I have an iPad 1. I barely used it when it was given to me and then it more or less sat unused apart from the occasional booting to see if it still works every few years.
I’m fairly sure it would still work today though I haven’t tried for about 3 years. Trouble is, it never got much use because when I got it from my Mum in 2012 it was already becoming obsolete and after about a year I couldn’t do basic web browsing because almost every site just crashed whatever browser I ran, none of the apps in the app store would work anymore and the bookshelf app (think that’s what it was called. Came with the tablet) I tried to use to make it basically an e-reader device stopped working. There were many similar issue I forget the specifics about but basically amounted to the hardware working fine but being mostly unusable even for old software.
I wondered if there were any good ways to make use of or generally rehabilitate this device. I had hoped there’d be a lot Linux options for something like this but it looks like the earliest model anyone made.any progress with was iPad 2.
Any suggestions besides picture frame?
I think a general purpose computer can have a longer life than a device like the iPad, as it allow you to more easily run old stuff and find solutions that work. That’s harder to do with locked down hardware, and an App Store that only has current versions of apps, along with internet connectivity where security is a concern.
A computer from the 80s can still write a document. George R R Martin still uses DOS.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27407502
The first iPad can still do stuff with apps it has, but if you need a new app, or that app connects to the internet in any way, it’s very possible you’re out of luck.
These are good points. But I wonder if the longer life really comes from it being a general purpose computer per se. The points you make are more about the internet connectivity of the device. You can use a DOS machine in 2023 because it’s almost like an appliance. It works just as well now as a text editor as in the 90s. But an internet connected device has to be supported, and good enough for today’s processor intensive web apps. That general purpose DOS machine, like the first iPad, is never running Discord or Netflix.
Because they are a soulless profit-maximizing corporation, there will come a time when Apple stops supporting perfectly functioning iPads for no reason, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. The iPads they stopped supporting really do suck from a hardware perspective.