Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Almost zero chance ios 11 will be optimized for older devices

oplix

oplix

Suspended
Original poster
Jun 29, 2008
1,460
487
New York, NY
I would be very careful upgrading to ios 11 immediately on older devices. I'm almost certain that it will take months before subsequent updates are optimized for older devices. With all the new features that rely on the new iphone hardware, ios 11 with it's development timeline will likely only be stable on the new hardware.

Wait until people give feedback and reviews before upgrading

Aside from that, Apple has historically never optimized new ios releases for older devices until people complained in droves nor was it ever in Apple's business strategy to do so. What is more likely is that they completely ignore older device optimization as an indirect way to force people to upgrade.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TheSkywalker77, imagineadam and LoveToMacRumors
Seems it's good on A9 & A10. Not as much on A7 & A8, still usable though.
 
Last edited:
The new springboard is not smooth at all on the iPad Pro 9.7” (which should have had 3-4GB of RAM instead of 2GB). It’s got much better over the beta period but I’m not expecting to get any better than it is now. So now app switching is quite glitchy. Cant be good on the new “iPad” launched earlier this year either. Once you invoke the app switcher, it becomes fast the next couple or times you invoke it in a short time afterwards.
 
oplix said:
I would be very careful upgrading to ios 11 immediately on older devices. I'm almost certain that it will take months before subsequent updates are optimized for older devices. With all the new features that rely on the new iphone hardware, ios 11 with it's development timeline will likely only be stable on the new hardware.

Wait until people give feedback and reviews before upgrading

Aside from that, Apple has historically never optimized new ios releases for older devices until people complained in droves nor was it ever in Apple's business strategy to do so. What is more likely is that they completely ignore older device optimization as an indirect way to force people to upgrade.
Click to expand...

This is a good time to try running the latest iOS 11 public beta on any supported device just to see how it feels. If you see that it lags, you can still go back to iOS 10 having a first-hand experience of 11. The latest iOS 11 beta runs fine on my iPhone SE & iPad Air 2.
 
magicMac said:
The new springboard is not smooth at all on the iPad Pro 9.7” (which should have had 3-4GB of RAM instead of 2GB). It’s got much better over the beta period but I’m not expecting to get any better than it is now. So now app switching is quite glitchy. Cant be good on the new “iPad” launched earlier this year either. Once you invoke the app switcher, it becomes fast the next couple or times you invoke it in a short time afterwards.
Click to expand...

So is it a memory issue? The iPhone 7 only has 2 gig , so the glitchiness will be there as well ?
 
Act3 said:
So is it a memory issue? The iPhone 7 only has 2 gig , so the glitchiness will be there as well ?
Click to expand...
iPad has much higher resolution and higher resolution images need to be kept in memory.

It's not visible in iPhone 7 with poor HD resolution.
 
From what I've seen the 2014+ devices run iOS 11 flawlessly while the orgingal A7 devices are showing there age, mainly due to the weaker gpu (especially on the iPad Air)
 
  • Like
Reactions: JohnnyGo
gobikerider said:
From what I've seen the 2014+ devices run iOS 11 flawlessly while the orgingal A7 devices are showing there age, mainly due to the weaker gpu (especially on the iPad Air)
Click to expand...

The iPad Air is the only retina iPad without an “X” cpu and it shows. It suffers from lack of oomph in the GPU side. iOS 10 might be better for those devices.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gobikerider
I haven't tried any of the betas, but I'm guessing iOS 11 will be fine on an iPhone 6s?
 
Overall there seems to be a performance and fluidity decrease from iOS 10 to 11, but older devices don't seem to fair any worse than newer ones. It's more of an overall optimization rather than specifically older devices.
 
It runs acceptably on my iPad mini 2. I get delays in my third party keyboard opening up but they're present in iOS 10 too.
 
I would think that since it will ditch 32bit support that it will actually perform better on supported devices.
My slowest 64bit device, the mini 2, is running okay on iOS10. If it runs as well on iOS11, I'll be content.

On the other hand, RAM and NAND flash memory have finite read/write lifetime, and I wonder if this can have an impact.
 
  • Like
Reactions: robotica
The ultimate question however is how will Apple treat the older Ipad Air devices with the 'NAG' to upgrade like they have with previous upgrades? Back in IOS7 there was no constant push for your to upgrade to the latest version. I can't remember if it was in IOS8 or IOS9 that it decided to automatically download the latest upgrade and them daily ask you if you want to upgrade now or do it tomorrow. There was no option for NEVER.

With an iPad Air, the 1mb ram is going to be a really huge limiting factor. I have the lastest IOS 10 as there is no going backwards now. But I don't want to move to IOS11, and would really like it if Apple didn't bug me constantly to do so or else the device will be totally unusable.
 
pika2000 said:
I would think that since it will ditch 32bit support that it will actually perform better on supported devices.
My slowest 64bit device, the mini 2, is running okay on iOS10. If it runs as well on iOS11, I'll be content.

On the other hand, RAM and NAND flash memory have finite read/write lifetime, and I wonder if this can have an impact.
Click to expand...
It should. I am happy with iOS 11 on my iPad Mini 2.
 
iOS 11 runs very well on my iPad Mini 2. It's slow, for sure, but for simple reading/web browsing it's more than enough.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Patriks7
roadkill401 said:
The ultimate question however is how will Apple treat the older Ipad Air devices with the 'NAG' to upgrade like they have with previous upgrades? Back in IOS7 there was no constant push for your to upgrade to the latest version. I can't remember if it was in IOS8 or IOS9 that it decided to automatically download the latest upgrade and them daily ask you if you want to upgrade now or do it tomorrow. There was no option for NEVER.
Click to expand...
I guess that's one advantage of low storage. I've got a 16GB iPad Air and only have 700MB or so available storage. Hence, not enough space to download the update and no nagging, either. :p
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shirasaki and b0fh666
iOS 11 Beta asks whether I want the physical switch on my iPad Mini 2 to lock screen orientation, or silence notifications. I consider that being optimized :cool:
 
  • Like
Reactions: robotica
VSMacOne said:
Overall there seems to be a performance and fluidity decrease from iOS 10 to 11, but older devices don't seem to fair any worse than newer ones. It's more of an overall optimization rather than specifically older devices.
Click to expand...
I've been running IOS 11 Beta on our iPads and iPhones - Air 2, Mini 4, 9.7 Pro, 5S and SE. I really like what it does for the iPads, don't see any reason to use it on the previous generation iPhones. Went back to 10.3.3 and Apple TV Beta Profile on the phones so they won't update and will update with the iPads. The iPad dock alone makes it worth any minor glitches and slow downs for me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AmazingTechGeek and b0fh666
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back