In the fast-moving world of mobile technology, 2026 feels like a science fiction novel compared to the landscape of 2016. Yet, millions of devices still run the operating system that defined a mid-decade era: .

Once jailbroken, you can install —a community-made tweak that converts the iPhone WhatsApp .IPA file into a pseudo-iPad app. You’ll need to sideload an old WhatsApp .IPA file (from 2018-2019) using Cydia Impactor or a similar tool.

So, if you open the App Store on your iPad running iOS 9.3.5 and search for “WhatsApp,” you will see one thing: “Requires iOS 12.0 or later. Download the last compatible version?”

Alex Rivera covers legacy software and hardware hacks. His daily driver is an iPhone 13, but his heart belongs to his iPad 2 running iOS 6.

Puffin Browser works by processing web pages on its own cloud servers and streaming the visual result to your iPad. This bypasses the iOS 9.3.5 limitations.

Specifically, the third-generation iPad, the iPad Mini 1, and the iPod Touch 5th generation. These devices are no longer supported by modern apps, but they are far from dead. For many, they serve as dedicated e-readers, kitchen recipe stations, or—most challengingly—.