Steve Jobs: Sorry, No OS 4 on Original iPhone
With the iPhone OS 4 update, Apple will quietly drop support for the first generation iPhone. This news comes, apparently, straight from the mouth (or keyboard) of Steve Jobs.
Before you start getting angry that Apple is “screwing its customers”, consider this. The first iPhone has been around for three years. Anyone who owns one is already out of contract, and could upgrade with no penalty other than the price of a new handset. Does it seem to you that these iPhone customers are interested in upgrading to the latest of everything?
The news comes by way of German Twitterer (and presumably iPhone 2G owner) ven000m aka Niko, the latest customer to receive and email reply from Jobs. Niko asked “Hey Steve! is Apple supporting/updating the iPhone 2G in the Future?”
Despite the wonky capitalizations, Steve did reply, in characteristically brief fashion: “Sorry, no.”
Dropping new OS releases for old hardware makes sense, especially with cellphones where the hardware upgrade cycle is so much shorter than that of a PC. People will always complain, but they are a vocal minority. It is likely impossible to run iPhone OS 4 on the first iPhone anyway. Even the iPhone 3G can only make use of some of the features due to having less RAM available to the OS than later models.
One more thing, if you still don’t believe that iPhone 2G users are stuck in the past. Look at the screenshot above, posted by ven000m. What the hell is that? Windows 95?
NO FUTURE SUPPORT FOR iPHONE 2G! [ven000m/Twitter via Mac Stories]
Source: Gadget Lab
