iOS9 on 4S is terrible

[oldmacs]

Are you serious that you replace a computer every 3 or 4 years???? Damn, when I pay £1300 for a MacBook Pro, I expect it to last 5 or 6 upwards!!! Maybe an iPad but come on

Agreed. I buy Macs for 6-7 years and iPhones for 4 or so years. Basically the longer I can get out of it the better. What people on here forget is that a) apple products are expensive so you expect them to last and b) not everyone is made of money.

In terms of the 4S, it is disappointing that performance is worse, given there is no reason (iOS 9 has virtually no new features on the 4S, and especially nothing that would slow the phone down), and Apple talked about 'foundation' and improving performance.

Its not surprising really, my iPad Mini 2 now lags and jitters (even more than before) like crazy with iOS 9. Very poor for a second upgrade, when the iPad 2 ran iOS 6 very well (for example).

I feel iOS 9 needed more time in beta, as performance should at least equal iOS 8.

 

[GreyOS]

The iPhone 4S is FOUR YEARS OLD.

The 4S model is 4 years old, but not everyone's 4S is 4 years old. It was the latest iPhone until 3 years ago, and Apple only stopped selling it a year ago. On top of that, they still support it with software updates. All the signals that Apple give are that the 4S is a competent device for today. When a customer finds it not to be, it is not their fault, but Apple's.

Apple can't have it both ways without criticism. Either they make it clear that iPhones will only be useful for 2-3 years and stop the practice of selling them up to 3 years after they were released, or they continue their current practice and support them with better updates.

 

[oldmacs]

The 4S model is 4 years old, but not everyone's 4S is 4 years old. It was the latest iPhone until 3 years ago, and Apple only stopped selling it a year ago. On top of that, they still support it with software updates. All the signals that Apple give are that the 4S is a competent device for today. When a customer finds it not to be, it is not their fault, but Apple's.

I believe there is still a significant number of people (somewhere between 10 and 20 percent) of iPhone users on the 4S.

 

[geta]

The iPhone 4S is FOUR YEARS OLD. Most modern computers you replace every 3-4 years because there's no way in hell it will keep up with modern innovations. A phone is no different.

If you can't figure out the fact that your LONG overdue for an upgrade, go ahead and switch to Android. Then tell us how you like not being able to update your OS at all when new .0 versions come out.

Dont know what computer you using, but my 2009 13" C2D MBP running Yosemite, and its running better them ever! im sure i will use it for another 2-3 years.

I dont see the reason why my 4S wont hold me another 2-3 years? its all about your needs... no ?
what i dont get is why new ios not working as smooth as they advertise on old phones, the same way their latest mac os working on older macs.. ?

 

[besler3035]

Are you serious that you replace a computer every 3 or 4 years???? Damn, when I pay £1300 for a MacBook Pro, I expect it to last 5 or 6 upwards!!! Maybe an iPad but come on

When work pays for it and I use it for editing photos and designing websites...YUP.

 

[oldmacs]

Dont know what computer you using, but my 2009 13" C2D MBP running Yosemite, and its running better them ever! im sure i will use it for another 2-3 years.

I dont see the reason why my 4S wont hold me another 2-3 years? its all about your needs... no ?
what i dont get is why new ios not working as smooth as they advertise on old phones, the same way their latest mac os working on older macs.. ?

A number of my clients are on 2008 MacBooks, and they are still running great (With the obligatory Ram and sometimes SSD upgrades

Same with iPhones and iPads. I know plenty of iPad 2 and iPhone 4S users.

 

[OSXMavericks]

Just so you know I updated my old 4s to iOS9 and it seems to be slightly faster than iOS8 for me. I don't use it for any taxing apps tho, just calender notifications, weather and occasionally news apps etc.

The iOS9 font is so damn ugly tho.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Most people aren't aware of the whole indexing thing - the iPad2 my work gave us years ago was unbearable at first but once the indexing process was over it wasn't bad at all. I expected worse.

 

[peglegjack]

I'll go ahead and give a quick review of my experience with iOS9 on my 4S that I've had since launch.

Honestly I love it. I went ahead and ordered a 128GB 6S on Saturday because I honestly couldn't stand it anymore. But out of curiosity I did a clean install of iOS 9 and it performed beyond my expectations. I'd say if you're comparing a clean install of 8.4 and 9.0, it may be everrrrr so slightly slower, but not enough to matter. 8.0 was a complete disaster and I had to downgrade that on the same day.

Anyway, I love the new wallpapers, and the News app is amazing, so much that I moved it to the bottom row in place of Safari. I had completely give up on surfing the internet in iOS 8 due to being too slow and pages reloading, but the News app is so fast that I can actually use my phone to read web pages again. I love the new Search functions, that was done really well. I love the new way you're able to go back to the last app you were using. I use the Notes app extensively so I welcome new functionality there. Being able to search your settings is pretty great, as well as seeing what is using the battery the most.

The only thing that is really pissing me off right now is that transit directions aren't live in iOS for NYC, and that was one of their main selling points. But iOS 9 actually runs really really well on the 4S considering it's advanced age, and I honestly if I new it was going to run this well, I may have held out a little longer on getting a new phone. I will say that the phone is 64GB and is pretty clean right now (all I've done is download Spotify and Runkeeper), so your mileage may vary. But for me right now it's a surprising pleasurable experience, and I could definitely see myself running iOS 9 on the phone another year. My main issue honeslty is that my phone is old and has multiple things wrong with it, so I don't see the hardware itself lasting that much longer. But it's had a great run, and I'll probably keep using it for jogging until it dies completely.

 

[LordQ]

I beg to differ, iOS 9 on the 4S after a week of use has been amazing, the little thing will be useful for at least another year and better than with iOS 8.

 

[RiderX]

Its not surprising really, my iPad Mini 2 now lags and jitters (even more than before) like crazy with iOS 9. Very poor for a second upgrade, when the iPad 2 ran iOS 6 very well (for example).

My ipad mini 2 has never been faster than with ios9. Much better than ios8, and that was not bad too.

The old ipad 2 came to life again. Very usable, I was surprised as I retired it already.

 

[vertsix]

The 4s is slow. Get over it.

Ran fine on iOS 6 because it was less GPU-intensive. iOS 7+ has a plethora of animations and aesthetic effects that the 4s just can't handle well.

Sucks, I know.

However, try Reducing Transparency (Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Transparency: On).
This helps a ton.

 

[vexorg]

That's EXATLY my point!

They locked the iPod touch 4th gens at IOS6, it's essentially an iPhone 4, They should have left the iPhone 4 on IOS6.

All owners should be give the choice of downgrading to the last version of IOS8, 7, 6, 5. And leave it with no apple support. That would keep everyone happy.

 

[oldmacs]

My ipad mini 2 has never been faster than with ios9. Much better than ios8, and that was not bad too.

The old ipad 2 came to life again. Very usable, I was surprised as I retired it already.

I wish I had this same experience. My mini 2 was poor in iOS 8 ( jerky animations) an now is not only jerky but apps now turn black for a second and randomly lag while opening. I've done two client installs now.

 

[oldmacs]

The 4s is slow. Get over it.

Ran fine on iOS 6 because it was less GPU-intensive. iOS 7+ has a plethora of animations and aesthetic effects that the 4s just can't handle well.

Sucks, I know.

However, try Reducing Transparency (Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Transparency: On).
This helps a ton.

While the 4S is older, it shouldn't run iOS 9 slower than iOS 8 - there are no new power sapping features for the 4S and apple supposedly focused on performance in iOS 9. From my experience on on the mini 2, it's more of an iOS 9 issue than a 4S specific issue.

 

[mykelala01]

My ipad mini 2 has never been faster than with ios9. Much better than ios8, and that was not bad too.

The old ipad 2 came to life again. Very usable, I was surprised as I retired it already.

Yup my Ipad 2 was running better than my IOS 7 but I did a clean install of IOS 9... So maybe that helps clear all the cache, has been accumulated overtime since IOS 6.