Published by Overgreen

published 1677188712
updated 1693071945

View Blog View Profile Report Blog Entry

Is iOS 6 still usable in 2023?

This is my first blog entry, so if anything is messed up, I apologize; I don't really know how this is supposed to work with photos and stuff

Update: For some reason, the images I uploaded seem to no longer load. They show up in the editor, but not on the actual blog entry, so I don't know why. You can view my iOS 6 screenshots here.

On September 18, 2013, iOS 7.0 was released, available to all iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches that supported the new operating system. Although there were new features like the Control Center, the biggest change was the major redesign of iOS; the iconic skeuomorphic icons had been changed to flat icons, many of which having bright, neon colors. Many people didn't like the redesign, and preferred the look of iOS 6, released over a year prior on September 19, 2012. But, more than 10 years later, is the last skeuomorphic version of iOS still usable in 2023?

tl;dr: barely, and only with jailbreaks.

Before we get into what we can and cannot do on iOS 6, let's take a look at what I talked about in the first paragraph; the interface.

When turning on an iOS 6 device, the very first difference is the Apple logo. Unlike today's Apple devices, where it's just the normal Apple logo, iOS 6 has an silver Apple logo with a slice going through it. Unfortunately, I can't show that here because I can't take a screenshot during startup, but if you've ever used an iOS version that's older than iOS 7, you probably know what I'm talking about. If you don't, however, you can see it in this video.

The first thing you see after startup is the lock screen. The lock screen has your selected lock screen wallpaper with the time, the classic "slide to unlock" slider, and a place to slide up for the camera in front of something that looks like tinted glass.

If you have a passcode, you enter it. Not much has changed here, but instead of having empty dots and full dots, we have empty squares and squares with dots in them.

And then we have where you'll spend a fair bit of your time: the home screen.

I'd say it looks lovely, but that's debatable, especially to whoever designed the Windows 8 Start screen. That person sucks.

Anyways, in case you somehow didn't notice, there are almost no flat elements here, other than the status bar at the top, but would you really want anything more from it than Wi-Fi strength, the time, and your battery? I, for one, would like the battery percentage, but it was strangely only a thing on iPhones and not iPods. Oh well, if you're jailbroken, there's a tweak for that. The dock that would later become a rectangle (and then even more later, a rounded rectangle) is similar to what was part of OS X at the time, being like a shelf for the apps to sit on, and is glossy, just like a good amount of the app icons. This design is called skeuomorphism. It opts to make icons look as if they were real life objects; for example, the lens for the Camera app or the wooden bookshelves for the Newsstand app.

Moving on to being in apps, the skeuomorphism continues. For built in apps, some don't give you a lot. For example, Settings; it's boring and feels quite flat, but it gets the job done for a simple app for changing settings:

On the other hand, some look a bit too realistic. The Notes app literally looks like a legal pad, even with some torn pages slightly seen at the top:

Enough about appearance, let's get to what you probably clicked on this for: Can you still use iOS 6 in 2023?

Of course you can still use iOS 6! You were never forced to update, and all iOS 6 devices didn't just self destruct.

Okay, okay, that's obviously not what I meant. We'll be focusing on what apps still work in a few categories:

Built in apps
Web browsing
Social
Gaming
Productivity
Miscellaneous

First, built-in apps.

Let's get some that I'm not sure about straight away:

I assume that the Phone app will work if you have a SIM card that works. I'm using an iPod touch, however, so I can't test it.
FaceTime will call for a second then stop and say that the person is not available for FaceTime. I'm not sure if it's a bug with my device, if it's a problem with older iOS not able to work with newer iOS, or if FaceTime doesn't work at all on iOS 6 anymore.

Let's start with the apps in the Dock. First, Messages. Using iMessage works fine, and if you message yourself, you can start a conversation with yourself. Be warned, however, that you will get 3-4 duplicate messages back. But you can just enter Edit mode and delete them and continue talking to yourself. Anyways... here's an example screenshot:

SMS messages may work, but again, I don't have an iPhone to test this with.

The Mail app works, at least with Outlook. Gmail doesn't seem to work, and I'm not sure about others. If yours does work, though, there's a chance some emails may appear broken. This one is not broken because of iOS 6; this email does not display anything in the circle where an avatar should be on other devices. Don't know why...

If you wanted to check Gmail, however...

Safari seems to support Gmail just fine, however, again, some emails might appear broken. Other websites completely depend on how basic they are. Of course, something like The Old Net will work fine, but apple.com will have some problems displaying properly, as shown here:

I predict Apple.com may become completely unloadable within a few years, while Gmail will probably continue to work, with maybe a few minor interface changes. I think this because Apple will probably continue to change how their website works. Google will try to get users to download the Gmail app, so they'll keep the web experience as simple as possible.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, SpaceHey does not work. Sad :(

We couldn't talk about an iPod (at least, that's what I'm using) without talking about the Music app. This app works completely fine. Import your music from iTunes (Your Apple Music subscription will NOT work here, you would need 8.4.1 or later for that to work), and you're good to go! And I hope that you have a lot of music in your iTunes library, because Spotify no longer works!

One feature that was later removed was what happens when you turn your device sideways; it's one thing that I really enjoy about iOS 6.

The Music app had Cover Flow, which allows you to flip through your albums in a 3D interface. This type of interface must have been a very big trend at the time, considering the Flip 3D in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Now I'll show the apps that aren't in the Dock. Not really show them, though. It's quite annoying to import photos from my iPod to my MacBook Photos app, then put them into a folder, then upload them to Imgur... it's a long process, so I'm just going to tell you if these apps with a picture if I feel like it's important to have.

Calendar - Works fine, can still add events, unsure if calendars sync with email accounts added

Photos - Still works. Also allows for importing from the MacBook Photos app, surprisingly. One annoying thing is that Screenshots don't have their own album, they go directly to the Camera Roll. Fun fact: You can screenshot the setup screen when you first get your device (in the case of a device that came with it) or when you reset it (if your device didn't support an iOS newer than iOS 6) too! I don't have that screenshot anymore, unfortunately...

Camera - Still works, but only supports taking pictures and recording videos. Has a cool camera lens cover open and shut when opening and closing the app.

Don't worry, photos taken with the Camera aren't that blurry. It appears that way because I was taking a screenshot (which requires pressing the top button, shaking the device a bit in the process.) Although this varies by device, here are actual pictures taken from the device (iPod touch 5th generation):

It's an okay camera for 2012 standards.

Moving on from that...

Videos - Works, but doesn't play videos taken with the device (those are in the Photos app), but plays videos imported from iTunes or bought from the iTunes Store app.

Maps - None of the views seem to work, but you can look up places and get directions (however I don't know why you'd want to if you can't see where you're going)

Weather - Works, including local weather.

Passbook - I have no idea what this app does, but I'd assume it doesn't work because you need apps for it, and I don't know if those would work well together.

Notes - Mentioned earlier, works, looks like a real life notepad and uses a handwriting font. Imagine trying to fit more text into a Tweet using this version of the Notes app today...

Reminders - Should work, but I haven't done a lot of testing on it.

Clock - All views work, and things like alarms and timers work as they should.

Stocks - Seems to be stuck on "Retrieving Details/Chart/News..." depending on what view you're using

Newsstand - Not really an app, but I don't know if it works because the "Store" button doesn't do anything, and I have nothing downloaded.

App Store - Unfortunately, the App Store no longer works. When I originally made this article, it did work, but it seems Apple has made the App Store inaccessible on iOS 6. This now means you have to sideload apps, and I say this makes iOS 6 a lot more unusable for a casual user.

iTunes - Same as App Store, no longer accessible on iOS 6.

Game Center - Works, and looks like a pool table :P

Settings - Shown earlier, all settings seem to work except for Facebook and Twitter. I'm not sure if it's because I have two factor authentication or if they just don't work anymore.

Next, web browsing. Safari was already discussed. Alternative browsers also use WebKit, so they will have the same problems as Safari. People said Puffin was different online, but everything redirected to their website. The two browsers shown here are Opera Mini and Chrome displaying Apple's website.

Unless you can find a browser that somehow doesn't use WebKit, you're out of luck trying to browse the modern web. However, social media apps might work. Speaking of that...

The next section of apps are social apps.

I can't get Facebook to work, but I don't like Facebook anyways, so that's fine by me. I believe this is, again, a problem with two factor authentication. Same goes for Messenger.

Twitter will usually complain on the Timeline saying that you should keep your app up to date, but changing the version number to whatever the latest is for supported devices in info.plist using iFile fixes this. I haven't done this in a while, so the Timeline just appears broken. You can also compose and send Tweets just fine, and no matter what you do to the Timeline, searching, notifications, messages, and profiles work fine.

Instagram works quite well, however, it's very read-only. You can view posts, but cannot like, comment, or make your own post. There are no Stories; this version of Instagram predates that. Everything else works, though.

The TikTok app didn't exist at this time, neither did musical.ly; therefore, the app will not work on iOS 6. The Reddit app didn't exist either, but Alien Blue did. If you find a way to get it installed like I did, it works, and you can even log in to get the subreddits you want to display on the "front page!"

I don't know if you consider Quora social media, but it does not work. All you get is a Connection Error.

Pinterest works! But you can't pin anything. It will tell you to update if you try. However, you can still view pins, search, and look at profiles. I don't use Pinterest for posting, so I don't know if that works.

Telegram no longer works. After you enter your phone number, all it tells you to do is update.

Snapchat also doesn't work. You cannot log in or sign up.

For those that use Escargot, managing to download Windows Live Messenger doesn't seem to have any use, because I don't see a way to change the server it logs into.

Skype does not work, because it cannot be downloaded. It used to, though, and it worked. Fellow iOS 6 users, let me know if you can get it to download and work!

The most important app that's "social" is most likely YouTube. When you first download it, nothing will seem to work. Spoofing the version in iFile like we did with Twitter, the homepage will work and you can play videos from there (if you're lucky, they usually crash the app)... and that's it. You can't search, the menu is empty, and there are no comments.

I don't use any other social apps, so I can't test those, but it has a 50% chance of working if it was released in 2014 or earlier, and apps released after 2015 have almost no chance of working, like Discord... wait a second!

Discord never supported iOS 6, but the jailbreak tweak "Discord Classic" fixes this. After you install it, enter your token (this won't hack your account), and you can successfully access Discord! One annoying thing is that you cannot send photos and text at the same time, and you can't view member lists or threads, but everything else I use works. Server folders aren't respected here and there are no categories, so servers and channels seem to just be randomly placed.

Time for games!

Any games that existed around the time should work, even Flappy Bird. Games still connect to Game Center, and you can earn achievements that will even show up on new iOS versions.

In terms of productivity, you can get old versions of Apple apps. iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand, Pages, Numbers, Keynote; they all work on iOS 6.

Google Drive lets you login, but says you have no files.

I don't personally use Dropbox, but I made an account in the app, and it seems to work.

So, you can be productive using the Apple apps. Good luck getting them off the device, though.

Last, and probably least, some Miscellaneous apps.

I'm not going to put any screenshots for these. They are miscellaneous, after all.

Wikipedia - Does not work, gives an SSL error

OneNote - Does not allow you to login, so does not work

Cydia - Works completely fine; you can still install tweaks that support iOS 6. If you for some reason hate the look of iOS 6 but can't update, you can install an iOS 7 theme using Cydia. I did this on my dad's old iPod touch 4th generation to make it look more up to date than it actually can be (although someone apparently got iOS 7 working on one).

Spotify - Mentioned earlier, does not log in (it did a month ago, slightly too late!)

Apple Podcasts - Might work, but I gave up adding a podcast as it was being painfully slow.

iBooks - Works, and you can still download books.

Find Friends/Find iPhone - Both still work.

Netflix - Says incorrect password on login even with the correct password. Assuming it doesn't work or I'm actually using the wrong password somehow.

Geekbench - Geekbench 2 runs and works correctly.

AnTuTu Benchmark - Runs and works correctly.

So, in conclusion, is iOS 6 still usable in 2023?

If you're trying to browse the web, no. If you're wanting to view some social media, it depends on which ones you want to view. iOS 6 is completely good for playing old games. You can be productive on the device itself, but not really with files online. And everything else depends; I'm not going to spend weeks downloading every app that supports iOS 6 to see if it'll still work.

In other words, mostly not.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this look at this 10 year old iOS version. Do you still use iOS 6 at all? Are there any uses for iOS 6 I didn't cover here? Let me know!

Well, that's it.

5 Kudos