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iOS 15 makes iPhone XS feel overall sluggish

R

ricardoriquier

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 18, 2015
55
45
Hey there,

My XS feels overall sluggish and slower since I updated to iOS 15. Typing feels somewhat laggy, the animation of going from locked screen to main screen drags a bit, the gesture to expose all open apps sometimes gets a bit ‘stuck’, etc.

Anyone else experiencing this? I’ve had the new iOS for a week now.
Cheers
 
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ricardoriquier said:
Hey there,

My XS feels overall sluggish and slower since I updated to iOS 15. Typing feels somewhat laggy, the animation of going from locked screen to main screen drags a bit, the gesture to expose all open apps sometimes gets a bit ‘stuck’, etc.

Anyone else experiencing this? I’ve had the new iOS for a week now.
Cheers
Click to expand...
My XS feels that same as 14.8 but I also have an 11 and the 11 feels much snappier. I don't really want to upgrade the XS yet but I think its starting to show its age as little.
 
I ran a XS on iOS15 public beta and it didn't feel sluggish. It did have the usual app freezes sometimes needing a restart, as well as the occasional animation stutter, but overall it seemed to run fine.
 
I’ve got an XR - the A12 too of course - and it’s the same for me as the OP reports:
  • Sluggish performance throughout the entire system
  • Recently unused apps seem to have to reload from the SSD cache more (on making then the active app again)
  • Safari in particular seems very slow.
  • BTW Safari is a UX disaster too IMHO with virtually every action harder to get to than before. Private browsing was easy to access before - now it’s 4 touches away by my count. One of my favourite and most essential iOS apps has basically been ruined.
I put up with this for 48 hours and reverted back to 14.8. My phone is again fast and snappy.

I’m not going near 15 anytime soon. I thought that 11 & 13 were bad releases but this is a new low. And the Safari rework makes Safari worse - as in terrible - in nearly every aspect.
 
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I was/am running the 15 betas on an old XS, and I haven’t really noticed any slowdowns. I’ve had the occasional UI oddity pop up, but the overall speed seems fine. Geekbench score is on par with iOS 14.
 
Still snappy just a few animation lags every so often. I assume that’s iOS 15 just being buggy.
 
Same. Animations occasionally pause then resume, like swiping to go home. App closes about halfway, freezes for a quick moment, then closes all the way. Same with control center, same with swiping up to unlock. Really weird. I expect the sluggishness to be ironed out with future updates, but the XS really isn’t that slow for it to be already lagging this far down the line.
 
Slightly smoother than 14.8 here on my iPhone X, really happy with it. I always do a DFU reset and set up as new/sync with iCloud when a new iOS is released, so that might make a difference.
 
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ricardoriquier said:
Hey there,

My XS feels overall sluggish and slower since I updated to iOS 15. Typing feels somewhat laggy, the animation of going from locked screen to main screen drags a bit, the gesture to expose all open apps sometimes gets a bit ‘stuck’, etc.

Anyone else experiencing this? I’ve had the new iOS for a week now.
Cheers
Click to expand...

It's because there seem to be cloud sync issues with iCloud eg messages
 
ian6969 said:
Slightly smoother than 14.8 here on my iPhone X, really happy with it. I always do a DFU reset and set up as new/sync with iCloud when a new iOS is released, so that might make a difference.
Click to expand...

That is actually a great idea! Thanks!
 
Same on my iP7. Restored to 14.8 and it feels great again. However, my Watch is now unusable since it updated to watchOS8 and it can't be paired with iOS 14.
 
bluecoast said:
I’ve got an XR - the A12 too of course - and it’s the same for me as the OP reports:
  • Sluggish performance throughout the entire system
  • Recently unused apps seem to have to reload from the SSD cache more (on making then the active app again)
  • Safari in particular seems very slow.
  • BTW Safari is a UX disaster too IMHO with virtually every action harder to get to than before. Private browsing was easy to access before - now it’s 4 touches away by my count. One of my favourite and most essential iOS apps has basically been ruined.
I put up with this for 48 hours and reverted back to 14.8. My phone is again fast and snappy.

I’m not going near 15 anytime soon. I thought that 11 & 13 were bad releases but this is a new low. And the Safari rework makes Safari worse - as in terrible - in nearly every aspect.
Click to expand...
I disagree with Safari. It feels much better in terms of usability once you get used to it. There’s also a ton of shortcuts, that unfortunately fall under the designers age old adage where people don’t look for options that aren’t directly in-front of them.

Heres some to give you a jumpstart.

Hold down on the tabs icon to gain immediate access to closing a tab, close all tabs, open a private tab, move back to normal views or add to a tab group.

Hold down on the bookmark icon to have the option to add to a bookmark or reading list immediately.

Hold down on the forward or backward button to bring up a view to see the history of all your page change history.

Hold down on the address bar to use dictation, move a tab into a tab group or copy the URL.

For all of these options above you don’t need to lift your finger upon a long hold, simply move your finger to the option you desire and let go.

Holding down on a tab in the tab view gives the option to close all other tabs except the one that you’ve highlighted. You can also sort all your tabs by title or website, or move a tab into a tab group. You can also hold and rearrange your tabs if you are so inclined.

Finally, a swipe along the bottom bar will allow you to shift between tabs.

Those are all the shortcuts that I’ve found. Once you know these using Safari is a breeze.
 
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teflocarbon said:
I disagree with Safari. It feels much better in terms of usability once you get used to it. There’s also a ton of shortcuts, that unfortunately fall under the designers age old adage where people don’t look for options that aren’t directly in-front of them.

Heres some to give you a jumpstart.

Hold down on the tabs icon to gain immediate access to closing a tab, close all tabs, open a private tab, move back to normal views or add to a tab group.

Hold down on the bookmark icon to have the option to add to a bookmark or reading list immediately.

Hold down on the forward or backward button to bring up a view to see the history of all your page change history.

Hold down on the address bar to use dictation, move a tab into a tab group or copy the URL.

For all of these options above you don’t need to lift your finger upon a long hold, simply move your finger to the option you desire and let go.

Holding down on a tab in the tab view gives the option to close all other tabs except the one that you’ve highlighted. You can also sort all your tabs by title or website, or move a tab into a tab group. You can also hold and rearrange your tabs if you are so inclined.

Finally, a swipe along the bottom bar will allow you to shift between tabs.

Those are all the shortcuts that I’ve found. Once you know these using Safari is a breeze.
Click to expand...
Fair enough & thanks!

However: I feel that when you can only access key pieces of functionality by using hard to discover power user short cuts, it's in a bad place.

I'll wait until I hear reports that iOS 15 has been properly optimised for A12 processors and under to try it again - as at the moment, it obviously hasn't. I'm very glad that we still have the 14.8 escape route this year.
 
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I’m getting lots of lags, freezes, and stuttering animations while web-surfing on Safari and during certain games on my Mini 6. My Mini 5 running iOS 14.8 running side by side shows no such symptoms. Both are using the same 5GHz wifi. Rebooting the apps and the device doesn’t change the behavior.

Am I the only one? I did restore from a backup of my Mini 5, so it’s possible that could be causing an issue as well.
 
Can confirm, that I've faced some lags with Safari too on iPhone XS, especially when you open/close tabs. Also recently run into unresponsive touch when Safari is being switched to landscape mode.
In addition 'Reader mode' with 'Tab Bar' is frequently unusable with long articles, since address bar is popping out almost every time you scroll down. The only solution is to switch Safari to 'Single Tab' mode.
 
ricardoriquier said:
Hey there,

My XS feels overall sluggish and slower since I updated to iOS 15. Typing feels somewhat laggy, the animation of going from locked screen to main screen drags a bit, the gesture to expose all open apps sometimes gets a bit ‘stuck’, etc.

Anyone else experiencing this? I’ve had the new iOS for a week now.
Cheers
Click to expand...

Sadly, yes I have. I think i'm noticing only when off charger, so maybe battery health has something to do with it. I'm down to 80%
 
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