iOS 9 vs iOS 8 speed and smoothness?

[Cisto1983]

So, yesterday I installed iOS 9 PB3 on my iPhone 4S and my iPad Mini 2. As far as I can tell:
- performance on the iPad Mini 2 is very good, on par with iOS 8.4.1. Fast and smooth, no issues.
- on the iPhone 4S.. Well, apps seem to run a little bit slower in comparison to iOs 8, but iOS itself seems smoother, especially with reduced animation on. Don't get me wrong, it's still crappy anyhow. Wifi performance is finally good again, given that they ditched discoveryd on iOS 9 and went back to mdsnresponder. I guess it's time to buy a new iPhone, as a daily driver the 4S is too much slow, both on iOS 8 and 9.

 

[Narcaz]

I dont know what to think about the voting options of this thread. Actually perception of frame drops, performance of iOS devices and different personal configurations don't allow such broad generalizations like iOS 9 smoothness is worse.

So far most iOS 9 PB3 animations are ok or good on my 5S. I downgraded, because it had battery life issues. On my rMini 2 it is worse than 8.4.1 and nowhere close to 7.1.2 (which is widely praised in this forum, but it wasn't completely lag free). PB 3 reminds me a lot of the unbearable animation performance of iOS 8.0-8.1.3. As i said in a previous thread nearly all safari animations, spotlight searches, keyboard splitting/typing and app switcher have noticeable stuttering, delay or lag. I went even through a clean install of 8.4.1 and upgraded it again to the public beta. Same result.

I really hope the GM is more polished. I expected at least a few more improvements in comparison to the beta, especially because ram management is already better than than iOS 8 and websites will load faster with adblocker apps and crashes will be reduced with updated apps.

 

[I7guy]

I can mostly echo this: On my 4s, iOs 9 beta runs better than iOS 8. Not better than iOS 7 for me though. (I also love the new keyboard and font)

the disparities in everyone's experience with this beta so far is interesting

I'm running beta 5, don't know if it's exactly "the same" as PB3. Safari is far and away much smoother than IOS 8. I still get the occasional "website error", but the incidence of those is far reduced from what it was and there is almost no lag or stutter on my ipad 2.

 

[jonnyb098]

Unless, of course, you're just making things up. My Air 1 ran the same on iOS 8.x as it did on 7.x. So, between QuarterSwede, you and me we've got three different experiences with the Air.

Most of this comes down to people being more sensitive to animation lag and stuttering. Those who say they don't have any stuttering in animations simply aren't sensitive to it. Because those of us who are know it's there.

 

[uhaas]

I'm not running iOS 9, because my devices are daily drivers with MDM that disables corporate access when loaded with betas, but I have read through the entire thread and am a developer.

It seems those that can't run Metal (32-bit) are running faster and smoother and those who can run Metal are experiencing issues. Is there a way to disable Metal and see if 64-bit devices improve performance? It'd be a curious test.

 

[Narcaz]

I'm not running iOS 9, because my devices are daily drivers with MDM that disables corporate access when loaded with betas, but I have read through the entire thread and am a developer.

It seems those that can't run Metal (32-bit) are running faster and smoother and those who can run Metal are experiencing issues. Is there a way to disable Metal and see if 64-bit devices improve performance? It'd be a curious test.

As far as i know there is no way to enable/disable Metal. It is either not that powerful, buggy/unoptimized or Apple simply decided not to include it in the Beta. And in my opinion some 64bit devices are smoother than others. Maybe it is related to resolution/scaling, processor/gpu performance or ram. My personal ranking of smoothness is: Air 2 /6 /5S > 6Plus/ Air 1/ rMini 2/3.

 

[newellj]

Most of this comes down to people being more sensitive to animation lag and stuttering. Those who say they don't have any stuttering in animations simply aren't sensitive to it. Because those of us who are know it's there.

Because those of you who are know that you're smarter, better, faster than the rest of us? I'd like to say that in my dreams some day I'll be as good as you are, except I know that will never be possible. You're so awesome. :worship: I'm so sad.

 

[madara889]

apple said

ios 9 faster and smoother

than ios8
really I didn't see that ios 8.4.1 absolutely faster than ios 9 beta 5 .... but I think we are waiting until golden master ..will see 9 September

 

[rbart]

We can't say if Apple is right or no before seeing the final version.
I hope it will be optimized as they promised.

 

[duffman9000]

Seems like most of the people reporting problems on iOS 9 beta are running it on iPhone 6+. Weird.

Running buttery smooth with very few and only minor glitches on both iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2.

I'm also on a 6+ and I shake my head when people say iOS 9 runs good but don't mention the phone used. My wife's 6 seemed to always run good on iOS 8 when I used it. My phone never ran as good. I don't doubt the same thing is happening with iOS 9. Spotlight is a laggy turd. If there is a workaround for this I'd like to know. Sometimes there is a tangible delay when opening apps, even Apple apps. I did a clean install and the behavior is similar. And Safari sometimes crashes. And Mail sometimes crashes. And Messages sometimes crashes. And Messages still has random alignment issues.

Hell, if I fiddle with Spotlight enough and it will freeze for seconds.

 

[duffman9000]

Again, I hope Apple doesn't mess it up. My iPhone 6 is incredibly smooth now, and I'm not going to lose that (despite the fact that I'm going to upgrade to iPhone 6s).

I've learned to not compare the 6 and 6+. I've loaded my restore on my wife's 6 and my 6+. My 6+ never felt anywhere near as nice as her 6.

 

[Dreamliner330]

I'm also on a 6+ and I shake my head when people say iOS 9 runs good but don't mention the phone used.

I don't. I've found that people are very oblivious. I know people on iPhone 4's that say iOS 7 works great.

 

[TommyA6]

I'm also on a 6+ and I shake my head when people say iOS 9 runs good but don't mention the phone used. My wife's 6 seemed to always run good on iOS 8 when I used it. My phone never ran as good. I don't doubt the same thing is happening with iOS 9. Spotlight is a laggy turd. If there is a workaround for this I'd like to know. Sometimes there is a tangible delay when opening apps, even Apple apps. I did a clean install and the behavior is similar. And Safari sometimes crashes. And Mail sometimes crashes. And Messages sometimes crashes. And Messages still has random alignment issues.

Hell, if I fiddle with Spotlight enough and it will freeze for seconds.

Exactly the same with my 6 Plus. Either Apple is lazy or 6 Plus is underpowered.

 

[I7guy]

I'm also on a 6+ and I shake my head when people say iOS 9 runs good but don't mention the phone used. My wife's 6 seemed to always run good on iOS 8 when I used it. My phone never ran as good. I don't doubt the same thing is happening with iOS 9. Spotlight is a laggy turd. If there is a workaround for this I'd like to know. Sometimes there is a tangible delay when opening apps, even Apple apps. I did a clean install and the behavior is similar. And Safari sometimes crashes. And Mail sometimes crashes. And Messages sometimes crashes. And Messages still has random alignment issues.

Hell, if I fiddle with Spotlight enough and it will freeze for seconds.

Stating the device should be mandatory, agreed. Apple nailed it on the iPad 2. Not trying ios 9 beta on 5s as need it to work.

 

[FatPuppy]

What if Apple didn't enable Metal yet for the whole OS? Maybe it s still disabled so that they have time to fix some bugs and maybe it will be on when the GM comes out.

 

[JXShine]

What if Apple didn't enable Metal yet for the whole OS? Maybe it s still disabled so that they have time to fix some bugs and maybe it will be on when the GM comes out.

uhh highly doubt it. Apple enabled metal in OS X after the 2nd beta

 

[XTheLancerX]

Exactly the same with my 6 Plus. Either Apple is lazy or 6 Plus is underpowered.

I think it's definitely a combination of both. iPhone 6 Plus is indeed underpowered, but things could run smoothly on it if Apple actually got on top of it, optimized things, ironed out redundant visual effects, etc. Same thing for iPad Air 1 and iPad mini 2/3. However, rather than trying to fix things, they throw more features and bugs on top of everything. I think they just want to leave these devices in the dust and run away from their problems with more powerful hardware.

uhh highly doubt it. Apple enabled metal in OS X after the 2nd beta

It still can't be totally ruled out just yet. iOS 9 is a bit more feature-focused than OS X El Capitan. Performance and experience was El Caps primary focus, but for iOS 9 it wasn't. iOS 9 needed proactive Siri suggestions to compete with the newest build of Android, they added in news, have to finish out Apple Music, slide over, split view, etc etc etc. I think if Metal was enabled at this point, we would have noticed, just like how everyone did with El Cap.

I don't know, this all might be hopeful thinking but still. I don't think we can rule out anything until we see the GM.

 

[Stickharuhi]

@XTheLancerX
Has you report by Apple bug report site?

Login with your apple id!! Yes??

 

[Jo3d3n]

On a scale of 1-10 for smoothness with 10 being very smooth and 1 being not smooth at all:

iOS 8.4.1: 10
iOS 9 beta 5: 8

iOS 8.4.1 = 10
iOS 9 GM = 5 1/2

 

[Jayson A]

... So much for Metal :-/

 

[SHNXX]

Is this GM really public release version?
My iPhone 6 is extremely sluggish with this iOS9 GM.

 

[Act3]

50% of survey says that iOS9 is not smoother than iOS8. Apple touted performance improvements, yet not seeing them. Makes me wonder if the beta program is just useless or Apple just dont care. Should be interesting next week when this is released to everyone and the people that havent particpated in the beta are also looking for the performance improvements.

 

[Jayson A]

50% of survey says that iOS9 is not smoother than iOS8. Apple touted performance improvements, yet not seeing them. Makes me wonder if the beta program is just useless or Apple just dont care. Should be interesting next week when this is released to everyone and the people that havent particpated in the beta are also looking for the performance improvements.

Don't you know that you're not supposed to complain about performance in a beta because it's a beta? It's obviously going to be fixed in the final release.... oh wait.

 

[C DM]

50% of survey says that iOS9 is not smoother than iOS8. Apple touted performance improvements, yet not seeing them. Makes me wonder if the beta program is just useless or Apple just dont care. Should be interesting next week when this is released to everyone and the people that havent particpated in the beta are also looking for the performance improvements.

Vast majority of those people will be just fine since they aren't having performance issues.

 

[walmartmartyr]

Why is anybody using 9.0 over 9.1? 9.1 seems awesome!!!