It’s been almost 3 weeks since Apple introduced iOS 27 to the world at WWDC26, and it’s still safe to say: this is a great update. It works amazingly well, and aside from some minor tweaks and less battery drain, it feels more usable than iOS 26.5.<\/p>\n
While iOS 27 supports all devices running iOS 26, the same is not true for iPadOS. A number of older iPadOS 26 devices will not receive the iPadOS 27 update, which I think is a real shame – and Apple should mitigate this somehow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n iPadOS 27 drops support for all devices with the A12 or A12X chipset, including:<\/p>\n However, these devices are 6-8 years old and Apple has certainly provided a long period of software support for them – many people would agree that iPadOS 26 is not a good place to leave old devices.<\/p>\n I think there are two ways Apple can deal with this.<\/p>\n This would be the easiest solution to remove them all: just let iPadOS 26 users revert to a more efficient OS.<\/p>\n Currently, Apple releases old versions of its operating systems, so it is not possible to downgrade to the old firmware once the signing window has passed. Currently, Apple is only signing iOS 26.5 for most compatible devices.<\/p>\n This decision makes sense for security reasons, as Apple only wants you to be able to use a stable version of iOS. There is one loophole in this logic though: Apple is still rolling out security updates for iOS 18.<\/p>\n iPadOS 18.7.9 was released just over a month ago alongside iPadOS 26.5, and it brings many of the same security features to older iOS devices. Therefore, it is not like iPadOS 18.7.9 is an inherently insecure OS that is not suitable to run on A12 devices that do not support iPadOS 27.<\/p>\n I don’t think the everyday user would bother to downgrade their device, but at the same time I don’t see why it shouldn’t be an option for those who want to take it, at least as long as Apple is still releasing security updates for iOS 18.<\/p>\n This would be unprecedented, and I think it’s highly unlikely that Apple would choose to add support for devices they’ve already chosen to drop, despite public outcry. Although it is worth noting: it is not 100% unprecedented.<\/p>\n Back in 2022 with Stage Manager in iPadOS 16, many people in the Apple community were upset that Stage Manager required an iPad with an M1 chip or newer, which at the time was very few. Later in the beta cycle, Apple relented, and brought Stage Manager to the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pro models.<\/p>\n It was in a more limited form, as those iPads could not support external displays like the M1 models. However, Apple has relented on its device support requirements here.<\/p>\n Would Apple do that again? Only time will tell. I’d like to think there’s some engineering reason for not wanting to support these older devices, although from the outside, it’s hard to come up with the obvious.<\/p>\n Maybe full windows support doesn’t work very well with A12 GPU and 4GB of RAM. If that’s the case, I think users will be fine if the feature is limited a bit – if they swap their iPad overall it feels a lot smoother.<\/p>\n Where do you stand on this issue? Do you own an older A12 iPad that won’t support iPadOS 27? Sounded off in the comments.<\/p>\n My favorite Apple accessory recommendations:<\/strong><\/p>\n Follow Michael: X\/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram<\/em><\/p>\n \t\t\t FTC: We use auto affiliate links to earn income.<\/em> More.<\/p>\niPadOS 27 device support<\/h2>\n
Allow iPadOS 18 downgrade<\/h2>\n
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<\/figure>\nJust give them iPadOS 27<\/h2>\n
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