Can iOS 10 be installed on iPhone 4s? And on the iPhone 5?

The terminals that have been on the market the longest are usually those that sooner or later they are left without support from the company. But it all depends on the manufacturer. Everyone knows the terrible support offered by all Android manufacturers to their devices, support that sometimes ends after the first year of the terminal's life.

Fortunately the devices made by Apple, are supported by Apple for a few years, until the moment comes in which the news and the necessary requirements for the operation to be smooth, force the company to withdraw them from the market, leaving them without support.

iOS 7 was the last version compatible with the veteran iPhone 4, a terminal that at that time it was widely used in many countries, especially in emerging countries. The general operation of this version of iOS was quite erratic, which led us to suppose that the eighth version of iOS would not be compatible with this terminal. In the keynote in which iOS 8 was presented, Apple confirmed that the iPhone 4 was without support and would have to live the rest of the days with iOS 7.

Weeks before the release of iOS 9, rumors again began to circulate about the possibility that this version of iOS is not compatible with the iPhone 4s, since from the first versions of iOS 8, the terminal had become a true paperweight, like the iPad 2 and the iPad Mini. Fortunately, the updates that the company was launching greatly improved the operation of the eighth version of iOS.

The arrival of iOS 9, where according to Apple they had focused on improving performance and operation in the most veteran terminals, it was a relief to all iPhone 4s and iPad 2 users, since the operation was very similar in terms of fluidity and performance, than the latest versions of iOS 8.4.2, but everything seemed to indicate that it would be the last version of iOS that they would receive.

Once the presentation of all the iOS 10 news was ending, the Cupertino-based company showed a list of all the terminals that would be compatible with the tenth version of iOS 10 in which we could see how the iPhone 4s, the iPad Mini, the iPad 2 and 3 along with the 5th generation iPod touch were left out of the update cycle. But a few hours later, when Apple posted all the news about iOS 10 on its website (American version), we could see how the company had included the terminals that had been discarded in the keynote.

The developers were the first to announce that the list that was displayed on the website It did not match the keynote after checking how the older terminals did not allow installing the first beta of iOS 10. Apple quickly modified the list of compatible terminals by eliminating the terminals that I mentioned above from the equation. So the iPhone 4s will finally be left without support and will not receive iOS 10. This does not mean that if a major security flaw is detected, Apple will not release an update to solve it, but it will stop receiving new versions of operating systems that the company launches in the future, including iOS 10.

The iPhone 5 for its part, the next most veteran terminal on the list by time in the market, but with the same hardware as the iPhone 5c that came out a year later, will keep getting the new operating systems for at least a couple more years, the cycle that the company is following continues, leaving the most veteran terminals without support every two years. Particularly my device to test betas is an iPhone 5, and I have to admit that the operation of at least the first beta is very fluid compared to the first betas that the company launched iOS 9, which suggests that the company really has worked on improving performance and fluidity in older terminals, despite the fact that many of the novelties that will come from the hand of iOS 10 will not be available due to the logical limitations of older hardware.