iOS 17 allegedly drops support for iPhone X, 8 Series

Apple’s WWDC 2023 is just two months away and speculations about the upcoming iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 dropping support for a few older Apple devices has been surfacing online.

A recent claim says that iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 will drop support for several Apple devices including:

• iPhone X
• iPhone 8/ 8 Plus
• iPad (5th-gen)
• 9.7-inch and 12.9 iPad Pro (1st-gen)

MacRumors reported that one theory relevant to this is the ‘unpatchable vulnerability’ from iPhone 4s to iPhone X models (with A5 to A11 chips) that could potentially cause permanent jailbreak.

Apple’s update policy usually takes five to seven years of software support.

In every new major iteration of operating systems (OS) like Android and iOS, it’s inevitable to see some older devices being excluded in the list of compatible devices.

We saw that on the iOS 16 last year that dropped support for iPhone 7/Plus, iPhone 6s/Plus, 1st-gen iPhone SE, and the 7th-gen iPod Touch.

Although, beyond the ceased support, Apple may still provide security patches.

Another thing to note is that Apple also restricts some features of a new OS release to its newer models. Such as the Live Text feature that was only compatible to iPhone XS/XR and later models. Which means that even if an older device is compatible with iOS 17/ iPadOS 17, it may not get all the features of the new OS.

Regardless, Apple may as well redo what they did for iOS 15 which supported the same devices as iOS 14.

We’ll surely know more details on the iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 in WWDC 2023 which is scheduled in June.