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Hello all,
I am currently looking into Apple's product lifecycle and iOS versions. Unfortunately, Apple support has not been able to help me. My question is if there is no list in which the support end for the respective iOS versions are listed. The background to my question is that we currently still have iPhone 7 devices in use in the company and these do not support iOS 16. How long will iOS 15.7 be supported?
Many thanks in advance.
iPhone 12, iOS 16
AFAIK, Apple does not provide a product "retirement" list.
However, one way to gauge when one of their products is no longer supported is that they identify them as one of the following:
The following support article goes into more detail about this:
That‘s a good question.
Not sure if Apple officially publishes “hard” end-of support dates like some vendors do.
Anecdotal info suggests that security updates will continiue at least 2-3 years.
Recent Example: iOS 12 - which was succeeded three years ago - received it’s most recent security update (12.5.6) just last week.
It practice, it might appear that 3rd party app developers have generally abandoned an iOS version before Apple ends their support.
You can still activate and use an original iPhone with iOS 3.1.3 (albeit only as an iPod touch since there is no cellular network available for it anymore). To my knowledge Apple does not stop distributing any release of iOS or iPadOS so older devices can always get the last update compatible with them.
So as long as your iPhone 7 devices still work, if they need to be restored they will always be able to download and install whatever ends up being the last supported iOS release compatible with them. There will come a time when updates will stop for any given release, but that does not mean that last release will not be available for older devices that can run it.
Apple stops providing physical parts and service for devices after a certain age. But I am not aware of them stopping the distribution of any release of iOS.
The bigger issue is how long 3rd party developers are willing to support older versions…
Product Life Cycle iOS Versions
