The reality of Mobile Device evolution is that four-mobile-phone-years is roughly equivalent to ten-desktop-years or six-laptop-years.

And, let's be clear - it's only a prohibitively long time if you wish to continue to get the new feature release platforms - indeed, it's only Today, June 11, 2013, that the original iPhone, released in 2007, is now being obsoleted by Apple [1], a full five years after it was discontinued.

[1] http://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/29/original-iphone-will-soo...

Still, bear in mind that it's a pocket computer, built in 2009, with a 600 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. Modern pocket computers have at least twice the processing power, two (or more) cores, and 4 times the RAM. They can also offload a whole lot more to the GPU. It was going to hit a ceiling eventually.

If you look at the devices cleared for iOS 7, it's almost definitely a RAM overhead issue. All the 512 MB+ devices (4, 4S, 5, Touch 5, iPad 2+ and Mini) are getting iOS 7. None of the 256 MB devices (Touch <5, iPhone <4, iPad 1) are getting it.

Does it suck? Yeah, definitely. At some point, though, you have to make the tough decision and say, "We have to compromise on either our vision or supporting older devices." When you get to that point, the choice isn't too hard. Is there anyone out there who would really argue that watering down iOS 7 is worth the increased support? (Especially with the US cellphone market and its subsidies being what it is?)

I feel for iPod Touch 4 owners. Like another poster said, those were on sale a few weeks ago. Every other unsupported device is terribly old, at least as far as the pocket computing world is concerned.

Is there another company that is updating 4 year old phones? Is there an Android phone released with 2.2 that can run 4.2? I think Apple's backwards compatibility track record is the best there is, but here's to hoping for better!

No need to spend hundreds of dollars; just sit behind the curve a little bit. Spent $68 on an Optimus S with Ting a year ago, and it gets everything I need to do done at less than the cost of my Verizon dumbphone contract. It's as fast as the computer I took to college not that many years ago, and I got a lot done on that. Battery runs for days too, even with considerable use.

Looking forward to upgrading to an S2 or S3 when prices drop to frivolity. A larger screen will be nice.

Tools needn't be new nor flashy to be powerful.

The reality is that you're in a vanishingly small minority.

And I'm not hand-waving that notion either. I write apps and I've seen device usage numbers for a number of apps across a number of verticals - 3GS usage really is a vanishingly low number, well below 1%.

Devs don't have anything against old phones, we don't care how often you give Apple your money. If enough people still used the 3GS, we'd support the 3GS.

When you're in the sub-1% group, without some contract guaranteeing support, expecting support is unreasonable.

Seriously? Four years is quite a long time in today's tech world. Think if you had a four year Android or Windows (whoops) phone if that was a reasonable thought. Bottom line - if you think 4 years ISN'T a long time for a hundreds of dollar device then there's not much hope for you.

OK, but we're talking about reality here. Four years is an astoundingly long lifetime for a device to stay updated in this industry.

It's not like your device will stop working the day iOS 7 is released. Your phone won't have any features taken away and you can keep it using until the hardware fails. (I'm still using my Nokia N900).