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iOS 15 support for the original SE is dire

GBstoic

GBstoic

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 6, 2016
523
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While most users seem to be impressed with beta 1 it is working poorly on an SE. Perhaps SE support was a last minute decision but here are some of my findings.

1. Safari on a tiny screen is very challenging
2. Music (streamed or local) glitches if you pull up a new app, pull down for search etc. Basically any attempt to multi-task causes a micro pause or a click
3. Photos can’t be accessed from a Windows PC. Folders appear empty.
4. Copying files to a USB stick via a powered camera connection kit is unreliable, may hang or only partially copy a file

On the plus side the SE does run long and cool. Maybe Apple should have excluded the SE from this release.
 
Apple_Robert said:
People shouldn't expect much from DB1.
Click to expand...
I agree. But if people with more modern phones are not experiencing these problems, and reading the forum suggests they are not, then I think it is worth a shout.
 
GBstoic said:
While most users seem to be impressed with beta 1 it is working poorly on an SE. Perhaps SE support was a last minute decision but here are some of my findings.

1. Safari on a tiny screen is very challenging
2. Music (streamed or local) glitches if you pull up a new app, pull down for search etc. Basically any attempt to multi-task causes a micro pause or a click
3. Photos can’t be accessed from a Windows PC. Folders appear empty.
4. Copying files to a USB stick via a powered camera connection kit is unreliable, may hang or only partially copy a file

On the plus side the SE does run long and cool. Maybe Apple should have excluded the SE from this release.
Click to expand...
It isn’t a last minute decision for Apple to give SE iOS 15. In general decisions like this are done months before WWDC
 
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Apple_Robert said:
If there are major problems with beta 6 -9, then I say shout. This seems a bit premature but, either way, its not a big deal at this point.
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Hi Robert Apple,

let me explain why I worry. When Apple released iOS 10.3.5 they trashed digital output via the Lightning port. Up until 10.2.1 audiophiles were happily sending high resolution music to external DACs via Apple’s camera adapter and a USB cable. Suddenly with the final update to iOS 10 music would turn into a corrupt stream of chatter after a bit of multi tasking. I was using a 6s+ at the time. With every iOS 11 beta I filed a report. At one point I suspected my phone and the Apple store replaced it. I was filing reports up until November to no avail. It took until May of the following year before Engineering asked for a sysdiagnose. By then DAC manufacturers such as Audioquest, iFi and Chord were pointing the finger at Apple. Eventually it was fixed in around iOS 12.2. It took about 18 months from Apple breaking it to fixing It. By then I had bought my SE from Apple just because it still had 10.2.1 on it. So I now test audio output on every beta.

Now that Apple is promoting high resolution lossless digital output to an external DAC it needs to know about this now.

Your advice to wait until iOS 15 is approaching RC status does not make any sense.

Ian
 
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GBstoic said:
While most users seem to be impressed with beta 1 it is working poorly on an SE.
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Right, but those most loudly “impressed” with long term OS support arent actually even using the product. So the beta cycle stages usually go like this:

Stage 1: "OMG, Upgrade hype! Im so impressed that Apple supports devices so long"

Stage 2: "Of course you have issues. Its a beta. Just wait, it will get fixed."

Stage 3: "Well, why did you expect ? Of course youre not going to get all the features and it will run poorly. Your phone is old so thats your fault for getting hyped and thinking they'd fix anything!"


For me, I have two old iPhone SE. One I keep on iOS12 and one that I update. The performance differences is staggering but the featureset difference is surprisingly small. Its a shame because, while long term support is nice, there really is a point where you go too far in updates but since Apple stops signing downgrades so quickly then a lot of customers really do get stuck on the "wrong" OS revision.
 
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I agree. The only reason iOS 15 is on my SE is to protect my 2018 iPad Pro, iPad Pro 10.5, iPhone X and 6s+ from potentially losing functionality. If the things I flagged above don’t get fixed before Apple stop signing iOS 14 then all my devices will stay on 14.
 
GBstoic said:
Don’t you think that software should be designed in an appropriate manner for the hardware it is to run on? On a 4 inch screen usability has taken a back seat.
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I just feel that your complaints about usability of safari should be more attributed to the screen size and not iOS 15. I guess an alternative would be to force all iPhone se1 users to use mobile format. But even then there is only so much you can do given that it is a small screen. It’s a trade off you chose when you decided to stick with a 4in screen.
 
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Apple wrote iOS 15 and Safari to run on Apple’s hardware. Let us stop arguing about which of these three elements is at fault and just blame Apple.
 
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GBstoic said:
Apple wrote iOS 15 and Safari to run on Apple’s hardware. Let us stop arguing about which of these three elements is at fault and just blame Apple.
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Apple should just make it easier and drop support for those devices, but then you would be upset it got dropped and doesn't get supported any longer. There is only so much they can do with a small screen along with the other larger-screened devices without completely hamstringing the newer devices.
 
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the only one that’s iPhone SE specific is the Safari one and even that that’s a matter of opinion (I personally like the newer Safari on smaller screens much more than the old).
 
macOS Lynx said:
the only one that’s iPhone SE specific is the Safari one and even that that’s a matter of opinion (I personally like the newer Safari on smaller screens much more than the old).
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Are you seeing 2,3 or 4 occurring on your Pro Max? I haven’t seen anyone else reporting them, hence the question?
 
Premium1 said:
Apple should just make it easier and drop support for those devices, but then you would be upset it got dropped and doesn't get supported any longer. There is only so much they can do with a small screen along with the other larger-screened devices without completely hamstringing the newer devices.
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this. They can do so little with that tiny screen for the A9 SE ( and A10 of iPod Touch) but then there is of course A8 of iPad Mini 4 with its screen resolution beyond 1080p and so much more pixels than the 4 inch screens and yet that iPad is still very useful😊
 
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GBstoic said:
Are you seeing 2,3 or 4 occurring on your Pro Max? I haven’t seen anyone else reporting them, hence the question?
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Dunno about 2 but 3 has been an issue for a long time across various versions of iOS. It has to do with iOS and external device permissions. Sometimes using the website version instead of the MS Store version of iTunes helps - sometimes it just goes away on its own.

4 is probably happening because of limitations with lightning since it’s only USB 2.0 - I’ve seen this happen on devices running all kinds of iOS versions.

The only time you really get device specific bugs is if it’s something directly related to a device’s hardware (even then most of the time they’re bugs that affect all the devices with that chipset, unless it’s something like the iPhone 12 green screen thing).

Your bugs could really just be chalked up to “beta woes”. There are bugs that happen to me that I’ve not seen hit anyone else, and at the same time I’ve seen bugs I’ve yet to encounter.
 
GBstoic said:
While most users seem to be impressed with beta 1 it is working poorly on an SE. Perhaps SE support was a last minute decision but here are some of my findings.

1. Safari on a tiny screen is very challenging
Click to expand...

Just out of interest, exactly how do you expect a beta firmware (or any firmware) to make your tiny screen bigger?
 
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d123 said:
Just out of interest, exactly how do you expect a beta firmware (or any firmware) to make your tiny screen bigger?
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Ho ho! Of course I don’t expect it to make the screen bigger. Conversely I expect Apple to have taken small screens into account when redesigning Safari.
 
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I'm also on an SE, 2020 version which is a current phone, but even here there has been no consideration for the smaller screen. I was on iOS 15 beta for a week but then downgraded (see my thread how to do this). Safari was just a car crash on this small screen.

I'm not hopeful there will be any major improvements during the beta and it will release like this.

The only saving grace is that Apple will, for the first time, let us stay on "old" iOS 14 and receive security updates.
 
GBstoic said:
None as yet. I will let know if I do. 2,3 and 4 have been logged. Didn’t seem much point bitching about 1.
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Please do report the Safari issues to Apple. The fact that larger phones make people have a hard time accessing the address bar is no reason us folks who buy smaller phones need to deal with that UI change.
 
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