When Apple unveiled iOS 6 and released the first beta at WWDC back in June, it quickly became apparent that a number of new features wouldn’t be supported on older devices like the iPhone 3GS, and Apple mentioned these restrictions in the fine print of its iOS 6 preview page.
In the iOS 6 beta 3 release, however, shared Photo Streams and VIP mail — two of the features that are unsupported on older devices — are now supported on the iPhone 3GS.
MacRumors reports that there were previously eight restrictions on features in iOS 6, but since beta 3 was launched yesterday, that number has been reduced to six. The items that Apple has now removed included:
- Shared Photo Streams requires iOS 6 on iPhone 4 or later or iPad 2 or later, or a Mac computer with OS X Mountain Lion. An up-to-date browser is required for accessing shared photo streams on the web.
- VIP list and VIP and Flagged smart mailboxes will be available on iPhone 4 or later and iPad 2 or later.
In addition to this change, iPhone 3GS users with access to the latest iOS 6 beta are confirming that they can now access both of these features on their device.
This is a great move by Apple, and it’s very promising to iPhone 3GS owners. With the Cupertino company still selling the three-year-old handset, it clearly feels obliged to making iOS 6 work as well as possible on the device, without restricting access to too many features.
Sure, there are still a number of features that won’t run on the iPhone 3GS, but this is a great testament to Apple’s service to its customers. Would its rivals be working so hard to support three-year-old devices? Nokia’s Lumia 900, which was released just this April, won’t even support Windows Phone 8 when it makes its debut later this year.
Source: MacRumors
