Ipad I - The Abandoned Tablet

I didn't pay much attention last year to Apple's announcement that it would cease providing IOS upgrades and updates for the Ipad 1. I use mine primarily for recreational use: the NY Times crossword puzzle, Scrabble, Neflix and personal email. I have a good number of PDF's on various infosec topics that I have collected but the odd file system in the IOS has been a bit of an irritant in storing them so I've preferred to peruse them on my laptop. But recently my most frequently used apps have become noticeably and increasingly unstable, including basic web browsing. The original Ipad has only 256 meg of memory and this is indicated as the culprit for the apps' crashing. Yet it's curious that only now has it become a chronic problem. Apple has announced that all apps for the Ipad line must be optimized for IOS 7 by February. I don't think that this augurs well for Ipad 1 owners. I paid over $800.00 back in June of 2010 for my 3G Ipad 1 with 64 Gig storage and I don't think that a device that is less than 4 years old should be rendered obsolete in this manner. In contrast, big bad Microsoft is only pulling the plug on Windows XP this coming April, almost 13 years after it first shipped in 2001.