It had 256 megs of ram. I'm running the latest OS on an iPhone 5c that is 4 and a half years old.
The pace of change in phones/tablets has been tremendous since the iPhone and iPad were released. Current versions are more than 10x faster and ship with much more ram. There aren't infinite resources at any company (unless you want the army of programmers failed model from IBM of yore), focusing limited engineering resources on most important issues is crucial to making progress.
You got an iPad that worked well. They stopped enhancing it after 2 years. When did your car maker stopped enhancing your car?
The trouble with the car analogy is that internet-connected devices need constant security updates, whereas cars don't. A car built ten years ago is as safe as it ever was, minus whatever problems arise from wear and tear. A device running iPhone OS 1.0 will probably not survive long on the internet of 2017.
The pace of change in phones/tablets has been tremendous since the iPhone and iPad were released. Current versions are more than 10x faster and ship with much more ram. There aren't infinite resources at any company (unless you want the army of programmers failed model from IBM of yore), focusing limited engineering resources on most important issues is crucial to making progress.
You got an iPad that worked well. They stopped enhancing it after 2 years. When did your car maker stopped enhancing your car?