the main issue is that's an ipad and it's locked. In contrast - a 15y+ laptop can be used (after few upgrades - i5-560M, 8GB RAM, 500GB SSD, AC-8260) to do office work: it runs the latest Firefox and Open Office + googledocs and friends without too much trouble.

I think for these kind of scenarios what Apple should do is unlock the device when it officially stop supporting with new iOS updates. You bought the device and you own it, so you should be able to use it as long as you want.

I recently had to throw out a first gen iPad that was physically still in mint condition (even including the battery, somehow), simply for the lack of support essentially turning it into a useless brick.

Try out Reynard, which ships up-to-date Gecko instead of relying on outdated system WebKit! https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser

Might help you get some more use out of it, thanks to the DMA :-)

> Unfortunately regulations often don't go far enough.

Eh, what are you proposing? That these new regulations should cover +10 year old devices too?

Similarly I still have an iPhone with a lightning port instead of the legally mandated USB-C port, but at no point was I expecting Apple to somehow change the ports of existing devices.

Updating old products is expensive, especially as their hardware falls further behind. Unless manufacturers adopt some kind of subscription model to justify the cost of continued updates, which would likely be very unpopular, I don’t see how they can realistically keep older devices supported indefinitely.