This banner has been at the top of the forum on my phone for a while: “Your browser will soon be incompatible with this community. To keep participating here, please upgrade your browser or learn more.”
I assumed it was an error, because why on earth would a forum not be able to run on an iPhone? But I finally just clicked the link and, yeah, as of July 1 I won’t be able to log in from my phone, which is an iPhone 7 so maxes out at iOS 15.8.
Is there anything you can do about it, @shauny? I assume not but thought I’d bring it up.
(Aside: God, I really hate how much stuff requires iOS 17 for no good reason now, since iOS 17 in turn requires I “upgrade” to a phone bigger than my head that doesn’t even have Touch ID. Hate it hate it hate it.)
That’s definitely one thing I don’t like with iOS based devices. All the programs you buy either gradually start not working on your OS, or gradually start not working on your device because it can’t run the newest OS…
Could you try a different browser such as Chrome or Firefox, I don’t use iOS so I’m not sure what you can and can’t do, but I’m pretty sure you should be able to get them from the app store.
Alas, Apple – oligopolistic as they are – disallow any browser engines but their own on iOS. Both Firefox and Chrome are just a shell around Safari on iOS.
The EU has finally made this practice illegal, but it’ll take years for mobile browsers to catch up and actually implement their own engines on iOS – and either way, those updates won’t come to iOS 15.
Unfortunately it’s not feasible to keep supporting browsers that are over 9 years old.
This isn’t an “Apple thing”, no Android phones older than 9 years are still supported by Google with free updates either (in fact, Apple continue supporting phones with free updates far longer than Android phones do).
It is also dropping support for Windows devices that are that old (Windows 7 and 8 support is being dropped iirc).
The software the forum runs on will soon require devices that support more modern features - if the entire web was held back by people that don’t update software then we would never get shiny new features.
Also it’s actually really dangerous to run software that old. If your phone hasn’t been updated in almost a decade, it’s not safe to do any browsing, online banking, etc because there are definitely unpatched security vulnerabilities. Also surely you can’t use most apps?
You will still be able to visit the forum and read, but won’t be able to login or interact.
I hope you can reconsider and upgrade your device!
Ah yes sorry, you are up to date on your security updates, however that was the last update your phone will get - support has been ended for that OS now. It is dangerous to keep using it.
I understand the sentiment here because it’s a pain to have to buy new things but it’s also really unrealistic to expect a device to be supported forever. No technology is supported forever. It wouldn’t be practical, and isn’t just a cynical cash grab. If Apple had to support hardware forever, the phones would have to cost infinite money in the first place.
You could get a refurbished iPhone SE (2012) which has the same screen size as the 7, and Touch ID. That is also still being updated and will receive iOS 26[1] this autumn.
they changed naming scheme this year, all Apple OS version numbers will now be year-based! Much easier to discuss ↩︎
