Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iOS 15 makes iPhone XS feel overall sluggish
- Thread starter ricardoriquier
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
50% of the time. The other 50% is a delayed or lagging animation
Yes, it is ridiculous already. I wonder what exactly the QC team is doing all those months before a final release. Aren’t they using the phones? Is nobody testing the firmware on a daily basis? How can this obvious bug slip through? The animations and touch sensitivity are the most important aspects of user experience, it all starts here. If those are working like crap, how can someone enjoy using a device?
Where is the flawless animation that Apple was known for?
Is it possible that they know nothing about this problem?
I just can’t believe that they know the issues we’re facing, but they’re doing nothing about it.
As an iPhone user since years, I never faced something like this. Every big bug that I encountered has been resolved, every glitch fixed.
This Problem — with a capital P — goes on since the first iOS 15 Beta. That means June! It’s almost 2022! We’re in iOS 15.3b1 and nothing, I say NOTHING, has changed!
I just can’t understand.
In some way it is a good experience. I will never buy again most of the products from one company. 
Airpods Pro died one week ago. So what will I buy? Nothing from Apple, probably Sony WF-1000XM4.
Airpods Pro died one week ago. So what will I buy? Nothing from Apple, probably Sony WF-1000XM4.
I don’t know which is worse: they know and do nothing cause the majority does not notice or they don’t know (and this puts a big question mark on the professionalism of people hired there who should not let those things reach a final release).
Maybe they know but it is not an easy fix and they try to hide it under the rug with small updates that solve a small part of it.
In 2019 I was very vocal about the XS animation issue on their forum and I was banned, warned and finally blocked from ever accessing that specific thread again.
After a while it finally made the news on multiple tech sites and Apple fixed it!
So my bet is that they know, but Apple must be pressed to fix something.
They are likely testing future unreleased versions, or they may not be allowed in the field with them much at all.
I thought iPhone X with iOS 15 was actually better. As for Apple, I usually wait for iOS to reach *at least* the dot 2 release (Dec) or 3 (Feb/March) which is when iOS has figured things out, squashed bugs.
With new models, which they didn't have much to test using production hardware and firmware, it's a perfect storm and issues seem more common. Older phones can get tested but may not have the same features and chip support newer units will have.
How many updates since 15 was released? Often December is at around 9, and 15.0-.1 are to me not ready, not production level, more like mass beta test. And I am one to be on beta track, just not during the summer trials before it's released. Mac OS X 10.3.0 was a disaster. until 10.3.2. 10.6 turned out great but not at first, and not if you had Mac Pro 3,1 along with video card drivers.
With new models, which they didn't have much to test using production hardware and firmware, it's a perfect storm and issues seem more common. Older phones can get tested but may not have the same features and chip support newer units will have.
How many updates since 15 was released? Often December is at around 9, and 15.0-.1 are to me not ready, not production level, more like mass beta test. And I am one to be on beta track, just not during the summer trials before it's released. Mac OS X 10.3.0 was a disaster. until 10.3.2. 10.6 turned out great but not at first, and not if you had Mac Pro 3,1 along with video card drivers.
The stuttering and framedrop issues have been driving me absolutely crazy on my XS ever since 14.6 (it was better than it is on 15 by a LONG SHOT though) and the fact that they still haven't fixed it is wild.
More often than not iOS just seems to run at like 30-40 fps when in fact it should be running at 60 fps all the time (considering how powerful the hardware is). It even affects the new 13 Pros to an extent and at times really makes me think about my XS becoming slow and being unable to handle iOS anymore, which is downright insulting.
if this is Apple scheming to drive me insane, they have been doing a fantastic job.
More often than not iOS just seems to run at like 30-40 fps when in fact it should be running at 60 fps all the time (considering how powerful the hardware is). It even affects the new 13 Pros to an extent and at times really makes me think about my XS becoming slow and being unable to handle iOS anymore, which is downright insulting.
if this is Apple scheming to drive me insane, they have been doing a fantastic job.
I have a 13 Pro Max and I haven’t really experienced any bad stuttering. Scrolling in Safari is very smooth. There is a very slight jitter when scrolling in the App Store. I have to really focus and look for it, it is that minor that I would need to look for it. I use ProMotion all the time. When I have Low Power mode enabled, I can easily seeing some stuttering everywhere due to the frame rate being limited to 60 Hz.
I have no doubt that people are experiencing frame drops. I just haven’t experienced to the same degree as others have. It is surprising that I have not experienced it if it is a wide spread issue.
There is no doubt that ProMotion masks the stutters/jitters which are logically more prevalent on 60hz iPhones but they are there nevertheless.
I really have to ask why they bother upgrading their SOC every year and boast about it during their keynote when iOS doesn't even use that power and instead stutters like it does. At this point it's pure marketing really and such a shame considering how good the hardware is.
2018: One of the fastest smartphone CPU on the planet, unbelievable power for a mobile device.
2021: Whoops, seems like your phone is starting to lag after a new update, pay up pig!
2021: Whoops, seems like your phone is starting to lag after a new update, pay up pig!
Exactly this, I just laugh when people complain about this lag on devices like the XS or 11 and the fanboys are like "those phones are so old man the CPU is just slow you should upgrade 🤡".
What exactly do you need to have a buttery smooth OS and less so with a vertically integrated stack like the iPhone?
You can imagine them in meetings at Apple.. “we released the ‘slow down the old phones’ update here, and look at the spike in sales of new handsets almost immediately!”
In some ways you could argue they have no choice though. The smartphone market is totally saturated, so if they want to maintain or grow they have to force users to upgrade somehow.
My iPhone X is still stuttering, laggy with the touch screen intermittently unresponsive on 15.2.
Can those that are experiencing the sluggishness, could you take a screen recording and post it here. I would be interested in seeing how bad it is for some of you.
Interestingly, while recording it doesn't show up nearly as often as during regular use. This makes me think that it's something you have to feel when using the OS and not on a recording.
Those that are experiencing the issue, make sure to report this to Apple Feedback or open a case with Apple Support.
I would like to add to this by saying that Geekbench scores on my XS have paradoxically improved quite a bit on 15 compared to 14. I managed to crack 3000 points on multi-core on 15 (putting it on par with the A13) while single-core stayed more or less the same at ~1100.
Maybe my memory of iOS 14 is hazy and I won the silicon lottery, I honestly don't know.
Either way this makes no sense considering the UI and performance issues on iOS 15.
Maybe my memory of iOS 14 is hazy and I won the silicon lottery, I honestly don't know.
Either way this makes no sense considering the UI and performance issues on iOS 15.
It’s nothing to do with the performance of the phone itself though, it’s the user interface. Previous planned obsolescence techniques did slow cpu based on battery health, but now they just make the UI stutter and lag.
Unfortunately there is likely no way around this other than throwing your phone in landfill and buying a new one if you want a silky smooth UI.
What’s interesting is I bought an iPhone X when it was already an obsolete model, and I planned to just not upgrade the iOS. It ran perfectly smoothly initially, but after almost exactly 2 years from activation it suddenly went a stuttery overnight. That’s why I ended up upgrading the iOS as there is obviously no escaping the planned obsolescence (however it got even worse after upgrading to iOS 15)
It would be interesting to get another un-activated iPhone X, as I suspect it would run totally smooth for about 2 years from activation, then become stuttery.
Samsung are apparently even worse than Apple for this sort of thing, so what can you do!
I’m just hoping later iOS releases reduce the severity of the issues, but I read iPhone 13 sales aren’t doing great so they might not improve these issues.
However, these kinds of UI smoothness issues do appear on the latest 13 models as well which leads me to believe this is an optimization issue inherent to iOS 15 (happens on XS, 11 and 12 too). The lack of media coverage surrounding this is baffling to me though, as that would push Apple to fix it.
Although if what you say is true (I find the 2 year activation story quite hard to believe tbh), then it's honestly beyond shocking and extremely scummy.
But the fact that this does indeed happen on the 12 and 13 models points towards it not being planned obsolescence like I mentioned before.
What's the point of having consistent updates if they just make your device slower? I'd rather have Android's 2-3 year software support with great performance throughout the life of my device than iPhone's 5-year support with each software update making the device worse.
They want you to buy the latest iPhone. It won't be fixed.Yesterday I updated my iPhone 7 to iOS 15.2 and it feels overall slower / laggy in comparison to 14.8.1
Hope they fix that in a future update.
This is wrong. Samsung devices run smooth even after 3 years. I have an S10 and iPhone 11, and the S10 is smoother than the iPhone 11, which is now a laggy mess after iOS 15. So much for "better software support". I'd rather have no updates than malware.
This is an Apple-only problem. If any Android manufacturers pulled the same stunt, there would be boycotts.
Apple fans are more forgiving of Apple's shady practices, so Apple has good reason to want to slow down older devices. One the other hand, Android customers are very critical about each manufacturer and hold no brand loyalty, so there is no incentive to pursue the same type of practices Apple employs unless that manufacturer wants to be out of business in 1 year.