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My wife and I both have iPads, however, she has a very old iPad (iPad 2). We are in an Apple family together and recently purchased a book that we want to share on both iPads. However, on the iPad 2, there does not seem to be a way to download the book from purchases like how new phones/iPads have. The iPad software is up to date.
Is there a way to download purchased content on an old iPad 2 with an Apple family subscription?
Thanks for the reply! I think you are right about what software Apple supports and the “lucky if it works” idea. Just wanted to say I did find a workaround - I remembered all those years ago when iPods and iPads had to be plugged in to computers to load things onto them, so I tried that. After a lot of fiddling I was able to sync books onto the iPad 2! So I first used the computer to download books through family sharing and then synced them to the iPad. A bit of a pain, but it works!
Thanks for the reply! I think you are right about what software Apple supports and the “lucky if it works” idea. Just wanted to say I did find a workaround - I remembered all those years ago when iPods and iPads had to be plugged in to computers to load things onto them, so I tried that. After a lot of fiddling I was able to sync books onto the iPad 2! So I first used the computer to download books through family sharing and then synced them to the iPad. A bit of a pain, but it works!
Family Sharing - https://support.apple.com/HT201060 - "You can use Family Sharing on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 8 or later, your Mac with OS X Yosemite or later and iTunes 12, or your PC with iCloud for Windows."
is from an old version of that document and Apple no longer has system requirement information posted in that document. My copy probably dates from when anything with iOS8 still was considered viable in the Apple ecosystem. Note that Apple works on the basis that everything you own is running current software versions and if you have something that can't be updated then it is "unsupported" (= they don't want to hear if it doesn't work and will probably have no idea if it does or not because they probably only tested things with the last 3 or 4 OS versions anyway). In that case if it works you're lucky, and if it doesn't then what are you doing still using something that old??? (That's them, not me; I still have 2 iPad 2s ;-) )
Not a true answer to your question but I that's the way things are.
Good find. Various tricks can be tried to keep old devices going a bit longer. Another one is getting apps that refuse to download because they need a newer iOS. If you can use a computer with iTunes 12.6.5 or older, or a device with the required minimum iOS version, you can download the new version to them. Now go to your old device and a cloud icon with a download icon should appear next to the app. Try downloading it. It will offer an older version if one is available. If this is an app that uses a service (e.g., a streaming media provider) there is no guarantee the old version will actually work with the service but I have found many old versions are available and provide partial functionality.
iPad 2 Apple family compatibility
