Running Unsupported iOS on Deprecated Devices

Yes, we definitely need something like this for the iDevices - it's outrageous that an old but capable device like iPad Air (1st generation) has to become e-Waste simply because Apple has decided not to support it any longer and won't allow other Operating Systems to run on it. Mac's already have the OpenCore Legacy Patcher - https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher - that allow you to run newer macOS versions on older and even unsupported Macs.

A bit of OT, but I have four iPhone 5/5s/SE (the SE is peak design and form factor, fight me) lying around that I use strictly as offline devices for things like saving data from my heart rate monitor, controlling my action camera, doing voice/field recordings through the 3.5mm connector – stuff I'd prefer never to leave my device (or data that should be open to user control but requires an invasive app to work, I have very few apps on my daily driver).

These devices are are small, snappy and powerful enough in 2025.

I joined Apple at the start of my career when iOS 6 and Snow Leopard were the active projects. I had to learn all of this. I’ve since forgot but this post was a wonderful bit of proprietary OS jargon and trivia nostalgia for me.

I have an iPad Air that I love, made in 2014, last iOS is 12.5. I’d love a slightly more current browser, but the rest of the software is working fine. I spend 6-7 hours using it each day.

Just a browser is all I want.

All of that is cool, but can this help get iOS 18 back on supported devices that have upgraded to 26? That'd be magical.

It's a shame there isn't something like Lineage OS for Apple mobile devices.

Fascinating. Could this method be used to boot iPhone OS 1.0 (or at least 1.1.1) on an iPhone 2G with 16GB NAND maybe?

The oldest iPhone OS that natively boots on my particular one is 1.1.4, 1.1.1 (which is the highest version number where you can trivially escape the OOBE via the emergency dialer) fails to initialise the FTL (flash translation layer), probably because the chip is sufficiently different from that used in the older phones.

It would bring me great joy to be able to relive emergency dialer hacktivation again, but I have lost that particular iPhone 2G, and only have this 16GB one left.

Interesting article. Minor correction:

    $(cat n18.10A403.kextlist | sed 's/^/--bundle-id /') - this weird expression appends --bundle-id to every line from the file at n18.10A403.kextlist. 

I have an old iPad Air 1. Can I upgrade to a newer OS from 12?

Would be cool if companies are forced to open the devices that they aren't supporting anymore.

Writing this from an iPhone 8 (no sec updates anymore) and I am not feeling good about it…

Good work this is.

Really the command to strip a “fat header” is called “lipo”…