Find your perfect fit

Is there an app you just can't live without? Use this tool to determine what devices can run that app (and for how long!)

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    How these results are generated

    The Short Version:

    We start by creating a forecast for when each model will stop receiving the iOS updates (based on the history of major iOS releases and which devices were supported by each).

    We also maintain a database of apps and how many major iOS versions they support. For example, as of this writing Gmail supports iOS 18 and later.

    These two datasets are combined to generate a forecast of how long a specific device will be able to run a specific app. 

    Note – this tool’s output is our best guess based on the information available to us right now.

    The Long Version:

    Every App developer makes a decision about how many versions of Apple's Operating System (OS) their app will support.

    For example, it is common for developers to support either one or two previous major OS versions. Today the current major OS version is iOS 27 / iPadOS 27 and the two previous major OS versions were iOS 26 / iPadOS 26 and iOS 18 / iPad OS 18.

    To cite a specific example, Gmail can only be run on iOS 18 or iOS 26, so it supports only the previous major iOS version.

    So half of the equation is our database of apps and the oldest major OS that they support. 

    The other half of the equation is a forecast for each Apple device and what will be the last major iOS update it will receive. 

    As devices get older, they eventually do not receive the update for the newest iOS version. For example: the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR did not receive the iOS 26 upgrade in September 2025.

    The best predictor of when a device will not receive an iOS upgrade is its processing chip: generally (but not always!) one chip is dropped per year. Using the example from the last paragraph, the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR all had Apple's A12 chip.

    A dataset that has each device and their chip then allows us to develop a forecast of when a given device will stop receiving OS upgrades.

    For example: the iPhone 13 has the A15 chip and we expect that it will not receive the iOS29 upgrade in late 2029.

    Since Gmail supports the previous major iOS version, then the iPhone 13 should be supported by Gmail for one additional year: through late 2030.

    Combining this forecast with our dataset on the supported OSs for a specific app, we can develop a forecast for when each app in our dataset will stop being supported by each Apple device. 

    NOTE: Apple is not completely predictable in terms of dropping support for one generation of chips per year. For example: all devices which received the iOS26 update also received the iOS 27 update. 

    This is very much an art, but it is our best guess based on careful observation of past results.