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Motionblurrr

macrumors 65816
Jul 1, 2008
1,309
1,626
My XS Max has inexplicably been very choppy and "laggy" for some unknown reason lately. It's been fine this whole time and then BAM just not very nice. I'm doing a restore right now and see if it helps.

Also, my iMessage has been in the background for 6h30m for some reason even though I only have like 2 minutes of use on it. It seems to do it while connected on the charger. hmmm.
 

Andrey11

macrumors member
Nov 5, 2021
42
6
I wonder if there will be any changes on iOS 15.2.1 or 15.3 Beta 2? share your experience of use.
 
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BladeRunner95

macrumors member
Oct 4, 2017
67
358
Earth
I wonder if there will be any changes on iOS 15.2.1 or 15.3 Beta 2? share your experience of use.
Seems better on my iPhone X. Still a bit stuttery, but not as bad as before - and the touch screen intermittently not responding seems to have stopped, and that was the main issue.

Not perfect like it was for the first 2 years after activation (it then suddenly went stuttery overnight, despite the iOS never being updated). Guessing this is as good as it gets on an older phone, so I’ll try and run this for a while.
 
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DarkRoad

macrumors newbie
Nov 18, 2021
10
13
Is still stutters for me. After opening multiple apps, when returning to them the opening animation on some is still choppy (Weather and Files for example - but not always).
It is strange though that there are 3rd party apps that do not stutter at all when opening or closing them.
Swiping up to close one app took me to app switcher again (might not be as often as before, but it still happens).
I have installed 15.2.1 for about 4 hours now, but I expect the situation to get worse, as it always does...
 

Paddle1

macrumors 603
May 1, 2013
5,140
3,573
Is there any improvement on the new 15.3 beta?

Edit: Just realized it's not public yet so most probably haven't tried it.
 
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BladeRunner95

macrumors member
Oct 4, 2017
67
358
Earth
Seems I spoke too soon about 15.2.1 being an improvement. After using it for a day or so the stuttering and lag is probably as bad as before, and I am still getting the touch screen go intermittently unresponsive.

Pretty disappointing from Apple. One of the advantages of their products has always been a strong resale value, but if they get a reputation for killing off anything over a few years old then nobody will want the older stuff used and it’ll start to really hit resale values.

I’ve no intention of buying what is essentially the same phone every 2-3 years just to get a smooth user experience, so it’ll probably push me to trying an alternative brand next time I upgrade.
 
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Paddle1

macrumors 603
May 1, 2013
5,140
3,573
Seems I spoke too soon about 15.2.1 being an improvement. After using it for a day or so the stuttering and lag is probably as bad as before, and I am still getting the touch screen go intermittently unresponsive.

Pretty disappointing from Apple. One of the advantages of their products has always been a strong resale value, but if they get a reputation for killing off anything over a few years old then nobody will want the older stuff used and it’ll start to really hit resale values.

I’ve no intention of buying what is essentially the same phone every 2-3 years just to get a smooth user experience, so it’ll probably push me to trying an alternative brand next time I upgrade.
I believe it. I wouldn't expect any smoothness improvement in an x.x.1 release unless specifically mentioned. Hoping for one in 15.3 or beyond.

The thing with iOS 15 is that even the latest devices encounter similar issues at times so it's not just an old device thing. Seems more like a general optimization problem.
 

vtuberalpha

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2021
138
422
Germany
Is still stutters for me. After opening multiple apps, when returning to them the opening animation on some is still choppy (Weather and Files for example - but not always).
It is strange though that there are 3rd party apps that do not stutter at all when opening or closing them.
Swiping up to close one app took me to app switcher again (might not be as often as before, but it still happens).
I have installed 15.2.1 for about 4 hours now, but I expect the situation to get worse, as it always does...
I have noticed too that some third-party apps don't stutter at all when opening/closing them and ironically enough Apple's native apps are some of the stutteriest.

This leads me to believe Apple has ****ed something up big time when their own apps stutter.
 
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Taz Mangus

macrumors 604
Mar 10, 2011
7,815
3,504
Have any of you tried as a sanity check, backup your phone to your computer, perform a Recovery Mode Restore, this will completely erase all the storage on the phone and put a fresh copy of 15.2.1 on the phone. Then setup the phone as a new device, don’t restore from backup. Now see if the phone is still sluggish. It might be worth a try,
 
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vtuberalpha

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2021
138
422
Germany
Have any of you tried as a sanity check, backup your phone to your computer, perform a Recovery Mode Restore, this will completely erase all the storage on the phone and put a fresh copy of 15.2.1 on the phone. Then setup the phone as a new device, don’t restore from backup. Now see if the phone is still sluggish. It might be worth a try,
I already restored to 15.2 a few weeks ago when 15.3 beta 1 released and it didn't go away.
 
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fel10

macrumors 68020
Feb 2, 2010
2,293
3,550
Woodstock, GA USA
Have any of you tried as a sanity check, backup your phone to your computer, perform a Recovery Mode Restore, this will completely erase all the storage on the phone and put a fresh copy of 15.2.1 on the phone. Then setup the phone as a new device, don’t restore from backup. Now see if the phone is still sluggish. It might be worth a try,
If you read the thread, you would’ve seen that a lot of people have tried that already.
 

nintendoswitch

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2021
194
149
I own an iPhone XS myself, and it doesn’t feel that slow to me, and it’s running 15.2.1. Although I have noticed slight performance drops, everything else is just fine. Maybe reset your phone to fix it?
 

vtuberalpha

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2021
138
422
Germany
I own an iPhone XS myself, and it doesn’t feel that slow to me, and it’s running 15.2.1. Although I have noticed slight performance drops, everything else is just fine. Maybe reset your phone to fix it?
You can't do more than a restore as that wipes everything off the phone and completely reinstalls iOS.

Also regarding performance, the speed is still pretty good but the animations and framerates are just bad which also seems to happen on newer iPhones.

This sounds like a general optimization issue to me and one that can be fixed but the question is when will Apple fix it.
 
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vtuberalpha

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2021
138
422
Germany
Which apple apps stutter?
A lot of them like Safari (especially), Phone, Settings or most egregiously the Camera app. The camera app is absolutely horrible when it comes to animation performance.

However not all of them do and I found Mail, Clock, Calendar, Files and others to not stutter nearly as much.
 
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I7guy

macrumors Nehalem
Nov 30, 2013
35,142
25,212
Gotta be in it to win it
A lot of them like Safari (especially), Phone, Settings or most egregiously the Camera app. The camera app is absolutely horrible when it comes to animation performance.

However not all of them do and I found Mail, Clock, Calendar, Files and others to not stutter nearly as much.
On my Xs max, not seeing stutter in in safari, settings or camera app. But there are many websites one could browse in safari and many screens in settings …lots of variability.
 

vtuberalpha

macrumors regular
Sep 5, 2021
138
422
Germany
On my Xs max, not seeing stutter in in safari, settings or camera app. But there are many websites one could browse in safari and many screens in settings …lots of variability.
Try swiping along the search bar in Safari to switch between tabs, it's stuttery as hell.
 

ericwn

macrumors G5
Apr 24, 2016
12,113
10,899
Try swiping along the search bar in Safari to switch between tabs, it's stuttery as hell.

Wouldn’t that also strongly depend on what websites you have open as well as the amount of open tabs and tab groups plus whatever the device is currently doing in the background?
 
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