I made an appointment and brought my IPad 3 to genius bar to get the iPad battery replacement service. Although it’s classed as vintage product, it can still get replaced according to the Apple website. I’m told by the genius, “there’s nothing they can do since this product is discontinued.” So, basically we can just ignore whatever the Apple website says and toss the Apple vintage products?
Your 2012 iPad 3rd generation has not been supported by ANY major upgrades/uodates Apple in over 4 years and third party iOS app developers have, largely, dropped/endee/discontinued app support for all 8 and 9-year old iOS devices that are stuck with iOS 10, iOS 9 and earlier.
There are no more older, compatible apps, for initial download, from the iOS App Store any longer, making these old 8, 9 and 10-year old iPad models, pretty much obsolete and useless, now!
Since this iPad is basically completely unsupported now, you could try searching the Internet for a competent, third party Apple device repair center capable of replacing batteries in older Apple mobile devices.
Be aware, if this old iPad is already dead and has never been backed up to Apple iCloud or other online, offsite data storage/backup services, like Google Drive/DropBox, Box, Amazon Cloud services, Flickr (for photos/images amd videos ) or to iTunes on a Windows PC or older Mac or using the Finder on newer Macs with newer macOS versions, then everything on that iPad is already gone.
Sorry, this Pad is too old, now.
If you need/want a usable iPad with current iOS/iPadOS with current, updated apps, then you really need to forget about this very old iPad and need to seriously consider a new iPad model OR a much, MUCH “newer” , used iPad model capable of running the latest iPadOS versions.
There are plenty of newer, older iPad models that can run the current versions of iPadOS 14.
A lot has happened with iPad and iOS in almost 9-years since the 2012 iPad 3 was introduced.
Sorry & Best of Luck to You!
Your 2012 iPad 3rd generation has not been supported by ANY major upgrades/uodates Apple in over 4 years and third party iOS app developers have, largely, dropped/endee/discontinued app support for all 8 and 9-year old iOS devices that are stuck with iOS 10, iOS 9 and earlier.
There are no more older, compatible apps, for initial download, from the iOS App Store any longer, making these old 8, 9 and 10-year old iPad models, pretty much obsolete and useless, now!
Since this iPad is basically completely unsupported now, you could try searching the Internet for a competent, third party Apple device repair center capable of replacing batteries in older Apple mobile devices.
Be aware, if this old iPad is already dead and has never been backed up to Apple iCloud or other online, offsite data storage/backup services, like Google Drive/DropBox, Box, Amazon Cloud services, Flickr (for photos/images amd videos ) or to iTunes on a Windows PC or older Mac or using the Finder on newer Macs with newer macOS versions, then everything on that iPad is already gone.
Sorry, this Pad is too old, now.
If you need/want a usable iPad with current iOS/iPadOS with current, updated apps, then you really need to forget about this very old iPad and need to seriously consider a new iPad model OR a much, MUCH “newer” , used iPad model capable of running the latest iPadOS versions.
There are plenty of newer, older iPad models that can run the current versions of iPadOS 14.
A lot has happened with iPad and iOS in almost 9-years since the 2012 iPad 3 was introduced.
Sorry & Best of Luck to You!
If the store you took it to no longer has batteries in stock for that model, that's it. They can't do it.
Call AppleCare and arrange for mail in service if you can't find a local service provider with batteries in stock.
That model has been discontinued for 8 years.
Cannot get iPad battery replacement service
