3.5 but I'm finding it completely unusable. There are no apps on it other than stock.<p>For example, I want to download an app to use: `This version of iOS is unsupported`...ok, I'll just go to the website.<p>OAuth won't work with google on safari because `Couldn't sign you in, this browser or app may not be secure`<p>OK, let's update iOS...nope, can't be done<p>I've used a mac every day for the past 15 years but have almost never used an iPad, am I a luddite or is Apple really doing their darndest to get me to buy a new iPad?<p>How is this acceptable?
If the last supported version of iOS is 9.3.5, you have an iPad2 or an iPad 3th generation. Those came out a long time ago and had, depending on model, up to 100 months of support according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_and_iPadOS_devices#iPad" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_and_iPadOS_devices...</a><p>The device has outdated hardware. Many websites require more memory and cpu than it can provide. This is not (just) a case of Apple obsoleting your iPad, it just can't cope with modern apps and websites.<p>You said you've used a mac for 15 years. I bet it wasn't the same old mac all the time. A fifteen year old mac is also near useless on the modern web without investing in upgrades to the machine.
Jailbreak it and you can install compatible older apps via IPA packages:<p><a href="https://ios.cfw.guide/" rel="nofollow">https://ios.cfw.guide/</a><p><a href="https://cydia.akemi.ai/?page/net.angelxwind.appsyncunified" rel="nofollow">https://cydia.akemi.ai/?page/net.angelxwind.appsyncunified</a><p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/LegacyJailbreak/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/LegacyJailbreak/</a>
I have a first generation iPad from 2010 that still works. It's on iOS 4 or something. We use it permanently plugged in as a photo slideshow thingy, and play Jetpack Joyride and Peggle on it a few days a week.<p>I keep expecting it to just not turn on one day soon, but it's still chugging along happily. I plugged it into a laptop and updated the photos on it a few months ago, with the expectation that doing so would have a fair chance of killing it for good, but it handled that happily too and kept on truckin'.<p>After 12 years I think I've had pretty good value for money out of it!
Apple has always put the absolute least amount of memory in these tablets they could get away with, around ~half of competitors. They made up for it with very tight memory management optimizations.<p>That worked for a while, but the world has moved on to bloated websites and apps using up cheap memory. In short, with fixed-size soldered memory, obsolescence of these tablets was pre-determined at the outset.<p>Not much after our iPad 2 purchase, we needed to buy two MBPs around 2013. They also came with soldered RAM at that point. I made a special point to insist both be purchased with 16GB of RAM. A few people scoffed, salesperson said it wasn't necessary. Our late 2013 is still running well today. iPad abandoned five years ago, maybe more.<p>Even putting Linux on it like some recent posts mention is not worth it. Raspberry PI 4 has a lot more memory and oomph.
I use an iPad 4 with iOS 7 on it. Just for browsing websites, so apps and web apps are out of the question.<p>For blocking ads, I run an Alpine Linux VM with dnsmasq and a massive block list. This VM masquerades as a DNS server.<p>Last fall I had to install a Letsencrypt certificate to have more websites working.<p>Lately I've been experimenting with Squid (caching proxy) to enable SSL bumping to get Wikipedia to work (they use TLS 1.3 and Safari 7 doesn't understand it). The experiment was successful, but I don't like how Squid behaves in other respects.<p>So it is possible to squeeze some more life out of these devices, but they remain limited because of Apple tying the browser to the operating system.
> or is Apple really doing their darndest to get me to buy a new iPad?<p>It is.<p>> How is this acceptable?<p>It isn’t. You wil not only have to buy a new ipad, you’ll also sooner or later have to throw away your old one, despite it being in perfect shape.<p>Why? Because Apple and other companies in a similar position oppose to right-to-repair legislation and similar concepts, that would allow you to instead run some other os if apple didn’t want to provide further support.
Based on the max OS it looks like you must have a iPad mini (gen 1), iPad (gen 3), or iPad 2. All of those are 9-10 years old and got between 4-5 years of OS updates (unheard of at that time). Currently Apple is supporting iPads that are over 7 years old with the newest OS. You will not find a better option in the tablet space (or phone space for that matter).<p>It would be nice if Apple released one last security update for those iPads that included the newer root certificates so you could use the browser, or at least try since that version of Safari is old.<p>The bottom line is there isn't a company out there that supports hardware (of this class) that old. Linux or jailbreak are your best options if you want to keep using it for something but that hardware is pretty dated and I'd be surprised if you found a use (other than near-static display) that wasn't painful to use. Those early iPads weren't super powerful (as shown in how later iPads had a longer OS support window).<p>My iPad Mini 2 is just 1-2 years newer that what you have and I use it as a dedicated Paprika (recipe app) machine in my kitchen and it's so sluggish that I'll probably replace it in the next few years. Tech marches on and I find that most people that talk about wanting to use something like linux on an old device to be disingenuous, it's a painful experience to use hardware that old once you've used something newer. Even you seem to have not had a use for this for some years and now are angry that a piece of hardware you've not cared about for years doesn't do what you want?<p>> is Apple really doing their darndest to get me to buy a new iPad<p>The more I think about it, the only alternative would be linux. iOS developers have moved on and have no interest in supporting devices that old other than for maybe a hobby project. There isn't any money in it, it's painful to develop for, and the hardware is underpowered by today's standards.
I'm surprised that in 2022, the iPad is still a single user device. Android tablets at least allow for multiple users on a single device and iPadOS is capable of handling multiple users in special education mode. What gives, Apple?
You could try plugging it into your Mac and opening Finder/iTunes to update iOS (if there are any updates available.) It may also help if you were to post which model iPad it is and any actual troubleshooting you've done (check the date/time?) Anything stuck on 9.3.5 is 10+ years old, I wouldn't expect much to work anymore.<p>I mean yes Apple wants to sell more devices, but you neglected a quickly-evolving technology and fell behind far enough that you can't use it anymore. This happens to all Apple devices, it's not unique to the iPad. I can't boot up my iPod Touch running iOS 4 and buy music or download apps either.
Unfortunately root SSL certs have changed and your 10+ year old device isn't getting support/updates. Not all websites will be broken, but if you find it unusable, sell/donate it.
HTTPS unfortunately breaks compatibility with old software. Try to focus on its offline rather than online uses: ebooks, music (AAC/MP3), movies (H.264), photos.<p>Or, if you write, maybe it can serve as a distraction-free writing environment? Old iPads pair nicely with Apple’s iPad Keyboard Dock.<p>For other ideas and reflexions on old iPad uses: <a href="https://morrick.me/archives/8136" rel="nofollow">https://morrick.me/archives/8136</a>
I am having fits over something similar. I love my Blackberry Z10...even though I don't use it as a phone anymore. I don't want to give up the hardware because the keyboard is magic. At some point, these firms should just release their vendor locks and let people repurpose the hardware they bought. It's the ESG thing to do....why is that never discussed???
I've an old iPad with about 5gb worth of photos. It doesn't support airdrop. It won't sync to icloud for some reason. I've given up hope on every being able to extract my photos :(