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Gen 3 iPad. Slow apps

Abbs727

Abbs727

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 19, 2017
18
3
Missouri
I've already done a factory reset on the iPad in hopes it would improve internet and to improve using my apps but it doesn't appear to have worked.

It couldn't load messenger app.

And this past August - it wouldn't connect to the hotel's wifi even though I was typing everything correctly. But my mom was able to connect to the Wifi on her iPad (at the time.)
 
Last edited:
That iPad is way too old to work efficiently. Which iOS version are you using?
 
My iPad 3rd gen was absolute crap on 9.3.5. I wouldn’t expect you will enjoy using it except maybe for music or other less demanding uses. Even surfing the web became irritating
 
I am still using it. Slow but tolerable. Worst part is I can't find an Adblock that works.
 
I guess it depends..... I used my iPad 3 with iOS 9.3.5 (the latest it will run) until I traded it in for an iPad Pro and never had a problem with slowness or lagging. And mine was a cellular model. However, I don't game or listen to music on my iPads.
 
Just for fun, this is how my iPad 3 scores with geek bench:


image.png
 
Two months ago I traded-in my iPad 3. Even though I had wiped it several times and barely had nothing on it, browsing on it was unbearably slow. In 2015 it wasn't used at all. In 2016 I bought a used dock for it and used it for YouTube in the kitchen. Even then searching for a new video was a slow process.

I recommend getting rid off it even if it means buying a used iPad Air 2.
 
Richard8655 said:
Yes, ad blockers require 64 bit processors. Anything before Air was 32. So no ad blockers for iPad 4 and before. This, along with poor performance, meant trade in to 2017 for my iPad 3.
Click to expand...
Yep. Did the same thing back in March for the two iPad 3's left in our household. Got ~$100 a piece which went towards the purchase of a 2017 iPad 32GB and an iPad Air 2 128GB. Only regret is I didn't get cellular on the 2017 iPad.

Quite frankly, even on iOS 6, the iPad 3 was barely tolerable when one is used to A7 or newer on the iPhone.
 
Abbs727 said:
I've already done a factory reset on the iPad in hopes it would improve internet and to improve using my apps but it doesn't appear to have worked.

It couldn't load messenger app.

And this past August - it wouldn't connect to the hotel's wifi even though I was typing everything correctly. But my mom was able to connect to the Wifi on her iPad (at the time.)
Click to expand...

Hi there, try following the suggestions outlined in my post here.

Long story short, I've been using the same iPad 2 since late 2011 and have, with various tweaks, managed to get decent performance on iOS 9.3.5. It's nowhere near the speed of a 64-bit device such as the Air 2, but I find that it still does pretty much everything I need it to and thus I can't justify replacing it just yet. Basically, what worked for me was a full restore through iTunes (no backups involved!), flipping a couple toggles in the Settings app and replacing Safari with Puffin. I use it just about every day for web browsing, social media (incl. Messenger) reading, media consumption and as a remote control for various A/V products (television, Sonos, Apple TV). I recently came out of lower back surgery meaning I was confined to my bed for a few days, and boy am I glad the iPad was there at that time :)

The iPad 2 has an A5 chip with 512 MB RAM - the iPad 3, as I recall, came with twice the amount of RAM and an improved chip so you should be able to get pretty good performance on 9.3.5 if you apply the same tweaks as I did on my device running on the same firmware.

Good luck :)
 
The 3rd generation iPad was perhaps the worst iPad made, it simply wasn’t ready for the tech. It was Apple pushing a Retina screen into the iPad before the tech was truly ready. The stuck in a huge battery and it ran hot.

Needless to say I’d be surprised if it runs smoothly on newer Oses
 
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musicpenguy said:
The 3rd generation iPad was perhaps the worst iPad made, it simply wasn’t ready for the tech. It was Apple pushing a Retina screen into the iPad before the tech was truly ready. The stuck in a huge battery and it ran hot.

Needless to say I’d be surprised if it runs smoothly on newer Oses
Click to expand...

I concur with this.
 
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