iOS 9 vs iOS 8 speed and smoothness?

[apolloa]

This was opposite for me and most MacRumors members who found out Air 1 being rendered near obsolete with constant Safari tab reloading and general UI stutter with iOS 8. Just tap on Safari address bar and see how keyboard with fancy translucency struggles to come up. In iOS 7, it was a smooth 60 fps animation. But with iOS 8, the same animation runs at 10-15 fps. Face it that Air 1 was an underpowered device, even though Apple parroted that it's graphics performance was superior to iPad 4.

That is nothing more then an apology for Apples rubbish coding skills. You are seriously going to claim the iPad Air is underpowered? No, if Apple coded iOS properly and optimised it properly it would run perfectly fine.

People on here claiming that the iPhone 6 is underpowered is the same excuse. Their is nothing wrong with the hardware, if their was then they would have lagged under iOS 6 and 7 and 8 but they don't. It is purely down to Apples optimisations, or lack of.

 

[canesalato]

That is nothing more then an apology for Apples rubbish coding skills. You are seriously going to claim the iPad Air is underpowered? No, if Apple coded iOS properly and optimised it properly it would run perfectly fine.

People on here claiming that the iPhone 6 is underpowered is the same excuse. Their is nothing wrong with the hardware, if their was then they would have lagged under iOS 6 and 7 and 8 but they don't. It is purely down to Apples optimisations, or lack of.

I think that 1gb of RAM for a device with a 2048x1536 retina display, a 64 bit processor and multitasking, running on a OS full of graphical effects and blur, is underpowering it, or, if you prefer, making it unbalanced. iPad 4 has generally performed slighly better than the Air when multitasking or "multi-tabbing". And that's because its 32 bit A6 is less RAM starved than the A7.

The iPhone 6 is not underpowered. It comes with much less pixel to move. iPhone 6 plus? Yes, in my opinion it is. A slower processor with more RAM would have made it better, regardless of Apple and developers coding skills.

 

[AppleRobert]

I'm thinking the same thing. The bar has been dropping and we are getting used too it. iOS 8.4.1 was never a mile stone for smoothness, far from it in fact.

Find out in a few hours I guess...

I have a Plus and will go to ios9, if I do not like the performance then I will sell it and get the 6s Plus. If I don't like the performance on it then I will return it.

I already also own the best smartphone I ever used and I have owned plenty and the jury will be out on how well the 6s Plus stacks up to it.

And in a few weeks I will find out.

 

[Phillyfinest89]

iOS9.1 on 5S it's a big laggy disaster...

Right. I'm hoping they have a . Update soon for the small glitches and lag.

 

[apolloa]

I think that 1gb of RAM for a device with a 2048x1536 retina display, a 64 bit processor and multitasking, running on a OS full of graphical effects and blur, is underpowering it, or, if you prefer, making it unbalanced. iPad 4 has generally performed slighly better than the Air when multitasking or "multi-tabbing". And that's because its 32 bit A6 is less RAM starved than the A7.

The iPhone 6 is not underpowered. It comes with much less pixel to move. iPhone 6 plus? Yes, in my opinion it is. A slower processor with more RAM would have made it better, regardless of Apple and developers coding skills.

Again, nothing but excuses. Fine don't buy Apple then. Why would you if you believe it makes such underpowered devices.

But I would still stand by my comment that it is all down to Apple's lack of optimisation skills.

 

[newellj]

Well yeah. If you turn translucency off, everything is smooth and fast. However, the OS looks ugly then.
Translucency and all the blurring effects are the main culprits for all the stuttering and lag.

Ugly is a call that's honestly yours to make. I've never like translucency, and it has nothing to do with performance. Translucency and a lot of the animations feel to me like cheap parlor tricks and detract from my experience and access, so I turn them off. The one thing I will say is that if Apple provides cheap parlor tricks they should also provide code and hardware that makes the work in a reasonably satisfactory way. It's stupid to put something into the OS that drives people nuts.

 

[canesalato]

Again, nothing but excuses. Fine don't buy Apple then. Why would you if you believe it makes such underpowered devices.

What kind of answer is this? Is this a conversation between two adults?
1) I don't work for Apples NOR I have any stocks from them so I don't need to find excuses, I'm just stating my opinion on the matter based (simple) facts.
2) why are you interested in what I buy? And what does entitle you to tell me what to buy or not to buy? Do you know my needs or my workflow? Anyway, there are many reasons:
1) the app ecosystem.
2) I don't like android and i don't like windows
3) not every iOS device is underpowered: iPhone 5 was great for its time. And iPad 4, iPhone 3gs 4, 5s 6 were good as well. iPad Air 2 was amazing.

What I think is that some iOS device have more longevity and are more balanced in specs than other. It's always quite easy to figure out the ones that will be the good ones (long term) and the future lemons. The Air was destined to be a lemon. And guess what. It is. You can fault iOS software programmer if this is your opinion. It remains that the experience is sub optimal and it was from the start. The experience on the Air 2 is great on 9 as it was on 8

 

[apolloa]

What kind of answer is this? Is this a conversation between two adults?
1) I don't work for Apples NOR I have any stocks from them so I don't need to find excuses, I'm just stating my opinion on the matter based (simple) facts.
2) why are you interested in what I buy? And what does entitle you to tell me what to buy or not to buy? Do you know my needs or my workflow? Anyway, there are many reasons:
1) the app ecosystem.
2) I don't like android and i don't like windows
3) not every iOS device is underpowered: iPhone 5 was great for its time. And iPad 4, iPhone 3gs 4, 5s 6 were good as well. iPad Air 2 was amazing.

What I think is that some iOS device have more longevity and are more balanced in specs than other. It's always quite easy to figure out the ones that will be the good ones (long term) and the future lemons. The Air was destined to be a lemon. And guess what. It is. You can fault iOS software programmer if this is your opinion. It remains that the experience is sub optimal and it was from the start. The experience on the Air 2 is great on 9 as it was on 8

What kind of answer have you made? Stating you have no Apple stocks, how wonderful for you? It has NOTHING to do with the discussion, I truly have absolutely no idea why you stated that?
Also I wasn't questioning what you like to buy, I was stating if you complain so much about Apples 'apparent' poor hardware then why buy it? Because I do not believe it's underpowered for a second, again it's down to Apples lack of iOS optimisations.
To claim the iPhone 6 or iPad Air are underpowered is to simply ignore the reality. Reloading of Safari pages has nothing to do with RAM either, because other alternative browsers on the same hardware don't do it.

 

[cynics]

What kind of answer have you made? Stating you have no Apple stocks, how wonderful for you? It has NOTHING to do with the discussion, I truly have absolutely no idea why you stated that?
Also I wasn't questioning what you like to buy, I was stating if you complain so much about Apples 'apparent' poor hardware then why buy it? Because I do not believe it's underpowered for a second, again it's down to Apples lack of iOS optimisations.
To claim the iPhone 6 or iPad Air are underpowered is to simply ignore the reality. Reloading of Safari pages has nothing to do with RAM either, because other alternative browsers on the same hardware don't do it.

Nearly all the browsers I tried do. I returned my Air because of whatever reason software or hardware it was underpowered. The Air 2 however is great, and coincidentally (or not) it runs the same software but has more RAM.

I'll let others make their own opinions on that.

 

[canesalato]

What kind of answer have you made? Stating you have no Apple stocks, how wonderful for you? It has NOTHING to do with the discussion, I truly have absolutely no idea why you stated that?
Also I wasn't questioning what you like to buy, I was stating if you complain so much about Apples 'apparent' poor hardware then why buy it? Because I do not believe it's underpowered for a second, again it's down to Apples lack of iOS optimisations.
To claim the iPhone 6 or iPad Air are underpowered is to simply ignore the reality. Reloading of Safari pages has nothing to do with RAM either, because other alternative browsers on the same hardware don't do it.

Ok, we'll just agree to disagree i guess

 

[apolloa]

Nearly all the browsers I tried do. I returned my Air because of whatever reason software or hardware it was underpowered. The Air 2 however is great, and coincidentally (or not) it runs the same software but has more RAM.

I'll let others make their own opinions on that.

That's contrary to what I've seen and read about before so thank you for sharing your real life use experience. I was fully under the belief it was due to iOS and not RAM. I still believe iOS optimisation, either in the new features added or just general making it work well has some part to play.

 

[Wando64]

... The Air was destined to be a lemon. And guess what. It is.

The Air replaced the iPad 4. Which of the two would you rather use? The "Lemon"?

Yeah, I thought so.

 

[apolloa]

Ok, we'll just agree to disagree i guess

Probably best I will be getting iOS9 later today though all the same.

 

[Phillyfinest89]

Guess it's time for the beta tag to drop.

 

[canesalato]

The Air replaced the iPad 4. Which of the two would you rather use? The "Lemon"?

Yeah, I thought so.

...i guess my english skills are just too limited...

 

[SHNXX]

For those of you with 9.0 GM, are you able to upgrade to future non beta releases directly from 9.0 GM?
I just noticed that the 9.0 is officially out now but it gives me an error when I try to download it while on the 9.0 GM.

 

[canesalato]

For those of you with 9.0 GM, are you able to upgrade to future non beta releases directly from 9.0 GM?
I just noticed that the 9.0 is officially out now but it gives me an error when I try to download it while on the 9.0 GM.

same error. Maybe the servers are just overrun at the moment. Will try later

 

[duffman9000]

Again, nothing but excuses. Fine don't buy Apple then. Why would you if you believe it makes such underpowered devices.

But I would still stand by my comment that it is all down to Apple's lack of optimisation skills.

Anandtech recently did some testing to see if an iPad Air with only 1GB of RAM could do split view. No, not with that pathetic amount of RAM. Choose a heavy website (pretty sure they used the verge) and safari starts to choke really fast. Face it, it's another under powered device due to the lack of RAM.

 

[SHNXX]

Is the public release different from the last Golden master? It seems zippier to me.

 

[estabya]

Is the public release different from the last Golden master? It seems zippier to me.

Seems about the same on my Air 2, but performance seems significantly smoother on my 5S. Like a lot better. Let's hope the battery drain issue is fixed too.

 

[canesalato]

Is the public release different from the last Golden master? It seems zippier to me.

seems to be the same on my Air 2. what device are you on?

 

[jonnyb098]

Is the public release different from the last Golden master? It seems zippier to me.

MY air 2 gestures are dramatically faster....maybe they literally did just flip the METAL switch. Gestures always had a tiny delay (4 fingers up for multitasking ). Now they're instant.

 

[manu chao]

3) not every iOS device is underpowered: iPhone 5 was great for its time. And iPad 4, iPhone 3gs 4, 5s 6 were good as well. iPad Air 2 was amazing.
The Air was destined to be a lemon. And guess what. It is.

Why would the iPad 4 be good but the iPad Air a lemon? The performance jump from the A6 to the A7 was one of the bigger ones.

 

[Hawky]

Just updated to iOS 9 on my 6 and notice its not smooth at all when using apps for texting like Kik, bringing up the keyboard and typing is slow and laggy, iOS 8 was perfetly smooth.

 

[canesalato]

Why would the iPad 4 be good but the iPad Air a lemon? The performance jump from the A6 to the A7 was one of the bigger ones.

Hi Manu Chao!
I'll try to express my views better:
Of course the A7 is much more powerful than the A6.
BUT there are some things to note:
1) this is the most important point. I'm not stating that the Air is worse than the 4, or that I would choose a 4 over an Air.
But you have to go back with your mind at the time when this devices were released. The 4 was a monster in power compared with the 3 and its A5x.
And one year later you got the Air.
How did it compare? Was it ahead of its times, like the iPad4 the year before and the Air2 one year after? See point 2.

2) the iPad 4 processor was not the A6, it was the much more powerful A6x. The Air 2 didn't have an A7x. It had the same A7 as the phone (slightly overclocked).
So the jump on the tablet was much less impressive than on the phone. For many tasks the A7 was faster than the A6x. For some it was about on par. For a few it was slower (if you are curious you can look for the Air 1 Anandtech review). Anyway, we can agree that it was faster, overall...BUT

3) RAM was the limiting factor!! Why was the problem less severe on the 4?

a) at the time iPad4 launched, the OS version was iOS6. when the Air was launched iOS7 was there. iOS7 had more animations in place, more features and more blur. All these things made the software more RAM hungry. So, even if the RAM amount between the 2 devices was actually the same, it was good on the iPad 3 (first to have 1gb), ok on the iPad 4 and not enough on the Air, because the Air was supposed to run iOS7 and to be good at it! As good as the 4 on iOS6. And it was not.

b) the 64 bit nature of the A7 makes it more RAM hungry than the 32 bit A6. Some tests quantify this difference at about 20%. This means that 1gb on a 64 bit processor is more similar to 800mb on a 32 bit processors. This facture, coupled with version 7.0 of iOS, brought instability and crashes, which, on the logs, were called "low memory crashes". Those crashes were not present on the "less powerful" 32bit iPad4 or on the 64 bit iPhone 5s, that featured a more modest screen in terms of size and resolution.
Again, the iPad Air was more powerful than the 4 but less balanced.

BTW: I love your songs!