Comment by red369

I think you're right, if you're referring to the hardware.

But there are also ever rising hardware requires for the built in apps and the rest of the operating system.

An iPad which we bought around 5 years ago, which was still on sale just over 2 years ago, is now painfully slow compared to when purchased (thanks to iOS 26) when using the the Settings app, the App Store, Safari, etc.

This is very important for devices with only one choice for operating system, like Apple iPads and iPhones.

It's true that the device only feels slower because the apps are have had feature updates, but there isn't a way to only choose security updates (except sometimes briefly after Apple release a really bloated new iOS version).

A similar situation applies for Android devices. While you can usually install something like LineageOS or GrapheneOS , if you also switch to a newer Android version to keep receiving security patches, the phone will feel considerably slower. If you stay on an older version, the OS will stop receiving updates sooner.*

*I haven't kept up with this lately, so I'd be happy to find out this isn't the case. If, for example, you could stay on a version of LineageOS or GrapheneOS based on Android 13, and still receive security updates.