We're just a few weeks out from WWDC, and new details about Apple's next-generation operating systems continue to surface. A new report from the well-sourced 9to5Mac details a handful of features, the most interesting of which is a note about support for older devices. We had assumed that Apple would include support for some devices based on its aging A5 SoC—the fifth-gen iPod Touch, original iPad Mini, and third-gen Apple TV are all still being sold, after all—but the report indicates that we can expect an update for out-of-production devices like the iPhone 4S (the iPad 2 isn't mentioned by name, but the implication is that it will be supported as well).

If true, this would be the longest that Apple has ever provided software updates for any one iPhone model. Normally, iOS releases support four iPhone generations at a time, but iOS 9 could include support for everything from 2011's iPhone 4S to whatever phones Apple introduces in 2015.

New iOS updates have a history of running poorly on older devices—iOS 7 was unkind to the iPhone 4, and iOS 8 wasn't much better to the iPhone 4S—but Apple is apparently taking steps to avoid that problem this time around. The report says that Apple is taking a different approach to supporting older devices in iOS 9. In the past, Apple reportedly put the full version of the operating system on older devices and then disabled features that performed particularly poorly. For iOS 9, Apple is apparently starting with a barebones version of the operating system and enabling features one at a time. As usual, owners of older devices will miss out on some features, but they'll still get the underlying improvements, API changes, and security updates that newer phones and tablets get.

The full report is worth a read, though many of the other features could be pushed back to later updates. Apple could make some changes to reduce application sizes, move to use iCloud Drive as the backend for more of its first-party applications, do more to block access to system files (that initiative is called "rootless," implying that users won't be able to get root access, but there are few details), and support "trusted Wi-Fi networks" to make connection easier under some circumstances. We'll know more when Apple talks about the new operating systems at WWDC in June.