I found my old iPhone 3GS is a drawer in 2016. Not only did it still work fine, but it even connected to the App Store and you could still download games I’d had back in the day that werent on the phone, even though those games couldn’t run on any current iPhones. That’s a full seven years after I bought it.

Planned obsolescence my arse.

I have an Ipad mini (gsm model) and most of the apps are not working/updating anymore. E.g whatsup, facebook etc. I believe the "mail" app is not working anymore either. I guess the games(most of them) do not depend on the ios sdk so that could be a reason why they still work.

There are two types of compatibility. With the OS and with external network services that may have changed API. You won’t be able to run apps built for later os versions than you have on the device, but these just won’t show up in the App Store for you. Only older versions of the apps compatible with your os.

Things like Facebook and WhatsApp apps depend on the developer to keep the app compatible with their network API. I would expect mail to still work, depending on which service you use. Any custom hooks into GMail for example might fail if Google changes the back end interface.

The apps themselves should still ‘work’ as in run on the device just fine as they were built for that OS, it’s compatibility with external services that may have changed their APIs that is the main issue.

In practice Apple forces the developers to use only new APIs(available on new OS) while the device is not supporting new OS updates.

Submissions with the old APIs are no longer accepted so tell me, isn't that planned obosolence?

Basically I as a developer and owner of the device cannot update my own app, on my old device anymore because the OS does not support the new APIs and Apple does not allow me to submit updates with the old APIs or to upgrade the OS.

Your only choice is to not use Apple APIs that are changed often. In practice you can do that only on certain games or niche apps.

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=03042020b

>> Starting April 30, 2020, all iPhone apps submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 13 SDK or later.

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=12232019b

Why is Apple guilty of planned obsolescence when they support their devices sometimes 3x (5-6 years vs 2) what their competition (Android) is doing?

>> Why is Apple guilty of planned obsolescence

Because they do it for obvious reasons(i.e money)

>> when they support their devices sometimes 3x (5-6 years vs 2) what their competition (Android) is doing?

I guess they set a sensible lifespan considering the market they target(i.e high end)

Either way the result is the same: after a while you end up with a useless brick instead of an old/use-able computer.

Your contradicting yourself. How can they be supporting their devices for longer (much longer) than their competitors because their premium customers expect it, but also guilty of dropping support for the same products early to make more money? You’re not making any sense.

So you think it's all right to have your computer become a useless brick after 5 years because the other vendors makes it a brick after just 2 years?

It's also worth to note that at least on Android you can still side-load/install apps outside the play store while on Apple your device becomes totally useless/museum brick.

The number of competitors has little to do with planned obsolescence but

" Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly "

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

So our quibble is over “useless brick.” How does Apple dropping support for a device make it a “useless brick”? As far as I’m aware, you can still use an original iPhone from 2007 today. It won’t be fast, but it will work more or less.

Planned obsolescence is not related to advancements in technologies. Would you classify the Commodore 64 as having been designed with planned obsolescence in mind considering it ran on a 6502 when the competition at the time was transitioning to 8086? Of course not. So why is Apple deciding to put more advanced technologies into their devices planned obsolescence?

If you’re referencing the App Store, though, I can see where you’re coming from. But Apple releasing new technologies and not putting them on devices that can’t handle them (due to computing power) and developers using them (which prevents them from running on said old devices) is not planned obsolescence either. The developer chose to make it incompatible with the older devices, not Apple.

I'm not trying to use new tech on old devices. I just want to update the apps using "old tech"/sdk (which is the only one that works) but Apple store doesn't accept old tech/code regardless the device you try to target.

To answer your question:

today I can still deploy code on Commodore 64 but not on my old iPhone. How is that possible?

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=03042020b

>> Starting April 30, 2020, all iPhone apps submitted to the App Store must be built with the iOS 13 SDK or later.

The same can be said for old consoles, or old non-smartphones that were also computers, had browsers, even in some cases have CPUs more powerful than contemporary iPhones, but didn't have any way to install apps at all.

There's no law requiring vendors to provide features to install apps on devices with CPUs at all.

You probably own a dozen devices containing CPUs, running software, for which there is no practical way for you to install anything. Apple provides a certain set of features in their devices, if you don't think that's a good deal, there are other vendors you can go to.

In another comment I described how my iPhone 3GS was still usable, and would even still connect to the App Store seven years after I bought it.