iOS: Annually slowing down our devices

[vertsix]

I used to be against that apple was making older devices slower, but watching how poorly my iphone 6 plus runs with IOS9, I believe it to be true. There is no reason that an iphone 6 should choke. My 6S runs everything perfectly smooth.

That's because the 6s is wickedly fast.

The A9 is phenomenal.

If the lag issues are actually because of Metal on the A8 or A7 and it exists on the A9, it wouldn't matter because the A9 is just too fast.

Or maybe Apple tweaked iOS 9 in favor of the 6s because it's the new iPhone. Who knows.

 

[RebornProphet]

iOS 9.1 beta 4 has returned my Air 2 and iPhone 6 to near 8.4.1 smoothness. And it's only beta 4.

 

[jonnyb098]

Unfortunately that's probably never going to happen. Reason being, everyone wants new shiny things. They want the OS to have new features. If we were on 2 year OS cycles, they I'd expect it, but not at the pace people demand.

You mean what Wall Street demands. People don;t know what they want or need till its presented to them. Apple could shift iOS to a 2 year cycle NO PROBLEM. But all the financial weenies would poop their diapers and crash the US economy.

 

[adamhenry]

You mean what Wall Street demands. People don;t know what they want or need till its presented to them. Apple could shift iOS to a 2 year cycle NO PROBLEM. But all the financial weenies would poop their diapers and crash the US economy.

Wow! Capitalism really exists?

 

[dk001]

If I could turn off animations .....

 

[Act3]

Fine, point taken.

Now find video evidence showing a newer OS making a previous device faster.

I can find claims from Apple that iOS 9 will makes things smoother/faster, no video evidence though.

 

[skwood]

From the evidence of iOS 9.1 beta 4 released today on all my devices performance is at least at 8.4.1 levels if not slightly better. The problem with having a cycle like this is that the optimisation has to be done for the release of the latest iPhones at the expense of existing models. They then go through and clean it up. Please wait for 9.1's release this month before throwing devices into wells.

 

[Salvor Hardin]

I can find claims from Apple that iOS 9 will makes things smoother/faster, no video evidence though.

You'll find the claims on the top search result for iOS 9
http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/
"Under-the-hood refinements bring you more responsive performance"
"Faster and more responsive.
The apps in iOS 9 now take advantage of Metal, making more efficient use of the CPU and GPU to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation, and better overall performance. Email, messages, web pages, and PDFs render faster. And multitasking features on iPad feel fluid and natural."

 

[Act3]

You'll find the claims on the top search result for iOS 9
http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/
"Under-the-hood refinements bring you more responsive performance"
"Faster and more responsive.
The apps in iOS 9 now take advantage of Metal, making more efficient use of the CPU and GPU to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation, and better overall performance. Email, messages, web pages, and PDFs render faster. And multitasking features on iPad feel fluid and natural."

I know, lets see some evidence that the claim is true.

 

[Paddle1]

I know, lets see some evidence that the claim is true.

Safari seems better doesn't it?

 

[Act3]

Safari seems better doesn't it?

yes the content blocker is a nice feature and pages do load faster without the ads, not sure if metal is helping that

overall its not more responsive, tired of having to double click icons for apps to load.

 

[Armen]

The point of this thread is to provide evidence, which most threads/comments do not. As forum members we're constantly going back and forth. I wanted to provide a new angle on this by allowing people to provide evidence, rather than opinion.

I challenge someone from the other end of the spectrum to validate their claims that iOS 9 or any other iOS iteration hasn't slowed down their device with video evidence. Just because someone doesn't notice/care about a slight slowdown, doesn't mean it isn't there. I'm not saying you have to care about your device slowing down...some users don't care about speed and that's fine. I'm challenging the notion that people say their device is running faster than it did before, and if so, prove it. This extends to any iPhone / iOS combination.

Millions of iPhone users are using iOS around the world. The only complaints seem to come from OCD users on forums like this that have to kick, scream and point out that it takes half a millisecond longer to flip up the control center or that a twitter page isn't super smooth scrolling.

Truth be told most people are actually too busy with their lives to notice or care about a slight slow down.

You can also post test results done by NASA and JPL and I could still care less as not all of us experience slow downs.

 

[Act3]

Millions of iPhone users are using iOS around the world. The only complaints seem to come from OCD users on forums like this that have to kick, scream and point out that it takes half a millisecond longer to flip up the control center or that a twitter page isn't super smooth scrolling.

Truth be told most people are actually too busy with their lives to notice or care about a slight slow down.

You can also post test results done by NASA and JPL and I could still care less as not all of us experience slow downs.

If it dont bother you, why post? Enjoy your device. There are people that care that their 12 month old device doesn't work as good as it did 1 month ago.

 

[jonnyb098]

Wow! Capitalism really exists?

Yeah so does trickle down economics ...............

 

[Armen]

If it dont bother you, why post? Enjoy your device. There are people that care that their 12 month old device doesn't work as good as it did 1 month ago.

Because this "Apple is deliberately doing this" crap is getting old. Maybe I should just not come to the forum at all since all I read every day is garbage like this.

 

[Act3]

Because this "Apple is deliberately doing this" crap is getting old. Maybe I should just not come to the forum at all since all I read every day is garbage like this.

or just not click threads with titles like this one

 

[Tubamajuba]

Because this "Apple is deliberately doing this" crap is getting old. Maybe I should just not come to the forum at all since all I read every day is garbage like this.

The thing that irritates me is that people post this crap every year and yet they keep buying Apple products and complaining about the same things every time.

Heck, you might as well be giving the green light to Apple to actually start intentionally making older devices slower, because you're obviously not going to stop buying their products!

 

[snowmoon]

- If you want the latest software and the newest features at the cost of some performance, upgrade. Otherwise, don't.

Apple has no official policy of supporting anything other than the current release. Apple has failed to back port security updates to OS -1 although sometimes it does. So not upgrading isn't really an option for an internet connected device. It's not just a matter of wanting features as much as wanting security fixes.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Millions of iPhone users are using iOS around the world. The only complaints seem to come from OCD users on forums like this that have to kick, scream and point out that it takes half a millisecond longer to flip up the control center or that a twitter page isn't super smooth scrolling.

Truth be told most people are actually too busy with their lives to notice or care about a slight slow down.

You can also post test results done by NASA and JPL and I could still care less as not all of us experience slow downs.

I care about slowdowns, so I'm happily on 8.4.1. I've made the decision to stay on the original OS of the device, because that's what works best for me. I prefer speed to new features, but I understand other people would feel the opposite.

 

[vertsix]

Millions of iPhone users are using iOS around the world. The only complaints seem to come from OCD users on forums like this that have to kick, scream and point out that it takes half a millisecond longer to flip up the control center or that a twitter page isn't super smooth scrolling.

Truth be told most people are actually too busy with their lives to notice or care about a slight slow down.

You can also post test results done by NASA and JPL and I could still care less as not all of us experience slow downs.

I just learned that I have OCD.

Thanks.

 

[Act3]

I just learned that I have OCD.

Thanks.

im sure there is lawyer somewhere that can argue that ios 9 caused it and win you a settlement. lol

 

[Armen]

I care about slowdowns, so I'm happily on 8.4.1. I've made the decision to stay on the original OS of the device, because that's what works best for me. I prefer speed to new features, but I understand other people would feel the opposite.

and how are you going to feel when developers drop support for your original OS? for example Skype and Yahoo Mail do not work on iOS 6 while many other apps still do.

 

[Armen]

The thing that irritates me is that people post this crap every year and yet they keep buying Apple products and complaining about the same things every time.

Heck, you might as well be giving the green light to Apple to actually start intentionally making older devices slower, because you're obviously not going to stop buying their products!

I can almost guarantee the same group of people will be first to install iOS 10 Beta 1 when the time comes.

Why torture yourselves? Just go get an Android phone that will not get any updates and be happy.

 

[KALLT]

What bothers me the most about the perceived performance decreases it that it’s most noticeable in situations that aren’t even that taxing. Pulling down Spotlight, opening the app switcher, scrolling through a simple app. This isn’t a heavy game or application, it’s a common aspect of the system’s UI. Every year Apple touts the big improvements in performance and yet we notice this is in something as mundane as an app’s or utility’s opening animation. It is simply puzzling that this happens every year.

I can live with the fact that some games or apps may take slightly longer to load and are maybe a bit choppy, but what I can’t accept is that the general system UI itself doesn’t run as silky smooth as before. The iPhone 6 is powerful enough to run relatively big 3D games, but still chops when I pull down Spotlight. That’s poorly programmed and not optimised.

 

[Luis Mazza]

I used to be against that apple was making older devices slower, but watching how poorly my iphone 6 plus runs with IOS9, I believe it to be true. There is no reason that an iphone 6 should choke. My 6S runs everything perfectly smooth.

I never played with a 6S, but my 6+ has been absolutely great and fast with iOS9 and now b4 9.1 even better. My iPad Air 2 is doing much better as well. Both use much less memory and evrything is faster and never crashes.
I don't enable lots of junk on Settings and I take good care of what is installed. There's only 1 gb RAM, so there are no miracles with that. I think the planned obsolescence is due to adding new features to older hardware, on top of what already was available. If the iPhone 4s had 2 gb ram, it would still be a fast and powerful device. Except it has only 512mb.