iOS 9.2 Beta 4 Bug Fixes, Changes and Performance Adjustments

[Hot12345]

Actually, even I like blur effects. But I prefer 60fps performance over some snazzy translucency effect which adds nothing apart from asthetic. It also taxes the hardware too much.

Remember Windows Vista? It was the first OS which implemented blur in Aero interface. Most of the PCs at that time started to stutter and drop frames during animations. You know how Vista turned out to be. Then came Windows 7 which had perfect blur code in Pro & Ultimate versions. Microsoft even went to the extent of disabling blur on Windows 7 Basic edition PCs which had entry level hardware. Windows 8,8.1 dropped blur completely and Microsoft boasted how 8,8.1 ran faster and smoother on old hardware and it did. Now, blur is again making a comeback in Windows 10 but in limited form, start menu and taskbar.

If Apple can't get their blur code/technique right, they must drop it in favor of something else. Plain material background.

If we enable Reduce Transparency in iOS settings, the dock becomes an ugly eye sore. Why can't they leave it completely transparent? No grey background, just the icons and we can see our full wallpaper around them? The performance gain would tremendous. I would keep reduce transparency setting on forever.

So blur is the culprit. Love it but can do without it.

I hope this makes sense to you.

The difference is on the pc you can setup your RAM/pagefile to the max. For example:

I have 16GB RAM, but i have set it in the pagefile to manual. Because otherwise it throttle automatically, but you don't want that.. You want always max performance of your RAM. So I set it on manual mode.

Minimum 16GB,
+ 2.048

= 18.432GB.

So on the pc Aero it runs flawed. You can't change that on Ios

 

[Hot12345]

The Nexus 6P is actually smoother than the iPhone 6

Really?

 

[Radon87000]

Really?

Yeah.I tried it in a store.The 6P has fluid 60 fps animations.The animations speed is much faster than iOS so theres no way you will spot lag in it

 

[thed0g]

Turn on reduce transparency for you both and leave us alone. No need to change iOS for worse to please two people.

So you need to gimp the look of the OS to get it run normally, despite running fine in a previous software version ? Good one mate, make sure to buy all new Apple hardware this year and immediately replace it next year when they kill it with software again.

 

[Hot12345]

Yeah.I tried it in a store.The 6P has fluid 60 fps animations.The animations speed is much faster than iOS so theres no way you will spot lag in it

Hmmmm, do you gonna buy the 6p?

 

[Radon87000]

Hmmmm, do you gonna buy the 6p?

No I am stuck on contract with my iPhone for now.Probably may go for Samsung's S7 if Apple doesnt bring my 6 to 8.4.1 level performance.Nexus is also good but I like premium designs which are gorgeous and only Apple/Samsung do them

 

[Tubamajuba]

No I am stuck on contract with my iPhone for now.Probably may go for Samsung's S7 if Apple doesnt bring my 6 to 8.4.1 level performance.Nexus is also good but I like premium designs which are gorgeous and only Apple/Samsung do them

Just make sure you research all the potential problems you may run into before you buy whatever phone you're getting next. Surely there will be something that bugs you on another phone.

 

[februarian]

Stutters in many places seem reduced on the 6S. It's far from perfect but I can for the first time say that yes once in a while you will get perfectly smooth frames if you perform vertical scrolling (esp. Weather app).

 

[Jayderek]

So you need to gimp the look of the OS to get it run normally, despite running fine in a previous software version ? Good one mate, make sure to buy all new Apple hardware this year and immediately replace it next year when they kill it with software again.

some of us actually still have good performance and zero lag. There's a spectrum-level obsession with lag going on here for a while now that tends to drown out the discussion.

 

[scjr]

Yeah.I tried it in a store.The 6P has fluid 60 fps animations.The animations speed is much faster than iOS so theres no way you will spot lag in it

Are you moving to the 6P, when your contract is up?

 

[Act3]

a simple toggle to disable the blur. Just like the one we have for those that want to can the useless eye candy animations. If you want blur and reduced performance , you can have it. If some one wants no blur , allow them to toggle it off for performance.

 

[DeanL]

The blank Settings app may be an issue with iPhones with old backups because I have never had this issue.
Did anybody with this issue tried to clean install iOS?

 

[vertsix]

iPhone 6 here. No performance issues on either 9.2 Beta 3 or now 9.2 Beta 4. I must one of the lucky millions out there!

You are! Congratulations.

 

[aliensporebomb]

iPhone 6Plus here.

Just a battery performance note:
Charged phone to 100% last night.
Set phone to airplane mode right before I went to bed.
Woke up 7.5 hours later and saw battery percentage flip from 95% to 94%.

I realize I had music player, safari, a pedometer app, and camera viewer up and running at that time.

I think if I'd just had it running only the gui it would have done better but 94% is better than I remember it being for
having multiple apps with airplane mode going.

FYI.

 

[Shawzborne]

Add this to list of major bugs on the OP:

Apps still do not finish installing when trying to update them. It is a major bug and should be in the OP

 

[scjr]

My impression of beta 4 has been very positive. I think it's improved over beta 3.

Safari is running nicely and improved over beta 3. When comparing Safari to any version of iOS 8, it's not even close. Safari on iOS 8 was poor, in my experience. Page reloads and crashes on my 6+ were the norm.

My 6+ is a different phone on iOS 9, when compared to iOS 8. Stability is night and day, when compared to iOS 8. There are minor some bugs, but they don't hinder the OS in any way. I couldn't be happier with iOS 9.

In regards to fluidity, it's not as severe as some folks are making it out to be. It's just not. Can you find some fluidity issues that need to be addressed? Yes. If your universe revolves around absolute perfection in fluidity, you will disappointed. If you're a big picture type of person, 9.2 b4 is real, real good and improving. Initial releases of iOS 8 weren't perfectly fluid, but it improved over time in that regard. iOS 9 is more stable than iOS 8 ever was, in my experience. I don't miss iOS 8 at all.

 

[Radon87000]

Are you moving to the 6P, when your contract is up?

Maybe.I will have to think long and hard because the App Store most definitely has higher quality apps than Play Store.For instance,Real Racing 3 is a jaggy mess on all Android flagships but the iPhones has Anti Aliasing to remove jaggies.Its either the apps or performance.

 

[Nikhil72]

Yeah.I tried it in a store.The 6P has fluid 60 fps animations.The animations speed is much faster than iOS so theres no way you will spot lag in it

As someone who just returned my 6p, I still find my iPhone 6s+ significantly more fluid and smooth than the 6p.

 

[Luis Mazza]

So you need to gimp the look of the OS to get it run normally, despite running fine in a previous software version ? Good one mate, make sure to buy all new Apple hardware this year and immediately replace it next year when they kill it with software again.

You see, if you buy a 15" Retina Macbook Pro and it has a dead pixel (like mine does) Apple won't replace your Mac. I found out that costs would increase considerably to replace all of them and/or to produce them. So I live with this... That kind of thing certainly is in Apple's EULA.
Did you agree with your EULA? I think you did.

 

[HopefulHumanist]

Videos now enter picture in picture mode automatically if you press the home button while a video is playing.

 

[nuvvanda]

Podcast app closes out randomly during playback

It also happened to me.

 

[thed0g]

some of us actually still have good performance and zero lag. There's a spectrum-level obsession with lag going on here for a while now that tends to drown out the discussion.

You have zero stuttering my ass. Open a video in the YouTube app, then swipe it down and back up a bit. Lag fest. Same thing doesn't happen under iOS 8 with same app.

My 4.4 Sony e4g cheap phone I have for an MP3 player doesn't stutter that hard, actually it's like on rest of the system, not iOS smooth (pre 9), but Android smooth.

 

[sanke1]

a simple toggle to disable the blur. Just like the one we have for those that want to can the useless eye candy animations. If you want blur and reduced performance , you can have it. If some one wants no blur , allow them to toggle it off for performance without spoiling the UI

Fixed it for you.

 

[Jayderek]

You have zero stuttering my ass. Open a video in the YouTube app, then swipe it down and back up a bit. Lag fest. Same thing doesn't happen under iOS 8 with same app.

My 4.4 Sony e4g cheap phone I have for an MP3 player doesn't stutter that hard, actually it's like on rest of the system, not iOS smooth (pre 9), but Android smooth.

sigh. I'm not saying people aren't seeing lag or stuttering. They probably are...it's the obsessiveness about it that is ridiculous.

I honestly don't have ANY lag or stuttering. Stop saying I don't, because I could easily call you out and say you aren't seeing any. See how that works? It does NO good. I'm sorry you're having issues with lag and stuttering, but not all of us are.

 

[GreyOS]

What's funny about 'Reduce Transparency' is that it sits within the 'Increase Contrast' settings, but not only does it make things ugly, it can decrease contrast and makes things harder to read in the notification center. One really obvious example is the 'X' button to clear notifications. I cannot see it at all, there is no contrast with the background whatsoever! Another example is the date/time stamp under reminders.

As others have said, if Reduce Transparency wasn't so ugly and didn't actually decrease contrast I'd use it. I've reported the fact it decreases contrast to Apple- the ugliness is more subjective. But I think part of the ugliness is actually due to the loss of contrast. Too much black!