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Comment by myko | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but Siri wont, 3D maps wont. If the main features of the update don't make it to the device, what's your point?

edit: the -> your (I know the point of updating the 3GS, I don't understand the OPs point in its attempt to mock Android)

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There were more than two features announced.

http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/

Yes and more than these aren't available on older devices, let me direct you to this post on a different thread for a breakdown:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4096633

The point remains - they're adding a bunch of features for free and most users will benefit from them. I'm far more interested in account unification and improvements to the phone app than 3D maps. Your inference that the update is a dud for older devices doesn't ring true.

Sorry, I should've said "What's your point?" instead of "What's the point (in the update)", the first question is what I meant.

I don't see the OPs point as 3GSs getting the update aren't better off than Android devices on 2.3 which still have access to many backported Android APIs.

App and API compatability. New apps using iOS 6 APIs will still run.

If that's the measure we're going by I'd like to point out that many APIs have been backported by the Android Compatibility Library as far back as Android 1.6 (http://developer.android.com/sdk/compatibility-library.html).

Some features are missing from the compatibility library, but have been made up by open source projects such as ActionBar Sherlock (which is great by the way if anyone hasn't tried it out yet).

I also happen to develop for Android, and yes, the ACL does help, but it's still a PITA to develop an app which will look the same on all devices. You will have to use ActionBar Sherlock (or use custom layouts if you want special features in there), style every single control, and test, test, test. Apple's decision to include the 3GS is IMHO a VERY clever one, enabling app developers to very soon use iOS6 as min target. iOS6 might hit 75% marketshare within weeks after release (only leaving out a few iPad 1s which can't upgrade from iOS5), leaving devs only with iOS 5 and 6 to support - and it's very doable to include 6's features and fall back to 5er APIs if necessary. On Android you would need to support 2.2, 2.3, 3.x, and 4.x to reach a similar user base percentage (http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...). Also, it does not pay off yet to use 4.x features, that's only 7% currently. All those 3000+ different cheap Android devices with API version <= 2.3 are an obstacle for app innovation.

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