iOS 6 comes with over 200 new features that will make the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch even better, but there’s a few caveats: first, it doesn’t run on all hardware, and second, on some of the supported devices the feature set will be limited. We’ll sort all of that out.
Devices Supported by iOS 6
According to Apple, the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2, iPad 3, and iPod touch 4th gen will all run iOS 6.
Noticeably absent from the supported device lineup are the iPad 1 and iPod touch 3rd gen, despite those devices having similar hardware to some of the other supported hardware. If you have one of these older devices, consider an upgrade if you want the latest and greatest features.
iOS 6 Feature Compatibility
Here is where things get slightly more complicated: Even if your iPhone or iPad can run iOS 6 that doesn’t mean it will support all of the features.
Some of the more anticipated and prominent improvements in iOS 6 like FaceTime over 3G won’t be supported on the iPhone 4 or 3GS for example, and Siri will come to iPad 3 but not iPad 2. And many of the most exciting features won’t work whatsoever on the iPhone 3GS, and are barely supported by the iPhone 4. If this sounds complicated it’s really not, but to help decipher which of the bigger features will work with what, MacRumors put together a helpful chart…
You’ll notice it’s only the newest hardware that is fully compatible with most of the major features of the newest iOS, but keep in mind that all supported hardware will be benefiting from the smaller improvements, with things like the iPhones new calling features, Guided Access, Single App mode, Facebook integration, Do Not Disturb, and all of the many more subtle improvements that were demoed at WWDC.
iOS 6 was given a loose release date of “Fall” of this year.
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