I recently was able to get back my 4th gen iPad that I used for university and got excited to start using it again just for basic stuff like searching stuff on the browser, reading comics and such. However I quickly realized that I was unable to download anything from the AppStore as my iOS version is 10.3.4 and apps like Firefox request at least iOS 14. This wouldn’t be an issue if I still had the apps downloaded but it isn’t the case.
I was able to re download a few apps through the Purchased tab on the AppStore but some of them are not available anymore (ComicFlow for example). So yeah… What now?
I dug around a little and found this article from last year about running Linux on old iPads: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/06/developers-get-linux-up-and-running-on-old-ipad-air-2-hardware/
I don’t know the status of any of those projects, though.
Oh wow this is amazing
Just for the record, Project Sandcastle is essentially dead, and postmarketOS is finicky at best and unusable at worst. Not saying it’s a terrible idea, just that it’s still in its early stages.
Same here for my ipad mini
It’s planned obsolescence as I can still install (almost) whatever I want on an older Nexus 7 (it’s unusably slow by modern terms but if I really wanted…)
Similar situation but for me it was an old android tablet. Same issues, too slow and most apps are no longer compatible. What I did was convert it into an ebook reader. I just downloaded an epub reader app that was still compatible and use the tablet exclusively for reading novels. I imagine an iPad doesn’t have a lot of flexibility for modification, so you don’t really have a ton of options.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I would like to do. I know I can just give up and send it for recycling but I will try a little bit more.
I put an old iPad in a picture frame case and use it as a HomeKit hub and dakboard screen.
Stops you from upgrading to the new Home architecture though.
https://appledb.dev/device/iPad-(4th-generation).html
There’s a few jailbreaks available if you wanna play around with all that.
A couple of years ago I set up an old iPhone as a Spotify connect device (as in it sits in a speaker dock and I play music through it controlled by my phone). It was similarly unsupported but I found a not-too-hacky way of installing an older compatible version of the Spotify app via iTunes on a PC (which involved having to install iTunes and find an apple account). I imagine there are instructions both official and amateur available for you to follow, but hopefully you should still be able to install stuff on it. Just don’t do anything involving sensitive info as you’ll be out several years of security updates!
