As if the announcement regarding compatibility wasn’t clear enough, the first generation iPhone will no longer receive software updates from Apple. @ven000m sent Steve Jobs an email asking the question and Steve replied:

Sorry, no.

This isn’t exactly a surprise but I had incorrectly predicted that the first generation iPhone would support iPhone OS 4. I didn’t think that it would support all of the features, Apple often leaves features out of software updates for old hardware. But, I suppose I didn’t think it through as much as I should have. By the time 4.0 comes out every person who purchased the first generation iPhone will be out of contract (or very close to out of contract). A 3 year life cycle for devices makes perfect sense.

Anyone who is upset about this should either switch to a new platform or suck it up and buy a new iPhone.