iOS 9 improvements for apple a5 devices

[Jordan246]

I was wondering if apple is going to improve performance on a5 devices because I have a iPad 2 and iPad 3 iPad mini 1st gen and a iPod touch 5th gen
And I was wondering if these devices are going to support iOS 9 I just wanted to know you guys thoughts thanks

 

[oldmacs]

I was wondering if apple is going to improve performance on a5 devices because I have a iPad 2 and iPad 3 iPad mini 1st gen and a iPod touch 5th gen
And I was wondering if these devices are going to support iOS 9 I just wanted to know you guys thoughts thanks

I'm going to get flamed for this but here goes.

I think iOS 9 will support the A5 for a huge number of reasons.

1. They're still selling the Touch 5 and iPad Mini 1. Apple except on one occasion has given all its devices 1 year of support after discontinuation, and the Touch 5 and iPad Mini 1 are still not discontiuend.

2. A combination of marketing sites and app developers would suggest that around half of the iPads installed are the iPad 2 and iPad Mini 1, thus that would be a huge number of customers to drop.

3. All the A5 devices (besides the iPad 3) are pretty similar performance and spec wise so they'd pretty much have to drop all or non.

4. The 4S has been picked up running iOS 9 in web logs so they're at least testing it.

5. iOS 9 is going to probably focus mainly on optimisation and bug fixes. The main problem with iOS 8 is instability and poor ram management. If these two are improved, you might see an improvement (obviously not huge) on A5 decides. If iOS 9 is very low on features, than there is little that would make iOS 9 more power hungry than iOS 8.

6. Apple would have had ioS 9 in the early stages when it decided to keep the Mini 1 and Touch 5 in production so it must have had some knowledge that iOS 9 would run relatively well on these devices.

7. Raising the minimum iOS ram limit to 1 GB also puts the top range iPhone as having the lowest possible ram specifications. That is not a good idea as then iOS and apps would inflate in their requirements given the extra room there is to play with, thus causing further ram issues.

 

[LordQ]

Apple knows iOS 8 has a lot of bugs and inestability, they certainly know people are not happy with it and I don't think 8.4 is the solution to this.

Leaving the A5 devices forever with those bugs would be a terrible move (on the other hand, they want to force people to upgrade so there's that).

I am sure iOS 9 will be the last iOS update for the A5 devices.

 

[C DM]

Some fairly recent discussions where all this type of stuff has been talked about a number of times:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1802371/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1860222/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1873657/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1845409/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1850423/

 

[Paddle1]

I'm sure it'll come to A5 devices I'm just not sure if it'll come to all of them.

 

[XTheLancerX]

I'm sure it'll come to A5 devices I'm just not sure if it'll come to all of them.

It will have to, all of the A5 devices perform similarly. And why would an iPod touch 5 for example support iOS 9 but not the 4S? Why the iPad mini but not the iPad 2? They all have the same specs.

 

[Skika]

It will have to, all of the A5 devices perform similarly. And why would an iPod touch 5 for example support iOS 9 but not the 4S? Why the iPad mini but not the iPad 2? They all have the same specs.

Its still being sold and it doesn't have a 3.5 inch screen.

 

[techguy9]

The recent front article says that Apple is planning to support them but with good performance now.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

I'm going to get flamed for this but here goes.

I think iOS 9 will support the A5 for a huge number of reasons.

1. They're still selling the Touch 5 and iPad Mini 1. Apple except on one occasion has given all its devices 1 year of support after discontinuation, and the Touch 5 and iPad Mini 1 are still not discontiuend.

2. A combination of marketing sites and app developers would suggest that around half of the iPads installed are the iPad 2 and iPad Mini 1, thus that would be a huge number of customers to drop.

3. All the A5 devices (besides the iPad 3) are pretty similar performance and spec wise so they'd pretty much have to drop all or non.

4. The 4S has been picked up running iOS 9 in web logs so they're at least testing it.

5. iOS 9 is going to probably focus mainly on optimisation and bug fixes. The main problem with iOS 8 is instability and poor ram management. If these two are improved, you might see an improvement (obviously not huge) on A5 decides. If iOS 9 is very low on features, than there is little that would make iOS 9 more power hungry than iOS 8.

6. Apple would have had ioS 9 in the early stages when it decided to keep the Mini 1 and Touch 5 in production so it must have had some knowledge that iOS 9 would run relatively well on these devices.

7. Raising the minimum iOS ram limit to 1 GB also puts the top range iPhone as having the lowest possible ram specifications. That is not a good idea as then iOS and apps would inflate in their requirements given the extra room there is to play with, thus causing further ram issues.

The only problem I have with your logic is 5 and 7. 5 is obvious since it bases off the rumors that iOS 9 might be stability and bug fixes, iOS 8 was rumored to be the same and here we are. 7 doesn't make too much sense for a number of reasons. It's not like Evernote is going to require 1 GB of RAM to use, most apps work fine on the 3GS except those developers who have ditched it when iOS 7 update arrived. The apps with RAM issues I see are graphic heavy ones, which would include games, apps like SkyGuide, or possibly image heavy applications. Other than games, these app developers will do their best to make sure these apps do work well as long as there isn't any heavy iOS api requirements that prevent this (much like the iOS 6 - iOS 7 transition). If anything the only app that has RAM issues on my 4s is Safari (Chrome seems to better in this regard but is noticeably slower than Safari).

 

[chekz0414]

The only problem I have with your logic is 5 and 7. 5 is obvious since it bases off the rumors that iOS 9 might be stability and bug fixes, iOS 8 was rumored to be the same and here we are. 7 doesn't make too much sense for a number of reasons. It's not like Evernote is going to require 1 GB of RAM to use, most apps work fine on the 3GS except those developers who have ditched it when iOS 7 update arrived. The apps with RAM issues I see are graphic heavy ones, which would include games, apps like SkyGuide, or possibly image heavy applications. Other than games, these app developers will do their best to make sure these apps do work well as long as there isn't any heavy iOS api requirements that prevent this (much like the iOS 6 - iOS 7 transition). If anything the only app that has RAM issues on my 4s is Safari (Chrome seems to better in this regard but is noticeably slower than Safari).

RAM is always an issue for iOS itself there's a thing called backboardd that is constantly causing Jetsam Events on iOS. Facebook is also a huge RAM stealer.

 

[oldmacs]

The only problem I have with your logic is 5 and 7. 5 is obvious since it bases off the rumors that iOS 9 might be stability and bug fixes, iOS 8 was rumored to be the same and here we are. 7 doesn't make too much sense for a number of reasons. It's not like Evernote is going to require 1 GB of RAM to use, most apps work fine on the 3GS except those developers who have ditched it when iOS 7 update arrived. The apps with RAM issues I see are graphic heavy ones, which would include games, apps like SkyGuide, or possibly image heavy applications. Other than games, these app developers will do their best to make sure these apps do work well as long as there isn't any heavy iOS api requirements that prevent this (much like the iOS 6 - iOS 7 transition). If anything the only app that has RAM issues on my 4s is Safari (Chrome seems to better in this regard but is noticeably slower than Safari).

iOS 8 was never aimed as a stability/bug fix release. It was a feature rich release, with massive under the hood changes + new features + new APIS.

When you have a lower limit, developers are more likely to slim down their programs, however when you remove that limit programs get far more ram hungry. Since very few current versions of apps seem to run on my 3GS, there is not much you can compare.

 

[0000757]

It will have to, all of the A5 devices perform similarly. And why would an iPod touch 5 for example support iOS 9 but not the 4S? Why the iPad mini but not the iPad 2? They all have the same specs.

To kill off the product.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

RAM is always an issue for iOS itself there's a thing called backboardd that is constantly causing Jetsam Events on iOS. Facebook is also a huge RAM stealer.

I don't have Facebook installed so can't say about that app but most of the Jetsam Events on iOS are related to games or 3D (like Skyguide) at least looking at my device. Don't usually see Jetsam Events related to apps such as Netflix, Evernote, or Dropbox.

----------

iOS 8 was never aimed as a stability/bug fix release. It was a feature rich release, with massive under the hood changes + new features + new APIS.

When you have a lower limit, developers are more likely to slim down their programs, however when you remove that limit programs get far more ram hungry. Since very few current versions of apps seem to run on my 3GS, there is not much you can compare.

There were definitely rumors of iOS 8 being a bug fix, hard to say now since its all done and through. It pertains to now since iOS 9 is also rumored to be a bug fix. Just because Gruber claims something it should still be taken with a grain of salt, it is all a guess no matter how its spun. Even the Apple TV set rumor was recently found to be made up and had no basis despite a reputable person mentioning it for years. Rumors should be something to be excited about but shouldn't necessary be dictating expectations or will lead to disappointments like the lack of Skylake or Nvidia GPU on the 15" Macbook Pro.

 

[Paddle1]

I don't have Facebook installed so can't say about that app but most of the Jetsam Events on iOS are related to games or 3D (like Skyguide) at least looking at my device. Don't usually see Jetsam Events related to apps such as Netflix, Evernote, or Dropbox.

----------



There were definitely rumors of iOS 8 being a bug fix, hard to say now since its all done and through. It pertains to now since iOS 9 is also rumored to be a bug fix. Just because Gruber claims something it should still be taken with a grain of salt, it is all a guess no matter how its spun. Even the Apple TV set rumor was recently found to be made up and had no basis despite a reputable person mentioning it for years. Rumors should be something to be excited about but shouldn't necessary be dictating expectations or will lead to disappointments like the lack of Skylake or Nvidia GPU on the 15" Macbook Pro.

So apparently there were some performance rumors, easy to find on Google if you search for May 2014 and earlier:

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/03/14/ios-8-game-center-notifications/

However that's all the way from March, they could have changed direction, it's not necessarily untrue, especially when some things mentioned did turn out to be true.

 

[C DM]

So apparently there were some performance rumors, easy to find on Google if you search for May 2014 and earlier:

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/03/14/ios-8-game-center-notifications/

However that's all the way from March, they could have changed direction, it's not necessarily untrue, especially when some things mentioned did turn out to be true.

Seems like it's mentioned there almost in passing if even that--sort of one small general mention of it almost as a generic one that's mentioned with any update containing performance/stability/bug fix improvements.

 

[oldmacs]

Seems like it's mentioned there almost in passing if even that--sort of one small general mention of it almost as a generic one that's mentioned with any update containing performance/stability/bug fix improvements.

Exactly. The rumours for iOS 8 were not focused on better performance and optimisation. iOS 9's rumours have focused heavily on that.

----------

To kill off the product.

They were using iPad Mini 1 and 4S as examples of A5 devices, as if the Mini 1 and 4S get it, its pretty much guaranteed the iPad 2 will as well. You'll also notice the iPad 3 didn't get a mention and it would also get iOS 9 if the 4S does.

With the A5 devices, one way or another its either support all or non.

 

[sanke1]

Every year the rumormill says that next iOS will be bug fix and optimisations only. Yet we get only complaints of stutter and poor battery life. We also get complaints of useless features being thrown on our faces.

iOS 9 will be the same. More bloat, more planned obsolescence. Unless Apple themselves confirm that it is purely bugfix and optimisation release during WWDC. We'll know that in 2 weeks.

 

[C DM]

Every year the rumormill says that next iOS will be bug fix and optimisations only. Yet we get only complaints of stutter and poor battery life. We also get complaints of useless features being thrown on our faces.

iOS 9 will be the same. More bloat, more planned obsolescence. Unless Apple themselves confirm that it is purely bugfix and optimisation release during WWDC. We'll know that in 2 weeks.

I don't know, can't say I really recall the rumor mill saying that being he major focus for many of the past major releases.

 

[oldmacs]

Every year the rumormill says that next iOS will be bug fix and optimisations only. Yet we get only complaints of stutter and poor battery life. We also get complaints of useless features being thrown on our faces.

iOS 9 will be the same. More bloat, more planned obsolescence. Unless Apple themselves confirm that it is purely bugfix and optimisation release during WWDC. We'll know that in 2 weeks.

I never recall any version of iOS ever being rumoured to be a bug fix optimisation realise.

There was a small rumour that iOS 8 that:

"In addition to the in-app tweaks, Apple has been working to speed up iOS 8 in comparison to iOS 7. Applications are said to launch more quickly, close more quickly, and overall system navigation is said to feel much smoother and more stable. Apple sped up animations and improved stability in the recent release of iOS 7.1, but the enhancements in iOS 8 are said to go a bit further.

This seems to relate to the animations and slightly to system performance, and while this did no turn out true, this was only a small part of the rumours for iOS 8. Most focused on other things, such as health kit, siri with Shazam etc. Optimisation in iOS 9 has been consistently rumoured, with very few other things suggested.

iOS 7 had no rumours on Macrumours about optimisation. Sme with iOS 6.

 

[XTheLancerX]

I never recall any version of iOS ever being rumoured to be a bug fix optimisation realise.

There was a small rumour that iOS 8 that:

"In addition to the in-app tweaks, Apple has been working to speed up iOS 8 in comparison to iOS 7. Applications are said to launch more quickly, close more quickly, and overall system navigation is said to feel much smoother and more stable. Apple sped up animations and improved stability in the recent release of iOS 7.1, but the enhancements in iOS 8 are said to go a bit further.

This seems to relate to the animations and slightly to system performance, and while this did no turn out true, this was only a small part of the rumours for iOS 8. Most focused on other things, such as health kit, siri with Shazam etc. Optimisation in iOS 9 has been consistently rumoured, with very few other things suggested.

iOS 7 had no rumours on Macrumours about optimisation. Sme with iOS 6.

This. I didn't remember hearing anything about optimization either, barely if anything for iOS 8 as well.

Right now seems like the best time to finally go back and optimize iOS. It has gotten really messy since iOS 7, and now with iOS 8, if it gets too much worse, Apple will probably begin to lose customers and/or a good amount of iOS 9 adoption rate. Apple should be working their asses off trying to clean everything up, and if they aren't, they deserve those decreased sales and/or adoption rates.

 

[oldmacs]

This. I didn't remember hearing anything about optimization either, barely if anything for iOS 8 as well.

Right now seems like the best time to finally go back and optimize iOS. It has gotten really messy since iOS 7, and now with iOS 8, if it gets too much worse, Apple will probably begin to lose customers and/or a good amount of iOS 9 adoption rate. Apple should be working their asses off trying to clean everything up, and if they aren't, they deserve those decreased sales and/or adoption rates.

Yeah I agree.

I trawled the Macrumours archived for January, February, March, April and June and there was only that one tiny mention of optimisation.

Where as now, its one of the few rumours we actually do have, so I would;t be surprised and I truly hope it comes true.

I've handed a lot of my money to Apple over the years so it would be nice to get something back for once

 

[kiranmk2]

iOS8 seemed like a major push to get all the cross-OS features like hand-off, continuity and the extensions. There were many stories about how resource had to be continually shifted from iOs to OSX and back to get the two big updates out in time and my feeling is that Apple probably thought that these features were such an important bedrock for its eco-system going forward that it was worth taking the pain early on. An 8.1 update a few months after release could fix any performance issues but it seems like fixing the performance wasn't quite as easy/low resource as they thought so I'm wondering whether iOS9 will be a ground-up re-write of iOS8 with some new extensions and features that build on the ground-work introduced in iOS8 (so most new things are just switching on more parts of the iOS8-introduced features).

This way there could be greatly improved performance on the A5-deviecs before cutting off all non-64bit systems for iOS X (i.e. 5S or newer, iPad Air or newer). I don't think Apple would be particularly bothered about leaving the 4S and iPod Touch hobbled with iOS8, but a lot of people still have the iPad 2 and iPad Mini. A lot of people on here believe people should accept that you need to upgrade devices fairly frequently, but Apple prides itself on giving people a good user experience. Reputation is hard to build and easy to loose and I'm guessing Apple really doesn't want 40% of iPad owners (or whatever the iPad2/2/mini ownership level is) to have an ongoing bad experience - especially if they believe Tablets have a 4-5 year upgrade cycle...

 

[Matheew944]

I think at least one device will be left from IOS 9. Apple always ditches 1 or 2 devices

 

[Cigsm]

Every year the rumormill says that next iOS will be bug fix and optimisations only. Yet we get only complaints of stutter and poor battery life. We also get complaints of useless features being thrown on our faces.



iOS 9 will be the same. More bloat, more planned obsolescence. Unless Apple themselves confirm that it is purely bugfix and optimisation release during WWDC. We'll know that in 2 weeks.

Planned obsolescence? Most android device released within the last year can't get the new update. Apple is supporting a phone and an iPad from 4 years ago.

 

[oldmacs]

I think at least one device will be left from IOS 9. Apple always ditches 1 or 2 devices

I doubt it. The rumours about A5 support have been massive.

Theres no reason for any one A5 device to be dropped. They either all get support or non do.

Mini 1 = iPad 2
Touch 5 = iPhone 4S
iPad 3 = Marginally slower than iPad 2.

The slowest A5 device is probably the 4S, which makes no sense to drop as 1. Its identical to the Touch 5 that is bound to get support and 2. It has been showing up in logs as running iOS 9.

The iPad 2 is probably the fastest A5 device, the same as the Mini 1 as it has a higher clock sped than the 4S/Touch 5, and if the slower 4S/Touch 5 can run iS 9 the iPad 2 should be able to, not to mention that if the iPad Mini 1 can run it (most likely since its still for sale) there is no reason for the iPad 2 to not run it.

The iPad 3 is slightly slower than the iPad 2 (both in observation and benchmarking, as the retina display was too much for the A5X. However, I don't see then dropping this if the year older iPad 2 gets support, so I'd guess the iPad 3 is in as well.

If Apple has gotten a specialised version of iOS 9 working for its older devices, there is seriously no reason to leave any A5 device behind, especially given the iPad 2 has the highest installed base of any iPad to this day.