Every iPhone I owned became slower after 6-12 months, have you encountered it as well?

[Propine]

So far I have only had an iPhone XR (bought in early 2019) and currently I am on iPhone 13 (early 2022). I remember that for the first 6 or maybe a bit more months the XR was working just fine, but over time it started to choke from time to time, especially when taking pictures and subsequently opening them in Photos. Laggy. I always thought that perhaps 3 GB of RAM is not enough, so when I finally got iPhone 13 I was set to have some smooth experience. Half a year later I started noticing same issues and nowadays I have to close all apps I don’t use at the moment to keep the memory clean and avoid those lags. Still, oftentimes the shatter lag is up to 1-2 seconds, opening taken pictures as well. Opening Safari and other apps sometimes is laggy too.

Is it something related to my way of usage (some apps that are misbehaving and that I am using for years?) or is it something that happens to iPhones in general after a while? Do “Pro” iPhones have same issue (I am thinking to switch to 15Pro to perhaps finally solve all those issues with more power)?

 

[Kottu]

My 12 pro max works without any problems even in IOS 17 beta. Have you tried closing all apps and restarting iPhone? Check the storage space as well

 

[Helmsley]

I've never noticed any gradual slowdowns on any of my iPhones. Usually, I keep them for around three years on average before upgrading.

I guess periodically doing a full reset may help, but I've never needed to do that with any of my iPhones.

 

[Propine]

I see, thanks. That means it’s something about how I am using the phone. And no one has any slowdowns even when there are like 20 apps open? (for sure with only a handful being actually active in memory)

 

[eyoungren]

I see, thanks. That means it’s something about how I am using the phone. And no one has any slowdowns even when there are like 20 apps open? (for sure with only a handful being actually active in memory)

While I have much more than 20 apps installed on my phones, I'm not sure what I'd ever be doing that would have 20 apps open all at once on my phone.

Are you using your devices as a substitute computer/media device/game console perhaps?

 

[Boyd01]

I see, thanks. That means it’s something about how I am using the phone. And no one has any slowdowns even when there are like 20 apps open?

Still using my 12 Pro Max, no slowdowns. But my usage is very light, mostly for basics like photos, texts, e-mail, Apple News and Music/Google Maps via CarPlay. Not many phone calls. I use very few apps and certainly would never have 20 open. Guess I'm old school (and just old, LOL) but I tend to kill apps when not actively using them. So there are rarely more than 3 or 4 open at the same time.

I went from a 6s Plus to the 12 Pro Max and will probably stick with it for a couple more years.

 

[Propine]

While I have much more than 20 apps installed on my phones, I'm not sure what I'd ever be doing that would have 20 apps open all at once on my phone.

Are you using your devices as a substitute computer/media device/game console perhaps?

Not really, as an example of what I would sometimes do is text with someone on iMessage and we decide to go to a restaurant. I would check my bank account app to make sure I have enough cash, then I am opening TripAdvisor to find a good restaurant, I find now menu on the restaurant I picked and am switching to their website and maybe will find it there (so, Safari), then I am checking where it is on Maps, then I will maybe switch to camera take a photo of something around me, after that I want to select a different playlist in apple music and eventually get back to iMessage to tell someone when and where we will meet. So it’s a longer sequence and at some point I need to switch back and forth in case something goes wrong (the restaurant is closed / the menu doesn’t have what i need/the other person doesn’t want to go there, etc.)

 

[eyoungren]

Not really, as an example of what I would sometimes do is text with someone on iMessage and we decide to go to a restaurant. I would check my bank account app to make sure I have enough cash, then I am opening TripAdvisor to find a good restaurant, I find now menu on the restaurant I picked and am switching to their website and maybe will find it there (so, Safari), then I am checking where it is on Maps, then I will maybe switch to camera take a photo of something around me, after that I want to select a different playlist in apple music and eventually get back to iMessage to tell someone when and where we will meet. So it’s a longer sequence and at some point I need to switch back and forth in case something goes wrong (the restaurant is closed / the menu doesn’t have what i need/the other person doesn’t want to go there, etc.)

OK. You might make an appointment at an Apple store and talk with them. Over the course of my time on MacRumors there have been a few people that have reported strange problems akin to your problem. It usually turned out to be something in the profile of the device. By transferring that profile from device to device the problem stuck with them.

If you're willing to test that you could back up your phone, restore it as new and then use it for a while as you would normally. If you run into problems then it's not the profile. But if you don't then you know there is something in your profile that's causing the issue.

Either way if you do backup you can always restore back to that.

Apple can also do diagnostics and based on the phone logs they may be able to determine what's going on. Unless they find a hardware problem you won't be charged anything.

 

[BugeyeSTI]

I've had quirky iOS installs that needed to go through the restore process to straighten out and a worn battery in my iPhone X that gave some performance issues that were fixed after the battery was replaced but, my X has none of the issues you've listed on the latest version of iOS16.