Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejedd
Sticking to an older iOS version helps with iPads and iPhones. New iOS versions are invariably optimized for newer hardware and often don't perform particularly well on 2 to 3-year old devices. The only sticking point is when apps are updated that require newer iOS versions. For some apps, it's perfectly fine not to be running the latest version. Some web-based apps (e.g. video streaming) however, would prevent you from viewing content if you're using an older version.
If you don't need to have the new-fangled features released every year and you don't have an issue with apps, an older iPad would work just fine. My grandmother and mother are perfectly happy with my cast-off iPad 2 and iPad 3, respectively. I expect both of them will be using those iPads until they can barely hold a charge. Heck, I have an Air but I actually don't have any complaints against performance of my iPad 4. In fact, I find the iPad 4 with iOS 6 to be much more stable than the iPad Air with iOS 7. Imho, performance starting with the iPad 4 (in terms of web page rendering, etc) is already at the point where it's fast enough that I wouldn't mind using it 4 years down the road (well, just 3 now since it was released last year). Granted, this is speaking as someone who is perfectly content with the performance of a 5-year old desktop (Core 2 Duo E8600). Tablets have been going through rapid changes because it was still fairly immature as a platform. I expect that might slow down a bit now.  |
I agree with much of what you've written here. My iPad 1 is still in service, dedicated to
being the innerds of a vintage TV. My wife is using my 2+ yr old iPad 2 and she's quite pleased with it. I continue to be impressed with my 64GB iPad 4 running 6.1.3... out of all the tablets I own, it is by far the fastest and smoothest and gets the best battery life (12-14 hours).
Having said that, I think that Apple has "jumped the shark" with the iPad Air and iOS 7. The Air has a 64 bit processor but still has 1GB RAM. That's causing some issues along with the overall instability of iOS 7.
I can't recommend the Air at this point in time. Maybe in 3 months or so when iOS 7.1.x addresses the issues, or the Air.1 is released with a bump in RAM.