Relatively happy with 11.2 on an iPhone 6

[147798]

Just wanted to report for anyone looking at combo -- I'm relatively happy with 11.2 on a 2 1/2 year old iPhone 6.

I did a full wipe and clean install. Wanted to clear all the cruft. I rebuilt -- I did not restore a user from a backup.

The battery life is not suddenly fantastic. I estimate it's just a tiny bit worse than 10.3.3.

Today I went from morning (I get up around 630) until 2pm with 5 hours of use, including: 2 hrs of phone calls, 43 mins on the web, 34 mins on messaging, 1 hour listening to music, and then miscellanious stuff, and I was down to 30% by 2pm. Decided to order a battery case to help with bridging to end of day.

My 6 was unstable in a number of ways that the wipe and Clean install addressed, and iOS 11.2 is a nicer, cleaner experience than 10.3.3 (or maybe it's just new and novel -- either way I'm enjoying it).

But, I did do the "performance tweaks" you can find under many articles if you Google "performance tweaks for iPhone 6 running ios11" included removing parallax, getting rid of translucency, being far more militant about background app refresh, etc.

I'm hoping to use this phone until the NEXT one comes out next year. I'll be pretty stoked if that works.

I am sure I'd have a better time on an iPhone 7 or later, but this solution cost me an hour or so of time and $40 for the case and I can use the $500+ saved on Christmas gifts or maybe a weekend away between Christmas and New Years with my SO.

YMMV.

UPDATE -- After installing iOS11, the experience degraded quickly over the next 4-5 days

Finally, the "Apple is throttling old batteries" issue popped up, and I swapped out my old battery for a new one, and the experience is solid now. I posted my experience here for those who are interested in iOS11 on an iP6

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ar-level-merged.2094218/page-18#post-25591359

 

[Kalloud]

I think different people have different expectations.
There are those who say:
"Okay my phone is 2/3 years old so I expect it to run slow anyways. If it's still useable, even with some scarifications like reduced performance, worse battery life, bugs here and there.. then I'm happy.
I can use some tricks like removing translucency or disable background app refresh (even though the phone never had problems with translucency or background app refresh when it launched)
Apple is the best"
Then there are those who say:
"I paid top dollar for my iPhone so I should get a decent experience for 2-3 years and the phone should be running as fast as it did when I bought it or at least not much slower, have almost the same battery life (proportional to the health of the battery) and without major bugs.
I'll upgrade if I think the new iPhone is a lot better than my current phone when it launched, not if my current phone becomes irritating (poorly optimized software updates)"
I personally agree with the second opinion.
I think this is the main cause of the infinite debates of wether the latest iOS runs well or not on older hardware. We don't have the same definition of "runs well".

 

[aengelbrecht]

My experience has been that 11.2 is much better than previous versions of 11, but not as smooth/fast as 10.3 was for me. I also did a clean install and restore on my iPhone 6 and iPad Air. Battery life seems better than previous versions of 11, but a lot worse than 10.3 was on iPhone 6. Hopefully they will continue to improve the performance and battery life on 11. Don't think I will upgrade these to the next major iOS release.

Perhaps people with the A9 and 2GB (or newer) have a better experience, but it seem the A8 with 1GB and older devices are really struggling.

 

[147798]

I think different people have different expectations.
There are those who say:
"Okay my phone is 2/3 years old so I expect it to run slow anyways. If it's still useable, even with some scarifications like reduced performance, worse battery life, bugs here and there.. then I'm happy.
I can use some tricks like removing translucency or disable background app refresh (even though the phone never had problems with translucency or background app refresh when it launched)
Apple is the best"
Then there are those who say:
"I paid top dollar for my iPhone so I should get a decent experience for 2-3 years and the phone should be running as fast as it did when I bought it or at least not much slower, have almost the same battery life (proportional to the health of the battery) and without major bugs.
I'll upgrade if I think the new iPhone is a lot better than my current phone when it launched, not if my current phone becomes irritating (poorly optimized software updates)"
I personally agree with the second opinion.
I think this is the main cause of the infinite debates of wether the latest iOS runs well or not on older hardware. We don't have the same definition of "runs well".

Are you building a straw man, responding to someone else, or putting words in my mouth? I never said Apple is the best. Nor did I say runs well, and even qualified it with “relatively.” You’re having a discussion with someone from a different thread it seems.

 

[1BadManVan]

Are you building a straw man, responding to someone else, or putting words in my mouth? I never said Apple is the best. Nor did I say runs well, and even qualified it with “relatively.” You’re Having a discussion with someone from a different thread it seems.

Don’t think that’s what he was trying to put in your mouth, the comment about Apple is the best was sarcastic and unnecessary. Clearly trying to get the point across that he doesn’t agree with that view that you should have to dumb down your phone to make it perform decent when it’s only a couple years old

It sucks that Apple doesn’t future proof their phones a bit more, but then people wouldn’t feel the need to upgrade as often either

 

[147798]

Well, I was just posting so folks wondering how does 11.2 run on a 6 can see one persons experience. I understand his point and yours, but I just don’t care that much about Phan-boi or anti phan-boi wars. Given that he practically recreated my post to knock it down, it certainly felt like a straw-man.

 

[1BadManVan]

Yup, like I said, it was an uncalled for statement

Simply pointing out that some people don’t mind modifying some features to make it smoother and some demand the best for atleast 3 Years is fine. But poking fun at the people who don’t mind doing the slight tweaks is what made it insulting

 

[Kalloud]

Well, I was just posting so folks wondering how does 11.2 run on a 6 can see one persons experience. I understand his point and yours, but I just don’t care that much about Phan-boi or anti phan-boi wars. Given that he practically recreated my post to knock it down, it certainly felt like a straw-man.

I apologize if I offended you in any way.
I know that your opinion is not as extreme as the one I stated. I will delete my reply if you want to.

 

[147798]

I apologize if I offended you in any way.
I know that your opinion is not as extreme as the one I stated. I will delete my reply if you want to.

Not offended. It's the internet after all. I was just pointing out that's not what I said.

I do agree with you, on your points generally -- both how quickly performance deteriorates and why people disagree (i.e. difference in meaning of terms).

But I am on a tight budget, and after looking at upgrading to a later model iPhone, or migrating to Android, I decided this fix was what I could afford right now, and just wanted to share how it worked out, for others with an iP6.

 

[old-wiz]

I have 11.2 on both iPhone 6 and an iPad pro. I see no real issues. It seems just as fast, if not faster. I did not do a clean install with either machine. All the apps I use frequently (mail, gmail, Chrome, Safari, youTube, and Facebook all run normally. Not everyone has issues - the ones that have no issues tend not to post hee.

 

[147798]

I have 11.2 on both iPhone 6 and an iPad pro. I see no real issues. It seems just as fast, if not faster. I did not do a clean install with either machine. All the apps I use frequently (mail, gmail, Chrome, Safari, youTube, and Facebook all run normally. Not everyone has issues - the ones that have no issues tend not to post hee.

I did load it on my iPad mini 2 before my iPhone, and I REALLY love it on my iPad.

 

[147798]

UPDATE -- After installing iOS11, the experience degraded quickly over the next 4-5 days

Finally, the "Apple is throttling old batteries" issue popped up, and I swapped out my old battery for a new one, and the experience is solid now. I posted my experience here for those who are interested in iOS11 on an iP6

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ar-level-merged.2094218/page-18#post-25591359