iOS and iPadOS 26 will run on most things that support iOS and iPadOS 18

Not every device stays supported, but it's a fairly light year for casualties.

See full article...

 

[TimeWinder]

The iPhone XR and XS, on the other hand, use an Apple A12 chip, the same one used by several still-supported iPads. But being introduced

Part of that paragraph got cut off at the end.

Fixed

 

[UnnDunn]

My iPad mini 5 is hanging on by a thread. iPadOS 26 is probably the last one it will see. But if so, it looks to be quite a compelling version to be stuck with. New window system, huge improvements to Files, the Preview app from macOS, and the Journal app is finally coming, complete with Pencil support (I've been waiting for this since the Journal app first appeared like 3 years ago.)

 

[dennis.kext]

[I fail at internet, ignore me]

 

[starglider]

I don't understand why they're so secretive about when they stop providing patches for old OSes. It's fair that they do--it's unreasonable to expect support forever--but why not announce it? Or even offer some kind of staging: "Fully patched"; "Critical security patches only"; "No support."

 

[alcachofas]

Yeah they’re not secretive about which they support, just about when in future they’ll stop. And I imagine that’s just about not making promises you can’t keep.

I would like them to commit more firmly to X years after launch at a minimum though. Bit weird to have to guess how long your device is likely to have

 

[rhavenn]

I believe they are quite clear.

No, they don't say "iPhone XYZ will have X years of full support, and Y of security only, etc.. and then it's done." . They do support devices for a long time, but they really only stop supporting devices some minimum amount of time (5 years + 1 for security patches) + whatever they feel like which is still miles better than most OEMs of phones. They are very clear what products are dropped when a new OS is announced, but not when a product is released.

It seems more like they do a minimum + whenever certain features or "performance" just don't work anymore or they cross a threshold of "support calls" or some other nebulous threshold.

 

[N9IWP]

Whew -- just checked and my iPad is 8th generation.
Though being only one generation newer this may be the last big update I get.
Brian

 

[educated_foo]

The last of the sane-sized phones, a.k.a. the 13 Mini, is still going strong!

 

[NW]

I believe they are quite clear.

Apple literally does not say what phones are getting security patches or have known vulnerabilities if they’re not on the list, and we know they usually issue patches for some of them, but you think that’s quite clear. How can you possibly?

Also, it’s not very clear why some A12 devices are on the list and others not. Clear as mud.

 

[gabester]

The last of the sane-sized phones, a.k.a. the 13 Mini, is still going strong!

If we assume the iOS release cycle cuts off an iPhone generation every subsequent year then the last "mini" iPhone should be able to run iOS 28.

edit: hmm... just hit my 66th post? I suppose I shouldn't post any more until I've been a member 7 years.

 

[J.C. Helios]

Yeah they’re not secretive about which they support, just about when in future they’ll stop. And I imagine that’s just about not making promises you can’t keep.

I would like them to commit more firmly to X years after launch at a minimum though. Bit weird to have to guess how long your device is likely to have

Actually, the UK forced them to do this.

Apple will update iPhones for at least 5 years in rare public commitment​

https://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/202...dates-though-it-usually-releases-more-anyway/

 

[poenn]

The last of the sane-sized phones, a.k.a. the 13 Mini, is still going strong!

Reading this on my 13 Mini.

 

[fellow_traveler]

My 5th gen Mini is safe for now but I'm more delighted to see my iPhone 13 mini is, too. I only recently decided to try the iPhone and the 13 mini is just what I wanted/hoped for (and, yeah, I got a Watch SE, too). I ended up getting a 2nd line on my plan so I didn't have to give up my Sammy but I have my calls forwarded most of the time. Too bad it can't forward texts, too.

 

[Faceless Man]

So my "work" phone (my old iPhone 12 Pro that I've put a prepaid eSIM in) is still supported. If I'm lucky, they'll ban the use of personal devices for work before it drops out of support. (There's a whole security thing going on at work, which means maybe they'll have to issue me a work phone again. At least until someone decides it costs too much again, and they stop doing it.)

 

[Joe]

so my beloved iphone xs is no longer supported.

I didn't stick with it this long just because I love the form factor, its more the dislike of every iteration of hardware since maybe the 12.
they've all gotten bigger and heavier, with that "I wobble on a flat surface without a sold separately case" double hump camera element

I just hope those rumors about the skinny new phone hopefully with ok battery life is real.

 

[fellow human]

I dunno, on the one hand iPads tend to run higher clocks and sometimes cores so it's not too surprising, say, the 1st gen 11" IPP would be supported but not the XR. But on the other, the iPad changes seem like they'd need more power more than the iPhones.

I don't recall any features that would be supported on a pre-AI iPhone that would need any more power at all. Rendering glass effects? I really hope that's not it. A13 does have beefed up AMX but I dunno what uses it that would make it a requirement, and only for iPhone.

 

[saanaito]

We got one of my partners off of her XR just in time, it seems. She is happily running a (regular) 13, acquired from my brother for a song (the back glass is cracked, but it’s otherwise fine).

My other partner, however, is hanging on to an 11, and if I had to guess, we have one more year to save up. In this economy, that seems improbably hard, but we’ll keep an eye on the used market.

With apologies to the 13 mini users, I am still enjoying my 13 Pro Max. (I do pine for a smaller phone, though, and I’m kind of hoping that we can find a gently used 15 Pro for a good price so I can jump to USB-C and pass my 13PM to my other partner.)

 

[Batmanuel]

so my beloved iphone xs is no longer supported.

I didn't stick with it this long just because I love the form factor, its more the dislike of every iteration of hardware since maybe the 12.
they've all gotten bigger and heavier, with that "I wobble on a flat surface without a sold separately case" double hump camera element

I just hope those rumors about the skinny new phone hopefully with ok battery life is real.

The good news is that if they go for a Pixel style camera bar that goes all the way across, they might not wobble any more.

 

[Coolie]

The good news is that if they go for a Pixel style camera bar that goes all the way across, they might not wobble any more.

The camera lens itself and its frame, similar to those for the past few generations, may not be flush with the new ‘camera bar’, so there might be a bit of wobbling from that. Not as much as currently, granted, but…

[EDIT]Decided to look it up: with the caveat that they may not be accurate, iPhone 17 family design leaks suggest that all 17s will have the lenses sitting slightly higher than top of the lens frames, which themselves sit higher than the camera bumps.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/24/revealed-entire-iphone-17-lineups-camera-designs/

 

[Stinkoman]

My iPad mini 5 is hanging on by a thread. iPadOS 26 is probably the last one it will see.

I only got mine in Dec 2022, I'd be very disappointed if it didn't get next year's iPadOS (27) when it'd be less than four years old.

(edit: clarify version)

 

[Coolie]

If we assume the iOS release cycle cuts off an iPhone generation every subsequent year then the last "mini" iPhone should be able to run iOS 28.

edit: hmm... just hit my 66th post? I suppose I shouldn't post any more until I've been a member 7 years.

Yea, 13 series’ EOL should hopefully be no earlier than Q3 2028.

C’mon Apple, offer us a small-form-factor phone in the spirit of the OG 3.5”-screen iPhone, 20th Anniversary coming up soon! (I know, wishful thinking…)

 

[gnasher729]

So much e-waste created from obsolete phones and tablets. Apple should let people jailbreak old devices and run Linux or Android on them.

Both of them will be happy. Seriously, how many people do you think will take a five year old phone, jailbreak it (anything goes wrong you are on your own) and run a completely different operating system, which was never supported by the hardware?

Especially since it’s much easier to just keep on running the current OS, which doesn’t stop working?

 

[torp]

Especially since it’s much easier to just keep on running the current OS, which doesn’t stop working?

Apple tends to make it very hard for developers to target older unsupported OS versions. Which means your OS might "stop working" when you can't use the likes of Netflix any more.

 

[MagicVolcano]

What no one has the answer to though is millions (billions?) of vulnerable devices connected to the Internet no longer receiving any updates creating the botnet from hell.

 

[zogus]

Apple being scummy Apple once more - "The iPhone XR and XS, on the other hand, use an Apple A12 chip, the same one used by several still-supported iPads" absolutley no reason to not support XR still. If you want me to change my phone Apple give me carrots not sticks!

Well, it sure looks like the carrots Apple has been offering for the last seven years have not been working....

 

[hrpanjwani]

Buying the 2018 1st gen iPad Pro 11 inch has to be the best purchase I ever made.

Even better than getting HP Touchpad in the fire sale. (I bought 4 of these and gave 3 to friends/family)

 

[sword_9mm]

So looks like my SE2 is still supported.

I haven't updated to the last whatever it's trying to make me do.

Whatever.

 

[Teej]

The iPhone XR and XS, on the other hand, use an Apple A12 chip, the same one used by several still-supported iPads.

Memory.

 

[Little-Zen]

The last of the sane-sized phones, a.k.a. the 13 Mini, is still going strong!

Just last week I replaced two 12 minis and a 2nd gen SE, all with 16e(s). Over the last four years I've found I'm having a little harder time reading things on the mini's screen* and, for the most part, I like the 16e. But I have two big (pun intended) issues with it:

1) It feels huge in my pocket
2) I can't quite one-handed text anymore, it's a little too far to reach the opposite side of the screen from where I'm holding it

My wife has the same issues, with the added problem that, because women's pockets are usually smaller than men's pockets, she can't even fit her phone in some of hers now.

These are two huge usability fails to me. While the extra 7mm width doesn't sound like a lot, it's enough to make a noticeable difference.

But, the phones were free (as in "2 years of bill credits") and we were both at a point, 4 years on, where the battery life was really starting to suffer. "Free" was cheaper than battery replacements and less frustrating than playing the used iPhone lottery on ebay, so we decided to give it a try. Since it didn't require a trade-in, I may yet just spring for battery replacements and see how much longer they will go on.

I'm annoyed I didn't buy a few 13 minis when they were still available new and just... stick them in a drawer until the day when I needed them. Ultimately, I think my favorite thing about the 16e is, being a brand new device with basically top-end internals, there's a pretty good chance of these lasting long enough for the cycle to repeat and I can replace them when Apple decides to do an iPhone 21 mini and call it vintage-sized or whatever.

*which I didn't do frequently, specifically because it's a mini, but I did just often enough that I noticed and asked my ophthalmologist about it. She said I'm just getting old, which was both funny and not. Sigh.

 

[zogus]

Just last week I replaced two 12 minis and a 2nd gen SE, all with 16e(s). Over the last four years I've found I'm having a little harder time reading things on the mini's screen* and, for the most part, I like the 16e. But I have two big (pun intended) issues with it:

1) It feels huge in my pocket
2) I can't quite one-handed text anymore, it's a little too far to reach the opposite side of the screen from where I'm holding it

My wife has the same issues, with the added problem that, because women's pockets are usually smaller than men's pockets, she can't even fit her phone in some of hers now.

These are two huge usability fails to me. While the extra 7mm width doesn't sound like a lot, it's enough to make a noticeable difference.

But, the phones were free (as in "2 years of bill credits") and we were both at a point, 4 years on, where the battery life was really starting to suffer. "Free" was cheaper than battery replacements and less frustrating than playing the used iPhone lottery on ebay, so we decided to give it a try. Since it didn't require a trade-in, I may yet just spring for battery replacements and see how much longer they will go on.

I'm annoyed I didn't buy a few 13 minis when they were still available new and just... stick them in a drawer until the day when I needed them. Ultimately, I think my favorite thing about the 16e is, being a brand new device with basically top-end internals, there's a pretty good chance of these lasting long enough for the cycle to repeat and I can replace them when Apple decides to do an iPhone 21 mini and call it vintage-sized or whatever.

*which I didn't do frequently, specifically because it's a mini, but I did just often enough that I noticed and asked my ophthalmologist about it. She said I'm just getting old, which was both funny and not. Sigh.

If you really want to do everything with one hand, the move you need to internalize is swiping down at the bottom edge of the screen, which brings down the top half of the screen to the bottom half, allowing you to tap on the top elements without moving your thumb too far. Obviously this is useless for time-sensitive tasks like gaming, but for most productivity apps and browsing it's a passable alternative (I won't say great).

 

[Little-Zen]

If you really want to do everything with one hand, the move you need to internalize is swiping down at the bottom edge of the screen, which brings down the top half of the screen to the bottom half, allowing you to tap on the top elements without moving your thumb too far. Obviously this is useless for time-sensitive tasks like gaming, but for most productivity apps and browsing it's a passable alternative (I won't say great).

That is kind of useful, but I was talking about reaching across it for typing - like if I'm holding it in my right hand I can't quite reach the left edge of the keyboard without awkwardly stretching my hand and then losing my grip on the phone. I think one-handed texting is just not going to be a thing anymore.

 

[0/0]

So my "work" phone (my old iPhone 12 Pro that I've put a prepaid eSIM in) is still supported. If I'm lucky, they'll ban the use of personal devices for work before it drops out of support. (There's a whole security thing going on at work, which means maybe they'll have to issue me a work phone again. At least until someone decides it costs too much again, and they stop doing it.)

Years ago I had a ~2.5yo Android that was blocked from using our dual-factor at work as it hadn't had security updates in over a year. I didn't want to buy a new phone yet, especially if the reason was work. They offered to get me a YubiKey.

 

[Thomas Harte]

Reading this on my 13 Mini.

Me too, though it's a shame that Ars has declared war on our screen size:

Spoiler

Grumble, moan, etc.

 

[jaberg]

That is kind of useful, but I was talking about reaching across it for typing - like if I'm holding it in my right hand I can't quite reach the left edge of the keyboard without awkwardly stretching my hand and then losing my grip on the phone. I think one-handed texting is just not going to be a thing anymore.

Enable the One-Handed Keyboard in Settings > General > Keyboard This feature then becomes an option under the Globe icon selections.