Call to action: computers are getting expensive but 10,000,000 otherwise perfect $200 Linux machines are getting bricked. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save them from landfills.
First off, fuck AI slop and I wrote the whole post myself without AI. It took me a whole afternoon.
TL;DR: we are at a historical opportunity to push for Apple to allow post-market OSes on iPads.
# Capable iPads Face Planned Obsolescence
With iPadOS 27, Apple is officially dropping support for the millions of units of iPad Pro 11 (1st gen) and iPad Pro 12.9 (3rd gen), as well as tens of millions of iPad Air (3rd gen), iPad (8th gen), and iPad mini (5th gen). ([iPad shipment of 2019](
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/02/04/ipad-sales-extend-apple-market-lead-q419/) alone was \~50 million.) These machines will soon become functionally useless, because:
* You cannot update Safari without updating iOS/iPadOS.
* You simply cannot install a newer version of another browser to get around this, because Apple forces all App Store browsers to use the same WebKit engine that shipped with iOS/iPadOS.
* You also cannot install another OS on iPads. As a result, as soon as websites start dropping support for the last Safari version, which from my personal experience can happen as early as in a few months, the iPads become handicapped. This is not even counting that how quickly some native iOS/iPadOS apps lose support too. I personally have an iPad whose support stopped 3 years ago and it already feels like a brick, purely because of such software constraints.
However, this is all preventable if Apple allows installing third party OSes on iPads, and all that's needed from Apple is to relax firmware signing to allow a bootloader like BootCamp or [m1n1](
https://github.com/AsahiLinux/m1n1), which they already allow on MacBooks; this will be a simple server side change, without needing any hardware hacks.
# The Time is Right for Linux on iPad
**Unlike 5 to 10 years ago when the resistance from Apple may have been too strong, now is a time when the demand overrides whatever objections Apple may have, and the circumstances are surprisingly mature too, in terms of both iPad hardware and Linux support.**
I probably don't need to emphasize how RAM and SSD prices are crazy high and seriously impacting computer affordability. A 32GB DDR5 kit that sold for about $100–$200 in October 2025 now starts around $350. A $189 Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB SSD is now around [$429](
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/ssd-price-tracking-2026-lowest-price-on-every-m-2-ssd).
Performance of these iPads is better than most $200 laptops, new or used, today. The M1 chip made it to MacBooks and amazed the whole industry, and the iPad Pro's A12X, pretty much the direct predecessor of the M1, is also nothing short of impressive. It is about on par with the [i7-8650u](
https://www.notebookcheck.net/i7-8650U-vs-A12X-Bionic_9212_10881.247596.0.html); laptops with that CPU still sell for around $200 today. It is also superior to chips like the Kompanio 520 and Intel N100, which are still commonly used in new Chromebooks today. The other non-Pro iPads have an A12 chip that has, albeit fewer cores, the same single-core performance.
On many other metrics and features, including 264 or 326 ppi pixel density, color accuracy, full sRGB or P3 color gamut, anti-reflective coating, 10-point multitouch, power efficiency, and build quality, the iPads also compare favorably with almost all $200 laptops. The iPad Pro's 600 nit brightness, 120 Hz refresh rate and four-speaker audio are, further, vastly superior to most. It's beyond outrageous that such good hardware gets locked up while computers are becoming unaffordable.
Many of these iPads do support a laptop-like form factor. They have official [keyboards](
https://support.apple.com/en-us/108361) that allow them to be propped up like a laptop. Even though the official ones are discontinued, third-party replacements or even cheap generic Bluetooth or wired keyboards and mice also work fine. The iPad Pro even comes with a USB-C port that can
