> If you have powerful computer from 2010, it'll happily run Windows 10 and almost any application, including almost any game in medium (or even high) mode. I wonder, whether this race on mobile platform will continue or iPhone 6S will be able to run iOS 15 without any lags?
I'm not sure the comparison to PCs is fair. Smartphones are still pretty young, and both the OS and chipsets make large leaps every year. If the pace of progress were as fast in the PC industry, you'd also expect a 5-year-old laptop to be unable to keep up.
I expect the pace of progress will slow down for smartphones. Consequently, the iPhone 6S will be usable for longer than the iPhone 4S.
A good precedent has already been set for this. The first iPhone got two major updates, iOS 4.0 being the first version that didn't support it. The 3GS added an extra year to the lifespan, launching with iOS 3.0 and only being left out of support for iOS 7. The 4S added even another year, recently having received the fourth major update of it's lifespan.
So yeah, while there is certainly some performance lost on a 4S running iOS 9, it's not nearly as bad as the original iPad running iOS 5, or the original iPhone running iOS 3. I imagine the 6S will easily be able to handle iOS XV.
Also noteworthy is that the only iPad not still receiving updates is the original model, meaning the iPad 2 has received the most major updates of any iOS device at five.
This is the dilemma I've run across over the past couple of years. Android devices have a much worse track record regarding official OS updates compared to iOS devices. But then on the flipside, when my iOS devices get older, I can't downgrade or install something more "lightweight" like I can with my Android stuff.
Maybe I'm just used to being able to repurpose old laptops and desktops with slimmed down Linux when they run current versions of Windows or OSX too slowly. All I know is that my original Nexus 7 (2012) is not getting the newest Android update while my iPad 2 (2011) is getting the latest iOS...
...but I want nothing more than to be able to put a third party ROM image on that old iPad or even downgrade it to an older iOS because while the Nexus 7 still works fine, the iPad running the latest iOS is practically unusable. Even reading books on it causes hangs and stutters. Task switching is miserable and trying to run more than one or two tabs in the browser is just masochistic.
I don't even care about jailbreaking or rooting or warranties or any of that. These things are both out of warranty and I own both so I accept the risks. But to this day, I still can't find any way to get something less demanding up and running on that iPad 2. I don't mind not having new features that require new hardware. I'd be happy with good performance and a simple set of apps (browser, email, calendar, e-reader, etc) as long as it didn't stutter and lag through it all.
If you are using an old version there are generally known security holes so while the snappier performance might be desirable I don't think it is a good trade off.
The iPad 2 is so slow on ios8 and newer that most people wouldn't actually want to upgrade, though [1]. Apple sold the iPad 2 until 2014 as a low-end model, so they can't really stop updates completely, but it isn't really usable.
I'm not sure the comparison to PCs is fair. Smartphones are still pretty young, and both the OS and chipsets make large leaps every year. If the pace of progress were as fast in the PC industry, you'd also expect a 5-year-old laptop to be unable to keep up.
I expect the pace of progress will slow down for smartphones. Consequently, the iPhone 6S will be usable for longer than the iPhone 4S.