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bcodemz

macrumors member
Original poster
May 6, 2014
53
41
I have an iPad 4 on iOS 8.4.1 which I think it is OK. I just recently used my parent's iPad 3 on iOS 7.1.1, and it was blazing fast like an Air 2. It was perfectly smooth, and the whole OS was very snappy and responsive. What the hell? My iPad 4 is twice as fast as the iPad 3, but it is so slow compared to the iPad 3 now. There are stutters and lags on my iPad 4 that is really apparent now. What can I do to fix this? Will iOS 9 help?
 

Sirious

macrumors 68000
Jan 2, 2013
1,663
2,834
United Kingdom, London
Your iPad is a generation newer than the iPad 3, and a generation older than the iPad Air 1. I think it might be worth while upgrading to iOS 9 while you can, and 9.1 is out which has made it a bit more stable.
 

dojoman

macrumors 68000
Apr 8, 2010
1,936
1,094
I think it will speed things up a bit. I had iOS 8 on iPad 2 it was very slow but 9.1 made it a bit better.
 

George Waseem

macrumors regular
Jul 2, 2015
230
107
I have an iPad 4 on iOS 8.4.1 which I think it is OK. I just recently used my parent's iPad 3 on iOS 7.1.1, and it was blazing fast like an Air 2. It was perfectly smooth, and the whole OS was very snappy and responsive. What the hell? My iPad 4 is twice as fast as the iPad 3, but it is so slow compared to the iPad 3 now. There are stutters and lags on my iPad 4 that is really apparent now. What can I do to fix this? Will iOS 9 help?

I have an iPad 4 since it came out and I've tried all its upgrades, iOS 6 was great, iOS 7 was awesome, iOS 8 is bad and iOS 9 seems to be good. Apple did a huge mistake regarding releasing iOS 8, it's completely horrible. Apple planned to control iOS 8 in a new way, (slow down device --> user angry --> user fade up --> gets the newest iPad --> revenue). Apple started losing some of its fans after iOS 8, so it decided that iOS 9 would be optimized for old devices (A5 devices). Unfortunately Apple is not yet complete with optimizing the OS for middle aged devices (A6 and A7) so these devices performed some kind of more worse than older devices, what's good is that iOS 9.2 is aimed directly at the A6 and A7 devices to improve the user experience, animations and performance. Comparing iOS 9.2 beta 1 to iOS 8.4.1, Apple did fix all the annoying animations but unfortunately some other little annoying animations came up and i think apple is kinda improving (it's usable compared to iOS 9.0.2 or 9.1), iOS 8 was aweful, it was laggy and used to stutter after doing a simple task. iPad 3 is suffering with iOS 9 which kinda gives u an advantage over it. The iPad Air is just a tiny bit faster than the iPad 4 with iOS 9, so i think it's good for u to upgrade, just wait for iOS 9.2 final release, so that u won't get a bad impression of iOS 9. I hope Apple keeps on updating to fix all the bugs.
 

XTheLancerX

macrumors 68000
Aug 20, 2014
1,911
782
NY, USA
I have an iPad 4 since it came out and I've tried all its upgrades, iOS 6 was great, iOS 7 was awesome, iOS 8 is bad and iOS 9 seems to be good. Apple did a huge mistake regarding releasing iOS 8, it's completely horrible. Apple planned to control iOS 8 in a new way, (slow down device --> user angry --> user fade up --> gets the newest iPad --> revenue). Apple started losing some of its fans after iOS 8, so it decided that iOS 9 would be optimized for old devices (A5 devices). Unfortunately Apple is not yet complete with optimizing the OS for middle aged devices (A6 and A7) so these devices performed some kind of more worse than older devices, what's good is that iOS 9.2 is aimed directly at the A6 and A7 devices to improve the user experience, animations and performance. Comparing iOS 9.2 beta 1 to iOS 8.4.1, Apple did fix all the annoying animations but unfortunately some other little annoying animations came up and i think apple is kinda improving (it's usable compared to iOS 9.0.2 or 9.1), iOS 8 was aweful, it was laggy and used to stutter after doing a simple task. iPad 3 is suffering with iOS 9 which kinda gives u an advantage over it. The iPad Air is just a tiny bit faster than the iPad 4 with iOS 9, so i think it's good for u to upgrade, just wait for iOS 9.2 final release, so that u won't get a bad impression of iOS 9. I hope Apple keeps on updating to fix all the bugs.
I don't get how you people think iOS 9 is faster? I used my iPad mini 2 on iOS 9.2 side by side with iOS 8.4.1 on my friend's iPad Air (they have the same hardware) and iOS 8.4.1 was a huge breath of fresh air in almost every way. The app switcher was literally like 10FPS on iOS 9.1 (allegedly similar on iPad 4) and with iOS 9.2 it's a lot better but still not even close to perfect. Spotlight is much laggier on iOS 9 on all devices compared to 8.4.1, and I've observed random hiccups and slowdowns when opening and closing apps too. Control Center is also worse on 9, even on 9.2.

I would not suggest upgrading at all.
 

AddisonIII

macrumors regular
May 8, 2013
190
54
I have an iPad 4 on iOS 8.4.1 which I think it is OK. I just recently used my parent's iPad 3 on iOS 7.1.1, and it was blazing fast like an Air 2. It was perfectly smooth, and the whole OS was very snappy and responsive. What the hell? My iPad 4 is twice as fast as the iPad 3, but it is so slow compared to the iPad 3 now. There are stutters and lags on my iPad 4 that is really apparent now. What can I do to fix this? Will iOS 9 help?
I'm running iOS 9.0.2 on an iPad 4 and find its running better than my Air 2 which is on 9.1. On my current charge, my 4 is showing close to 14hrs of use and another 70 plus hrs of standby. As for my Air2, my last charge got 9.45hrs. Your mileage might very but I'm happy I updated.
 

George Waseem

macrumors regular
Jul 2, 2015
230
107
I don't get how you people think iOS 9 is faster? I used my iPad mini 2 on iOS 9.2 side by side with iOS 8.4.1 on my friend's iPad Air (they have the same hardware) and iOS 8.4.1 was a huge breath of fresh air in almost every way. The app switcher was literally like 10FPS on iOS 9.1 (allegedly similar on iPad 4) and with iOS 9.2 it's a lot better but still not even close to perfect. Spotlight is much laggier on iOS 9 on all devices compared to 8.4.1, and I've observed random hiccups and slowdowns when opening and closing apps too. Control Center is also worse on 9, even on 9.2.

I would not suggest upgrading at all.

I know your mini 2 feels awful with iOS 9, it didn't feel perfect with iOS 8, the iPad 4 was perfect with iOS 6 and 7, performance was sometimes bad with iOS 8, animations didn't look well, iOS 9 seems to fix all the stutter and the animations, but with some new features like the new app switcher (which is ok but not looking that good), the iPad still stutters but 50% less than iOS 8. Spotlight is laggy on 70% of the devices, Apple must have a fix for that. The control centre feels great with iOS 9 on the iPad 4. Not even a single lag, the issue affected the mini 2, 5s, ip6. Try comparing the mini 2 against another mini 2 as the iPad Air has a slightly better A7 chip which acts like "the X" variants of any chip, ex : a6x / a9x. Clearly, The only issues I have with iOS 9 are, 1. Keyboard delay (in safari) 2. App switcher animation lag. The battery even seems to be great with over than 14 hours of usage and over 65 hours of standby
 

XTheLancerX

macrumors 68000
Aug 20, 2014
1,911
782
NY, USA
I know your mini 2 feels awful with iOS 9, it didn't feel perfect with iOS 8, the iPad 4 was perfect with iOS 6 and 7, performance was sometimes bad with iOS 8, animations didn't look well, iOS 9 seems to fix all the stutter and the animations, but with some new features like the new app switcher (which is ok but not looking that good), the iPad still stutters but 50% less than iOS 8. Spotlight is laggy on 70% of the devices, Apple must have a fix for that. The control centre feels great with iOS 9 on the iPad 4. Not even a single lag, the issue affected the mini 2, 5s, ip6. Try comparing the mini 2 against another mini 2 as the iPad Air has a slightly better A7 chip which acts like "the X" variants of any chip, ex : a6x / a9x. Clearly, The only issues I have with iOS 9 are, 1. Keyboard delay (in safari) 2. App switcher animation lag. The battery even seems to be great with over than 14 hours of usage and over 65 hours of standby
The air 1 is clocked at 1.4 vs 1.3 GHz and the RAM is located outside the chip. Only differences, which are negligible. My iPad mini 2 is worse in every single way with iOS 9, not "50% less", metal just needs to be fully fleshed out I think. It feels like they quickly just ported stuff over for metal rather than rewriting to fully take advantage of the improvements.
 

George Waseem

macrumors regular
Jul 2, 2015
230
107
The air 1 is clocked at 1.4 vs 1.3 GHz and the RAM is located outside the chip. Only differences, which are negligible. My iPad mini 2 is worse in every single way with iOS 9, not "50% less", metal just needs to be fully fleshed out I think. It feels like they quickly just ported stuff over for metal rather than rewriting to fully take advantage of the improvements.

Look, The really big problem with iOS 9 is metal, metal supported devices which include the mini 2 and air 1 suffer some kind of stuttery experience, iPad 4 is the fastest 32 bit device and doesn't support metal, thats why it may feel better than the mini 2 and air 1 with iOS 9 only some errors occur that could maybe be fixed in the future. iOS 9.2 will be released very early and thus more versions will come having more improvements. Lastly, the iPad 4 is ok, I feel it's back in the game, if you compared the iPad 4's performance with the iPad 3's, there is massive difference, delays in app launching are 99% gone and I only suffer 2 bugs (keyboard / app switcher ) which doesn't make the whole system bad. I watched a comparison video between 2 iPad mini 2's, one running 8.4.1 and another running 9.1 and all I can say is that Apple really messed up with the A7, there is a massive difference that I cannot even describe. I suffered all this back when I upgraded to iOS 8.1.3, it was completely awful with stuttering every where in the entire system, I know iOS 9 is not that big of a deal but it made me think not to buy a newer one which is probably going to get slower with next versions of iOS. I will wait till the last version of iOS 9 to decide whether the whole system and work done by Apple during the time interval are worth it or not. Lastly, to the original post, all people have different opinions, some say iOS 9 ruined and some say it fixed what didn't work like it should, get another iPad 4 to a comparison if available to decide, I said all what can help u but u r the one that have to decide whether upgrading is a good idea or not.
 

pat500000

Suspended
Jun 3, 2015
8,523
7,515
I have an iPad 4 on iOS 8.4.1 which I think it is OK. I just recently used my parent's iPad 3 on iOS 7.1.1, and it was blazing fast like an Air 2. It was perfectly smooth, and the whole OS was very snappy and responsive. What the hell? My iPad 4 is twice as fast as the iPad 3, but it is so slow compared to the iPad 3 now. There are stutters and lags on my iPad 4 that is really apparent now. What can I do to fix this? Will iOS 9 help?
Do this: go to accessibility and turn off reduce transparency.
 

saudor

macrumors 68000
Jul 18, 2011
1,512
2,115
My 4 works fine on ios 9.1. Sure there's dropped frames in the app switcher sometimes but no biggie.
The 5s on the other hand is terrible. There's lag pretty much everywhere
 

bcodemz

macrumors member
Original poster
May 6, 2014
53
41
Just did a clean update to iOS 9.2 beta 1. It is running MUCH better than 8.4. Still not at iPad 3 on iOS 7 level in terms of speed and smoothness, but for the most part it is smooth and snappy.
 
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kapp2

macrumors 6502
Oct 22, 2015
321
68
Denmark
Just did a clean update to iOS 9.2 beta 1. It is running MUCH better than 8.4. Still not at iPad 3 on iOS 7 level in terms of speed and smoothness, but for the most part it is smooth and snappy.

Better than 8.4 ? :O :O cant wait for final 9.2 now :D
 

nkarafo

macrumors member
Oct 18, 2015
60
10
I am wondering why on earth some people have lag and problems when updating to ios 9 with ipad 4 and some people don't have !?!?!?!

Is it because you choose different update method? If yes, which is the best? Delete everything from ipad, restart and then update it from itunes as clean as it was with factory settings?

I have ios 7 and I'm playing lots of games on ipad 4 and I don't want to update if this will impact the performance of the games.

What do you suggest ??

Thank you.
 

George Waseem

macrumors regular
Jul 2, 2015
230
107
Just did a clean update to iOS 9.2 beta 1. It is running MUCH better than 8.4. Still not at iPad 3 on iOS 7 level in terms of speed and smoothness, but for the most part it is smooth and snappy.
Enable Reduce Transparency, you are going to feel it's blazing fast, no more lags
 
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