Which iPhones work
Mupi runs on iOS 15 and later, which reaches back to the iPhone 6s and iPhone SE (1st generation).
The short answer
If the iPhone still turns on, still holds a charge, and can install apps, it can probably be a Mupi. To check: Settings, then General, then About. If the iOS version starts with 15 or higher, you are done reading.
The long answer
| iPhone | Released | Runs up to |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE (1st generation) The oldest Mupi runs on. Small screen, small photos, and a battery that is ten years old. | 2015–2016 | iOS 15 |
| iPhone 7, 7 Plus Water resistant, which for a camera a four-year-old carries is not nothing. | 2016 | iOS 15 |
| iPhone 8, 8 Plus, X | 2017 | iOS 16 |
| iPhone XR, XS, XS Max | 2018 | iOS 18 |
| iPhone 11, 11 Pro, SE (2nd generation) | 2019–2020 | Still current |
| iPhone 12 and newer More camera than a child needs, which is fine. Mupi does not use most of it. | 2020 onwards | Still current |
Not these: iPhone 6 and older, iPhone 5s, iPad
The 6 and the 5s stopped at iOS 12, which is three versions below what Mupi needs. iPad is not that — Mupi simply has not been built for it yet.
Why iOS 15
Because that is where the useful phones are. Apple stopped at iOS 15 for the iPhone 6s and the first SE — the exact phones that end up in drawers. Asking for iOS 16 would have cut off four years of perfectly good cameras to gain nothing a child would notice.
What an older iPhone is like as a camera
- Photos are smaller than the ones from a current phone. A 12-megapixel photo from 2016 is still a photo nobody will ever print larger than a postcard.
- An old battery is an old battery. Mupi stops the camera after 45 seconds of nothing happening when the phone is locked into it, which is the single biggest thing that helps — but a phone from 2015 will still want charging most days.
- Storage fills up. Once a photo is safely in your iCloud, Mupi can drop the full-size copy from the camera and keep a screen-sized one, so a nearly full phone keeps taking pictures. You choose whether it does that always, never, or only when the phone is actually full.
- A cracked screen is fine. A broken home button, on a phone that needs one, is not.
What you need besides the phone
- An Apple ID signed in on the camera, so photos can back up. It can be yours — see how the family library works.
- Enough iCloud storage for the photos. That is your family's existing plan; Mupi does not sell storage and takes no cut of it.
- Wi-Fi at some point. Not constantly, and never while taking photos — the camera writes to its own storage first and backs up later.
- No SIM, no phone number, no mobile data. A Mupi does not need to be a phone.
Go and find that drawer.
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