iPadOS 17 on 2018 iPad Pro?

[Silly John Fatty]

I think I've had iOS 14 or so running on my 2018 3rd gen iPad Pro 12,9" and I updated it to iOS 16 half a year ago or so.

I was very scared that it would be slowed down or start to lag.

Thankfully this didn't happen. It's still super smooth, I can't see a difference. The only moment where it lags is my two home screens that I have that are full of widgets. Didn't have widgets before, so only thing that lags a bit is this new thing.

Now I'm thinking of upgrading to iPadOS 17. What do you think? Very bad idea? Does anyone have the same iPad and use iPadOS 17?

I use the iPad quite intensively. I play heavy games, I use Word and Excel, I have 100+ open Safari tabs, I use GarageBand and other heavy apps, etc.

 

[Morac]

I have a iPad Pro 11 1st gen and performance-wise it performs well under iOS 17. The main issue is because my iPad only has 4 GB of RAM, it can’t have a lot of apps in memory so if I open a few big apps in a row and go back to the first one it has to load into memory again. That said things like YouTube PiP still work.

There are some iOS 17 bugs which hopefully will be resolved in future updates, but those impact all devices.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I have a iPad Pro 11 1st gen and performance-wise it performs well under iOS 17. The main issue is because my iPad only has 4 GB of RAM, it can’t have a lot of apps in memory so if I open a few big apps in a row and go back to the first one it has to load into memory again. That said things like YouTube PiP still work.

There are some iOS 17 bugs which hopefully will be resolved in future updates, but those impact all devices.

Thanks for the Feedback! I have the same issue with the RAM, but I've had this before as well and I kind of got used to it, but yes, it can be quite annoying.

 

[FeliApple]

Did you update it in the end?

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Did you update it in the end?

I didn't because I changed device in the end, I got a very cheap new iPad. I'm still using this old one but it's running iOS 16. I don't think I'll upgrade it I think because I recently bought a new iPhone 13 mini, it still had iOS 15 on it, I upgraded it to iOS 17 and that basically ruined it, making it slower than my original 2016 iPhone SE! Which is … incredible.

So I'm very sceptical and I see Apple in this shady light. I'm not sure why a new OS would slow down your phone when you're just browsing your Home Screen, there's no new features or anything in that spot, and yet it lags. Same thing with some apps like Notes or just the keyboard in general. Nothing has changed here with the upgrade, but that's exactly where the phone became slower.

Be careful with updates! Sadly they're necessary. But I think Apple might be a gangster company trying to increase their profits by cheating on us. I more and more believe this sadly.

 

[FeliApple]

I didn't because I changed device in the end, I got a very cheap new iPad. I'm still using this old one but it's running iOS 16. I don't think I'll upgrade it I think because I recently bought a new iPhone 13 mini, it still had iOS 15 on it, I upgraded it to iOS 17 and that basically ruined it, making it slower than my original 2016 iPhone SE! Which is … incredible.

So I'm very sceptical and I see Apple in this shady light. I'm not sure why a new OS would slow down your phone when you're just browsing your Home Screen, there's no new features or anything in that spot, and yet it lags. Same thing with some apps like Notes or just the keyboard in general. Nothing has changed here with the upgrade, but that's exactly where the phone became slower.

Be careful with updates! Sadly they're necessary. But I think Apple might be a gangster company trying to increase their profits by cheating on us. I more and more believe this sadly.

Which iPad did you get?

And yeah, you don’t need to warn me about updates, I’m probably the most vocal proponent here of never updating anything. My main iPhone and iPad run original iOS versions (iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 and iPad Air 5 on iPadOS 15).

 

[Morac]

And yeah, you don’t need to warn me about updates, I’m probably the most vocal proponent here of never updating anything. My main iPhone and iPad run original iOS versions (iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 and iPad Air 5 on iPadOS 15).

Which means you are using devices with major security flaws on them as Apple won’t push security fixes to devices running older versions of iOS if they support newer versions. We are talking disable Bluetooth and don’t go online or your device will be hacked immediately level security flaws.

 

[FeliApple]

Which means you are using devices with major security flaws on them as Apple won’t push security fixes to devices running older versions of iOS if they support newer versions. We are talking disable Bluetooth and don’t go online or your device will be hacked immediately level security flaws.

At least my device isn’t obliterated...

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Which iPad did you get?

And yeah, you don’t need to warn me about updates, I’m probably the most vocal proponent here of never updating anything. My main iPhone and iPad run original iOS versions (iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 and iPad Air 5 on iPadOS 15).

The last one. I remember reading you saying you don’t update your devices in another thread, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. And that’s the whole problem. If we could just not update our devices we could have fast devices all the time.

I think they’re made slow on purpose so you buy a new one. I can’t imagine this is legal.

 

[FeliApple]

The last one. I remember reading you saying you don’t update your devices in another thread, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. And that’s the whole problem. If we could just not update our devices we could have fast devices all the time.

I think they’re made slow on purpose so you buy a new one. I can’t imagine this is legal.

So the 10th-gen? There are a few models.

It’s the only way I can fight. Otherwise, as a person who doesn’t upgrade frequently, I’d just be dooming myself to a poor experience all the time.

 

[Reverend Benny]

@Silly John Fatty
Did you update your iPad to iPadOS 17 in the end and what's your experience if you did?

My experience is that most devices run the same or better on 17 than on 16, it does seem to be more optimized. But that can of course differ depending on the device. But the 10.5 pro, 10.5 air, 11 M1 and iPad 9 I have been toying with are all working fine. Haven't heard back from users at work that's been updated but they usually shout fairly fast if something isn't working as it should.

But as always, it can be a number of things that affect performance of battery time.

 

[FeliApple]

@Silly John Fatty
Did you update your iPad to iPadOS 17 in the end and what's your experience if you did?

My experience is that most devices run the same or better on 17 than on 16, it does seem to be more optimized. But that can of course differ depending on the device. But the 10.5 pro, 10.5 air, 11 M1 and iPad 9 I have been toying with are all working fine. Haven't heard back from users at work that's been updated but they usually shout fairly fast if something isn't working as it should.

But as always, it can be a number of things that affect performance of battery time.

Calling the 10.5-inch iPad Pro fine in terms of battery life if updated is highly misleading... from what I’ve seen, it isn’t. The Air 5 and 5th-gen Pro are probably fine, though, too early.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Calling the 10.5-inch iPad Pro fine in terms of battery life if updated is highly misleading... from what I’ve seen, it isn’t. The Air 5 and 5th-gen Pro are probably fine, though, too early.

Its my experience, my family members experience (that inherited my device) and the 2 users at work that still uses their 10.5" pro. The last two at work are running 17.1.2 and 17.2

 

[FeliApple]

Its my experience, my family members experience (that inherited my device) and the 2 users at work that still uses their 10.5" pro. The last two at work are running 17.1.2 and 17.2

Fine is relative. Perhaps those users just use it a could of hours per day for light tasks, so it’s “fine”. Actual screen-on time is most likely mediocre at best.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Fine is relative. Perhaps those users just use it a could of hours per day for light tasks, so it’s “fine”. Actual screen-on time is most likely mediocre at best.

So if fine is relative, how can you say its highly misleading?
The guys at work use their ones quite a lot along with Logitech combo-touch, no games (as far as I know) mostly MS office apps such as Teams, Outlook, Word and Excel. Don't know their charging pattern but they seem pleased with their iPads. How many hours do you get from your 10.5" pro?

 

[FeliApple]

So if fine is relative, how can you say its highly misleading?
The guys at work use their ones quite a lot along with Logitech combo-touch, no games (as far as I know) mostly MS office apps such as Teams, Outlook, Word and Excel. Don't know their charging pattern but they seem pleased with their iPads. How many hours do you get from your 10.5" pro?

Because users’ expectations differ. I’ve seen many people call updated devices decent and they share a screenshot and it’s poor, but it works for them.

I never had one, but if it’s anywhere close to my 9.7-inch iPad Pro, I got 14 hours with light use on iOS 9 (10-11 after it was forced into iOS 12 by Apple). It should be close on iOS 10.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yeah I agree with @FeliApple here, in my opinion Apple is might be doing illegal practices here and it's something that may come out one day. The problem: The whole industry might be like that. So they laugh about it, there's no other options. The whole commerce seems to be soaked in such practices.

 

[FeliApple]

Yeah I agree with @FeliApple here, in my opinion Apple is might be doing illegal practices here and it's something that may come out one day. The problem: The whole industry might be like that. So they laugh about it, there's no other options. The whole commerce seems to be soaked in such practices.

I don’t even blame Apple for destroying devices, I blame them for disallowing downgrading. Updates are a one-way ticket to obliteration.

But the most important aspect about this relates to users: we, as a collective, are partly responsible for this. Why? Because we don’t care and we keep updating and recommending others to update. Where’s Apple’s motivation to change when everyone keeps updating everything regardless of what updates do to devices? People even recommend pushing the device to the final iOS version supported, which is otherwise known as a sure-fire way of getting a pathetic experience that cannot be fixed.

 

[Populus]

People even recommend pushing the device to the final iOS version supported, which is otherwise known as a sure-fire way of getting a pathetic experience that cannot be fixed.

To be fair, nowadays devices on their last supported version remain decently functional, even smooth I dear to say. That’s thanks to the powerful SoCs we have nowadays, and not having performance jumps between generations like ten years ago.

That being said: the problem with battery life is still there, especially in older devices, which SoC may be pushed too far, thus, increasing power consumption.

 

[FeliApple]

To be fair, nowadays devices on their last supported version remain decently functional, even smooth I dear to say. That’s thanks to the powerful SoCs we have nowadays, and not having performance jumps between generations like ten years ago.

That being said: the problem with battery life is still there, especially in older devices, which SoC may be pushed too far, thus, increasing power consumption.

Yeah, they’ve kind of inverted the issues:

32-bit devices: unusable performance, good battery life, and the opposite for 64-bit devices. The iPhone 6s, the iPhone 7, 1st and 2nd-gen iPad Pros, etc.

iPhones with larger batteries haven’t been rendered unusable (the iPhone Xʀ is usable), but it’s been degraded to a mediocre battery life device, with the same battery life as an iPhone 6s on iOS 9 or 10, whereas I’m probably getting a little over twice as much battery life. As battery sizes increase, usability improves even when updated, but nobody can tell me that the iPhone Xʀ has good battery life today. It’s moderately usable and shrouded in mediocrity, and that’s as far as I’d go.

As a user of the Xʀ on iOS 12 today, it’s sad to see what they’ve done to it.

Hopefully the 3rd-gen iPad Pro fares a little better on iPadOS 17, obtaining iPad battery life reports is a little tougher. OP no longer has theirs, it’d be interesting to know how much has the degradation been.

 

[I7guy]

I have a 7th gen iPad and it runs quite well on iPadOS 17. Battery life and performance is very good as well. I would think a more powerful iPad than mine should hold up well.

My xs max from 2018, after a new battery, ran like the day I bought it on ios 17. I would think your iPad Pro should be in the same neighborhood.

Much of this is subjective and anecdotal. And to be honest I update. The days of performance issues in 32 bit devices are over. Most devices since 2018 should be able to be updated without the performance issues seen in 32 bit cpus.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yeah, they’ve kind of inverted the issues:

32-bit devices: unusable performance, good battery life, and the opposite for 64-bit devices. The iPhone 6s, the iPhone 7, 1st and 2nd-gen iPad Pros, etc.

iPhones with larger batteries haven’t been rendered unusable (the iPhone Xʀ is usable), but it’s been degraded to a mediocre battery life device, with the same battery life as an iPhone 6s on iOS 9 or 10, whereas I’m probably getting a little over twice as much battery life. As battery sizes increase, usability improves even when updated, but nobody can tell me that the iPhone Xʀ has good battery life today. It’s moderately usable and shrouded in mediocrity, and that’s as far as I’d go.

As a user of the Xʀ on iOS 12 today, it’s sad to see what they’ve done to it.

Hopefully the 3rd-gen iPad Pro fares a little better on iPadOS 17, obtaining iPad battery life reports is a little tougher. OP no longer has theirs, it’d be interesting to know how much has the degradation been.

Battery didn't have much degradation. I had over 1100 charging cycles and the battery health was at 60-90% (I'm not sure which value to look for). I was charging it pretty much every day.

But I disagree on your don't-update-philosophy. Your device is going to be full of viruses. Every website you visit makes a ton of connections with your device, you device downloads all kinds of stuff without you even knowing it, etc. Your device literally must have Aids, lol (nothing against people with Aids, stay safe people).

In my opinion the problem is that 1) Apple wants to release a new OS every year, even though there's no use for it. It could be just a "normal" update. I would prefer if the focus was on quality. But Apple is all about cheap plastic. And 2) I think Apple is consciously slowing down old devices to make you buy a new one.

There's no technical reasons for a new OS to become slower when browsing menus or typing on a keyboard. I could relate if the old device failed to run new software that needs a lot of CPU which the old device doesn't have. However, the new OS hasn't changed anything to either typing on the keyboard or browsing the home screen, yet exactly these things are becoming slower.

On top of that, as a Mathematician, I must say the cycles in which this happens correlates so well with new devices Apple is releasing, that it is statistically extremely improbable that these events happen at the same time. In mathematics, with different tools, you can tell if a correlation is coincidence or if it has other underlying variables that control it, and in this case, my opinion is that it is a process controlled by Apple and not a coincidental correlation (which would be extremely improbable according to probability theory anyway), but rather is a controlled correlation to make it look "as if" devices were getting older, while they're actually being "damaged" consciously.

In my eyes, it makes Apple look like a gangster firm. And perhaps it is moving in that direction, who knows. Times have always been changing.

 

[FeliApple]

Battery didn't have much degradation. I had over 1100 charging cycles and the battery health was at 60-90% (I'm not sure which value to look for). I was charging it pretty much every day.

Degradation in terms of screen-on time when compared to iOS 12, not health.

But I disagree on your don't-update-philosophy. Your device is going to be full of viruses. Every website you visit makes a ton of connections with your device, you device downloads all kinds of stuff without you even knowing it, etc. Your device literally must have Aids, lol (nothing against people with Aids, stay safe people).

I’ve been using outdated iOS devices since 2011.

In my opinion the problem is that 1) Apple wants to release a new OS every year, even though there's no use for it. It could be just a "normal" update. I would prefer if the focus was on quality. But Apple is all about cheap plastic. And 2) I think Apple is consciously slowing down old devices to make you buy a new one.

The first point is just how the industry goes, and at this point, it cannot be expected for Apple to disengage from this practice, sadly. As for your second point, it generates a lot of contention among Apple fans: there are users that claim that it isn’t intentional. Others claim there is no such degradation, but that “opinion“ can be disregarded as nonsensical and flatly incorrect, which is what it is.

I’m in the middle: there’s no proof that Apple deliberately introduces input delay, lag, and other software artifacts intentionally, but I think it does not matter: the fact remains, iOS updates introduce worse performance and battery life. Whether the user accepts that in exchange for compatibility and security… well, it’s a personal decision.

There's no technical reasons for a new OS to become slower when browsing menus or typing on a keyboard. I could relate if the old device failed to run new software that needs a lot of CPU which the old device doesn't have. However, the new OS hasn't changed anything to either typing on the keyboard or browsing the home screen, yet exactly these things are becoming slower.

Agree. This is correct, plain, and simple.

On top of that, as a Mathematician, I must say the cycles in which this happens correlates so well with new devices Apple is releasing, that it is statistically extremely improbable that these events happen at the same time. In mathematics, with different tools, you can tell if a correlation is coincidence or if it has other underlying variables that control it, and in this case, my opinion is that it is a process controlled by Apple and not a coincidental correlation (which would be extremely improbable according to probability theory anyway), but rather is a controlled correlation to make it look "as if" devices were getting older, while they're actually being "damaged" consciously.

In my eyes, it makes Apple look like a gangster firm. And perhaps it is moving in that direction, who knows. Times have always been changing.

I think they don’t care about taking the time to optimize software for older devices, and their biggest crime is disallowing downgrades. You don’t care about optimizing? Fine. But let me go back. As it stands, iOS updates are a one-way ticket to obliteration, and I am not interested, thank you very much.

Therefore, people can claim that the M1 is so overpowered that Apple cannot destroy it as of now, however:

I will not have a bad experience just because Apple doesn’t care about device optimization. Not now, not ever.

 

[I7guy]

Battery didn't have much degradation. I had over 1100 charging cycles and the battery health was at 60-90% (I'm not sure which value to look for). I was charging it pretty much every day.

But I disagree on your don't-update-philosophy. Your device is going to be full of viruses. Every website you visit makes a ton of connections with your device, you device downloads all kinds of stuff without you even knowing it, etc. Your device literally must have Aids, lol (nothing against people with Aids, stay safe people).

In my opinion the problem is that 1) Apple wants to release a new OS every year, even though there's no use for it. It could be just a "normal" update. I would prefer if the focus was on quality. But Apple is all about cheap plastic. And 2) I think Apple is consciously slowing down old devices to make you buy a new one.

There's no technical reasons for a new OS to become slower when browsing menus or typing on a keyboard. I could relate if the old device failed to run new software that needs a lot of CPU which the old device doesn't have. However, the new OS hasn't changed anything to either typing on the keyboard or browsing the home screen, yet exactly these things are becoming slower.

On top of that, as a Mathematician, I must say the cycles in which this happens correlates so well with new devices Apple is releasing, that it is statistically extremely improbable that these events happen at the same time. In mathematics, with different tools, you can tell if a correlation is coincidence or if it has other underlying variables that control it, and in this case, my opinion is that it is a process controlled by Apple and not a coincidental correlation (which would be extremely improbable according to probability theory anyway), but rather is a controlled correlation to make it look "as if" devices were getting older, while they're actually being "damaged" consciously.

In my eyes, it makes Apple look like a gangster firm. And perhaps it is moving in that direction, who knows. Times have always been changing.

I kind of agree and disagree on some points. From the a12 and later iOS updates do t have much impact on performance and battery life on iPhones.

I think this type of slowdown was much more prevalent in 32 bit devices and I think apple made some mistakes with optimizing 32 bit code.

I would not want to run an old operating system and treat my iPhone as a critical device. Dont understand how people think it can be okay.

 

[mandopicker101]

iPad OS 17 works very nicely on my personal 8 (17.3) and my office-supplied 9 (17.2 as it’s corporately managed). Battery life is good on both. The office 9 sees a lot of use for MS apps (Word, Outlook, Teams) and notetaking. I run it hooked up to a 24 inch HP monitor as an alternative to my meh-tactic HP laptop. My own iPad is used for GarageBand, the usual media consumption and as a Zwift head unit.

I have no option but to update my office supplied 9 because it will cease to connect to our corporate system unless is in compliance with the security policies. We’re usually one step behind on point updates to allow for internal testing.