I'm with you here. I think Apple should let you install whatever OS you want in the device after the support cycle ended. But that's not gonna happen any time soon. Until then, we jailbreak.
And what OS would that even be? I’m not aware of any others.
No OS exists because everyone knows it couldn't be installed in the current status quo. Why would anyone do the work of porting $OS to old iPads if they knew it was fruitless? How could they even do it?
Apple needs to step TF out of the way. They sold this hardware, they got their money. Move aside and let people use what they bought.
There's no reason Linux couldn't run on M1 iPads, aside from the fact the bootloader isn't unlockable like on macbooks.
There aren't because non-x86 computers are really poorly standardized. Most x86 PCs probably are capable of natively booting MS-DOS for an IBM 5170 PC/AT but iPhone 17,1 and iPhone 17,2 run completely different images. Efforts like PostmarketOS have no chances of success when literally everything is model subtype specific.
Apple should open their tablets after they stop supporting them.
Apple offers recycling service, so that’s an option.
Recycling is strictly worse than reuse, and that's even assuming apple does good recycling.
Re:What to Do with an Old iPad
by curvaturearth on Sunday September 07, 2025 @01:14AM
(#45155589)
The hardware could absolutely be made useful too. For example Apple could have a decent low bloat long term support OS that can be deployed on a device. Maybe it doesn't have all the bells and whistles but who cares, at least it would be usable. They won't do this though because it makes them no money.
I am in the same boat. I have two ipads, one is probably ipad mini 2 if I remember it correctly and another one is the first ipad pro. Ipad pro is still usable but not fully functional because I cannot upgrade the os and many apps dropped support for old os. Ipad mini on the other hand is totally unusable. I even think it’s in a better shape than the pro one. It feels snappy when navigating. But I cannot use it in any meaningful way.
I have an ipad mini - a wonderful piece of hardware that can do almost nothing useful now, as OP indicates. I would love to run my choice of OS on it and not landfill the device. Instead Apple controls it, like I never owned it. Not only do they control it, they decide when it's time for me to buy new hardware and force me to landfill this one.
Why do I need to "jailbreak" my own hardware? Why do we put up with this madness? There should be allowance for accessing my own hardware, especially 13 year old hardware abandoned by the vendor and locked for the user.