Apple’s latest WWDC (World Wide Developer’s Conference) has come and gone, leaving in its wake all sorts of new software and gear, and the wreckage of older Apple hardware that won’t get the latest software.

I now, or have, owned some of that wreckage:

• The iPhone 7 Plus was handed down to my youngest daughter, to replace her original iPhone SE when it went the way of all flesh. She’s already purchased a new battery from the Geniuses for $49 because the original battery dropped down to 75% of its initial maximum storage. The 7 will still get all the iOS 15 updates until iOS 16 is released later this year. Her solution to this is to purchase a newer iPhone SE, which is the same size as the iPhone 7 Plus/iPhone 8 and has the button on the front. She wants the button. The current cost of an iPhone SE Mark 2 is $429, with 64GB of storage.
• The mid-2015 15″ MacBook Pro. I was surprised they dropped it, but it looks like Apple is dropping anything with Intel in it that was sold earlier than 2017. I could trade it in for the latest MacBook, but I think that what I’ll do is order a new battery from iFixIt for about $110, and then later when the last of the Monterey updates come in, order a replacement SSD and install a Linux distribution on it. The only problem with Linux is finding a distribution that supports the Apple Retina display of 2880-by-1800 resolution. I’ve been researching Retina support under Linux and the answers I’m finding aren’t all that reassuring.

All my other gear, including my wife’s iPhone 8 and all my old iPad Pros will be supported by iOS 16 and ipadOS 16 respectively. I was hugely surprised by the iPad Pros coming through because they are the first versions released (a 9.7″ and a 12.9″). Unfortunately there’s a big fat caveat, that being if your iPad isn’t powered by Apple Silicon (an M1 or later) you’re not going to get the key new features of ipadOS 16. Sorta like the key new features of iOS 15 that won’t work on my iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Missing in what might be dropped is my Apple Watch Series 3. It’s old, but surprisingly, it still all works and I’m more than happy with it.

I’m not trading in any of my current Apple kit if any, or all,  of it is eventually labeled “legacy” and dropped from Apple software updates. If I trade in with Apple I’m certain I won’t get a decent offer. I don’t trust AT&T with regards to the iPhone trades. I’ll just stick with what I have until it just won’t work anymore, and try to recycle it as best I can.

Overall I thought Monday’s presentation was a bit bland. Nothing that would convince me to open my wallet and splash out the cash. The only item of interest was the formal release of the M2. It’s not revolutionary upgrade, but it’s still a decent upgrade if the performance increases are provably true. We shall have to wait for official kit and the resulting benchmarks for that.