Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is iOS 8 a Pig?
kyjellyfish writes I've been using iOS 8 for several days and aside from a few gimmicks and add-ons that attempt to achieve parity with Android, my experience has been overwhelmingly unsatisfactory. My chief complaint is that the vast majority of my apps are slow to boot and noticeably sluggish in operation. I want to point out that all of these apps have been "upgraded" specifically for iOS 8 compatibility. Previous operating system upgrades have been relatively seamless, so I'm asking whether other slashdotters have experienced this degraded performance.
What did you load it on? An iPhone 1? A 4? An Osborne Executive?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
On my iPad 3 it works fine.
-- Cheers!
I haven't seen that at all on my iPhone 5!or my iPad 3 ("new iPad"). Some things are snappier, even. What device are you using?
I love it on my iPhone 4S. I can't use ApplePay so I may upgrade to a six, but honestly, my nearly three year old 4S works great and has great battery life. I haven't noticed really anything negative. In fact, it prompted google to upgrade their bad Google Voice app, so that in and of itself is a plus. FaceTime audio is also pretty great.
Wanted to add - if you have 1700+ pictures (like my wife).... your phone will bog down. Make sure you have the space on your phone. iPhones do notoriously get slow when they start running out of space.
I've been running iOS8 since pre-beta on multiple devices, including phones and iPads. I've had no problem, nothing at all like you describe.
If you're so inclined, I'd try a fresh install and see if that makes things run better. You can always restore from backup later.
I assume there was nothing strange about your iOS7 install, like being jailbroken, right?
I don't have an iPad 2 but I do have an iPhone 4S and I've not noticed the battery draining faster. I haven't really noticed any performance degration either and I haven't turned anything off. I'm having a good experience, so I'm not sure what the issue could be. The iPad 2 didn't really match the spec of a 4S though. I'm surprised you can use iOS 8 on an iPad 2 even though the 4S and it are only 6 months apart. The iPad 2 has an inferior processor, that may be the difference. My mother in law still has an iPad 2 and I won't upgrade her.
Less filling.
Tested it on iPhone 5 and iPad3 and it works great. I liked the call handover feature that forwarded my call from iPhone to iPad. Didn't even have to configure anything. :)
I upgraded a few days ago and I haven't noticed any sluggishness issues. I have an iPhone 5. I also have an iPad Retina that I haven't bothered to upgrade, but I'm hoping it'll work as well as the iPhone.
Put it on a 4s and found it a bit slow. Also, when using waze for car navigation it seems to go into screen lock even when that's disabled in waze's settings. Planned obsolescence to encourage upgrades?
You can't fight in here - this is the war room!
I have an iPhone 5s. I have noticed a slight slow down in some apps. But that's not my overwhelming gripe.
Family sharing just flat out doesn't work. Youtube webpage, has its hiccups. Typing is no easier. Additional keyboards for Germany, switches Z and Y, which is basically useless. Duckduckgo, has such outdated web results that it's also pretty much useless. Apps in general have their hiccups but that happens with every iOS release. Safari crashes more. iCloud still sucks an have never and will never use it.
Really family sharing is the only potentially "cool new thing"
Everything else is just.... ketchup..
Installed across my devices, it seems fine.
iPad 2, 4, air, iPhone 6, 5.
I don't have any of the problems with sluggishness, but boy is iOS 8 buggy, especially on the iPad! I've had about 8 reboots since Thursday with light usage.
I really hate a lot of the changes they have made, especially Safari, and it doesn't feel like there is much substance to the new features.
Wow I love how the OP gets called a troll just for asking if Apple's version of iOS is bloaty and mentioning that he's used Android. Then I look at the comments and everybody who agrees that its slow on older hardware is scored low, and everybody who posts that its just fine are scored up. OP this is your fault for blaspheming.
> My mother in law still has an iPad 2 and I won't upgrade her.
I am disturbed that you even considered it. You would consider divorcing your wife just because her mother won't get the latest iPad?
I haven't had the issues described here, but iOS 8 definitely crippled my wifi across several devices, including an iPhone 6+. I'm not alone: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1781815
The lack of any mention of the device he is running it on strongly makes me suspect it is one with a A5 processor. Apple supports even very old devices because it helps the developers a lot having to debug for only a single version of the os, by contrast android development and the short support cycle is a complete nightmare as one has to support accross major and even minor releases. Android app reviews are filled with "It crashes at startup" comments, this is typically not the case for apple users the tradeoff being that their devices might slow down with each new release.
The iOS 8 app upgrades are pretty much for things like being able to target new/any screen sizes. If you're on an existing device, that doesn't mean much. I don't think there is anything in the new SDK that would imply a performance decline in apps that adopt it.
The X.0.0 upgrades are pretty well known for including slower/unoptimized drivers and code paths. Apple is usually in a hurry to get the release out the door and they don't do all the optimizations they should. Usually by X.0.1 or X.1 they get things cleaned up. So it doesn't surprise me that 8.0 is a little pokey. 7.0 had basically the same issues.
3 iPads, one of the two iPad 2s bricked on u/g, had to recover it via iTunes. The iPad air (Wifi, 128 Gb) has turned indeed into a pig. Performance is so poor, I couldn't even Skype with my parents this morning, Has Apple turned into MSoft ?
I've got it on an iPhone 5 and an iPad Air and both work very smoothly. Haven't had any OS crashes or glitches (a couple apps are a bit more crashy but I hope an update from them will fix that) and speed and battery life don't seem to have had any reduction.
So far the things that make iOS 8 really attractive (handoff, continuity, new document picker) are waiting for either Yosemite or updated apps so I wait patiently but am satisfied with the upgrade as far as it goes
As far as the updates, most applications seem to update when a new iOS comes out. I have not seen an inordinate number of updates. As the Apps have to not only deal with a new OS but also new screen sizes, Apps that are not written to run on many screen sizes will obviously have to be updated.
My problem is that Apple is reintroducing the cloud disk service, a la iDisk, but it is not going to available on mac until the next MacOS, which is not going to be available for at least a month. Those who upgrade when they upgrade their phone will lose access to data on the Mac. There does seem to be some feature bloat at the expense of efficiency.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My complaint about iOS 8 is that it appears to have broken some (but not all) magazine subscription apps. Numerous people has posted to the Apple Support Community that the Scientific American app crashes. Reinstalling the app does no good -- it simply doesn't work. It will be interesting to see how quickly this issue is addressed.
This is standard practice for Apple. While they will continue to support your phone, they have this habit of making the new major OS rev run slowly right about the time your phone is 2 years old. I struggle to believe it's a coincidence as it has happened with literally every revision they've released.
I put it on my iPad 3 and it's noticeably slower. The big thing I'm seeing now that I never saw before is typing lag. That is annoying. I've also seen extra delay in some cases with the screen realizing it needs to rotate, and a bug in one specific app with keys on the keyboard disappearing entirely. On the performance end it's not that impressive in any way.
That said, having extensions in Safari has been nice, keyboard swapping is handy, and the family sharing feature is really great. So I'm not going to be rushing to roll it back, but I really don't understand how simple things like typing could get so much slower on the same hardware.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
it's not Verizon slowing down your phone because your contract has expired?
Rick B.
You can't seriously expect a new OS to run well on a one year old iPhone 5S?
That's funny, because I certainly do. But then again, I use Windows so I guess my expectations are a bit higher, in terms of longevity...
I don't respond to AC's.
Yes, I'm aware the pedantically technical answer is "no," so save it, nerds.
...you will get all the minor glitches and speed delays introduced due to the support of the new A8. It happened on my iPhone 4 with the introduction of iOS 7 too. At 7.3 or so, it became markedly more responsive.
Also, what really helps, is to reduce the animations (zoom in/out when starting apps).
So you can't afford the Apple lifestyle, get a better job you fucking hippie.
I am an iPhone user. An involuntary one. My company only equips us with iPhones, and we can't use our own phones, because IT is too stupid to figure out how to secure them.
I hate my iPhone.
5S: performance is just as good if not better (Safari really is better) â" I'm happy about that. Battery life, however, is much worse than under 7. I could go 2 days under 7 without recharging, so long as I used it for light browsing, texting, and a few calls. The same usage under 8 means I have to recharge at least once a day, and that is with pretty much everything turned off in the background. I'm not so happy about that.
brwski
"Because without beer, things do not seem to go as well''
Too bad the Nexus line is no more.
Prior to releasing an iOS, the focus on development is implementing the shiny new features.
Post release, the focus on development is to fix bugs and make the iOS work faster.
In each of the past few versions of iOS released you saw within a month a 0.01 version increment that got rid of bugs and made things noticeably faster.
You therefore have the choice of jumping on the band wagon, or waiting until the incremental release.
You would consider divorcing your wife just because her mother won't get the latest iPad?
The iPad 2 is compatible with Mother-in-Law version 1.0 or lower. Newer iPads requires Mother-in-Law version 2.0 or higher. Each new version of Mother-in-Law gets more bitchier than the last version. Not upgrading is a wise decision.
It's been 4 days since the exhaustive Ars review of iOS 8 was discussed here
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/14/09/17/1553225/ios-8-review/
Have you compared your experience with theirs?
Did you notice the methodical way in which they examined each aspect of performance?
As already stated, your specific device should be mentioned, as well as the conditions under which you are experiencing problems. If a particular app or group of apps are giving you problems, they should be specified. You seem to be pro-Apple, so don't just let this vague complaint hang there.
...omphaloskepsis often...
iOS 8 is not a pig. It's not a living thing at all it's a mobile operating system. And. If it was living, I doubt it would live at the farm.
Having said that, I have not have any issues on any of my upgraded devices (4 iPads in the family, 2 iPhone 5s) and the devices have not expressed any need to roll in the mud either.
My iPhone 5c is noticably slower after going to iOS 8, however my 5s seems to be quicker than it was before the update. iPad 3 - not much of a difference.
Maybe your flash or memory is failing? My 4s has had no issue with crashes or slowness with iOS 8. Maybe if you did a full device reset and then reinstalled your apps and resynched your content?
I read the internet for the articles.
Apple devices "degrade" with OS updates in the same way that Windows updates do on PCs, gradually. But even after an Apple starts no being upgradeable to the latest OS release, it stays useful for years to come. My mother is still using my hand-me-down 2002 desk-lamp iMac, which has the old PowerPC processor.
The problem is the Windows 98 SP2 effect.
The last service pack supporting Windows 98 turned it from a usable system into utter buggy crashing heap of crap, at coincidentally the same time they started trying to sell you Windows XP.
Note that generally I don't think this is an intention destruction of usability on the part of Microsoft (or Apple), I just think that all their testing takes place on newer hardware, better than what the user is actually using, and so the usability test engineers just never see how terrible it's going to be on (nominally) supported older devices.
No.
My iPad 3 not only seems faster in most cases, the battery life is better. I got 11 hours of active use on 50% of the battery the other day. Even now, I'm looking at 98% battery after an hour of useâ"that used to be 6-10%.
But my iPhone 4 (which didn't get the update, obviously) was sluggish and was draining the battery much faster than usual for a week or two. I did a reboot and that fixed it. I know you just installed iOS 8 and have therefore rebooted recently, but I've had some problems with some applications not working properly after being restored or updated until the phone was rebooted. (Overcast, on my iPhone 6.)
The iPad2 has an A5 1GHz vs the iPhone 4S having an A5 at 800MHz. They both have 512MB of RAM. So no, the iPad2 isn't inferior to the iPhone 4S, it is actually faster.
References:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
The Fandroid talk starts in his first sentence:
You could of course say the same thing about every Android device evah while pointing at the very first iPhone, save the screen size of the Galaxy.
Zombie Jobs isn't holding a gun to your heads. Just try buying what you want, that does what you want, without pretending that your personal product preferences came carved on tables sent down by God.
It's had "real multitasking" since 2007. It's had third party app multitasking since 2010.
how about those other perusers on iphone (firefox, chrome, etc.)?
Everything runs as before, with some new things that work better. Just upgrade cabled if you can - OTA needs too much space.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Problem is Apple is putting too much emphasis on glimmer and glitz. They need to focus on functionality, speed and legacy compatibility. A new OS should always be faster, less buggy, more stable, etc. It should also run smoothly and easily on the older hardware, gracefully falling back on functions the hardware won't support. Doing old things should always be the same or better, never worse.
Fail.
Now waiting to be Down-Modded mostly due to my UserName in 3.....2......1
Considering you've made numerous posts just to comment solely on other people's user name, or lack thereof: live by the sword, die by the sword.
My favourite remote control app crashes on connect, the keyboard support doesn't feel ready for prime time, particularly in the mail app where alternate keyboard mostly don't show up and running my iPad as a noise generator overnight it appears to charge only about half as much as it used to.
After a couple days of near constant use I've not noticed any problems with iOS 8 on an iPhone 6 (128GB). I did use iOS 8 on an iPhone 5S (64GB) for a day and change and it seemed fine. I do believe my iPhone 6 has been using power a bit faster than I'd expected, but its battery life if well beyond the 5S under my use cases.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
Especially if people complain loudly enough, they might even name the build after them
"Disgruntled Edition"
Yes, but what about screen size? If it has to push more pixels then it might be a problem.
(I have no idea if it does or does not. Also the speed of the storage will factor in to it).
You're holding it wrong.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Not that I can tell after only 2 days. Are you a troll?
Hi - did you find a better podcast app (finally today I'm searching for something better with decent controls that doesn't crash with data turned on)
My iPhone 5s (64 GB) works just fine with iOS8 and so I decided to upgrade my iPad 2 (64 GB WiFi+ATT 3G). This has been problematic. The problems I have encountered are: 1. Install took very long and required some reboots 2. I lose the 3G stuff and have to do a hard boot to get it back for a while (found this online) 3. Some apps just start up and hang 4. Response is very slow...trying to start it up when it's been idle for a while takes about 15-30 seconds to respond... So it is fine on the phone but lousy on the iPad...
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")
they can't even make their OS run right on hardware designed by them.
It's easy to laugh at Android for limited upgrades. But the truth is, you wouldn't like most of the upgrades if they were available. iOS8 is probably perfectly fine on iPhone 6/6+. On others devices, you should only upgrade when you need the new features. Performance is likely to go strictly downward.
Apple is crap...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Yeah because if there's one thing Microsoft has never done, it has never released a shitty OS update. Ever.
what... 95? ME? Vista? 8?
LALALALA I can't hear you.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Pray tell, how do you secure a personal phone? The following scenarios:
Confidential information on phone. Phone is stolen.
Malware through side loading.
Controlling how data can be shared/forwarded.
Do a fresh install instead of an upgrade. I had that problem with beta1. It would crash and reboot within 5 minutes at times. I did a wipe, reinstall, problems went away.
Didn't try iOS 8 on a 4s yet, or on an older iPad .... but for what it's worth, the only real "slow down" issue I observed was on the brand new iPhone 6, 128GB! This had to do with trying to view the purchased apps in need of updates. The phone seemed to be so busy actually processing/doing updates, it couldn't allocate the processor time to actually SHOW me the list properly. It acted frozen and I couldn't scroll up/down through the list of apps. (I could, however, press the home button to move back to the menu and everything else was fine.)
Overall, I've been really happy with the new OS, although battery life does seem a bit worse than before. That may just be needing to tweak some settings for when apps can use the GPS -- but I'm trying to get that optimized, and not seeing real results yet.
Pretty sure the .01 update will be along shortly and address some of this.
The OP is just a whiny anecdotal bitch. First, when you complain about performance, you provide relevant hardware information. Then, you provide statistics. Ultimately, you can say "look!" -- but without either of the first and second item, you just appear to be a random whiner.
I've been in the habit of putting my phone in silent mode when I go to bed, the vibrate mode doesn't disturb me as I have an air filter giving me a goodly amount of white noise.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
The same thing happened to SGI back in the days of their glory. http://seriss.com/people/erco/...
Why do you ask this on slashdot? Just ask Siri...
After reading the headline, the answer is obviously "yes". What other headlines do we expect? "Is Google run by criminals"? "Does Microsoft Office kill productivity"? "Are Facebook users rapists"?
I have not experienced any of these issues.
clancey
My upgraded old iPad had initial problems with WiFi connections but it seems better now. It may be that there are software downloads in the background associated with the new iOS 8 apps. Time will tell. I prefer the old UI, but I am always at the bleeding edge of tech when the purse allows.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
There are loads of free scheduling apps that can do this automatically for you.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
On my 4S, iOS8 is a bit slower and choppier but not to the point of getting in the way. Siri's "what song is this" feature is so magical, it makes up for the degradations IMO.
Ydco co
Now nested folders can keep users' heads company ;-)
Yes, I have noticed this. I've got an iPhone 5. And I've installed the Swype keyboard, which is pretty fantastic, but yep, it does feel a bit clunky. It takes a noticable amount of time for the keyboard to display on screen, and the visuals as display elements move around and adjust is definately a weird thing to see on iOS. I've noticed, for example, when turning the phone sideways, weird stretched graphics for a fraction of a second. And in other apps I've noticed some curious typographical anomalies - fonts in the app sitting just a little too close to the fonts in the status bar.
However, the extra features in iOS 8 do make up for this weirdness. It's stil usable, it just seems *slightly* imperfect, but I think that's to be expected for such a major change in the OS, particularly when it comes to the keyboard feature. I'm just going to have to assume that iOS 8.1 will iron out some of these kinks.
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
Upgrade to iOS8 was smooth ..... Apps start quick, just like under iOS7. Nothing to complain about on all devices: iPhone-5S/16MB, iPhone-5/16MB, iPad Mini and iPad-3.
A.N.U.S ... It works so well too
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
All web browsers in the App Store are either A. wrappers for the same WebKit engine used by Safari with the same limits as Safari, or B. "remote desktop" apps that connect to a browser running on someone else's server such as Opera Mini. Otherwise, according to the App Store Review Guidelines, they can't run JavaScript at all.
"Overrated"? I must have hit an iOS fan's nerve.
I'm surprised no one has taken issue with the statement "previous OS upgrades have been relatively seamless." I'm running iOS8 on an iPhone 5, and there have been several issues. As I expected upgrading the day it was released. My experience on iOS 8.0 has been relatively smooth compared to the major issues of iOS 6.0 and 7.0. Apple will fix most bugs in short order, and by January I expect iOS 8.0.2 will run pretty well on your device. Any research done on iOS upgrade recommendations will tell you to wait until the x.0.1 update if you don't want to deal with bugs.
Pray tell, how do you secure a personal phone? The following scenarios:
Confidential information on phone. Phone is stolen. Malware through side loading. Controlling how data can be shared/forwarded.
Personal phones can be as secure as company-issued iPhones. I won't educate you, because, you know, GFE.
... seems about on par with 7 to me maybe with a little better battery life on my 4s. I did a back up and install through itunes, not over the air (didn't have enough free space). I have had issues with previous iOS before (Betas mostly) that were solved by backing up, setting up as a new phone with the new OS and then restoring data from backup.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
/. story submission approval has a clear anti-apple bias, this is just yet another example of it. click-bait for ad impressions, that's all.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
In my case, I don't want to use my personal phone as a company phone. Much as I like my employer, I like keeping a division between "mine" and "theirs". It seems to me that, if IT here had to secure my phone, it would impede my ability to use it freely.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
iPhone4 and iPad Air. Works fine, as do the four "free" apps I now have. The word processor/spreadsheet are pretty cute, for a tablet app.
Murphy was an optimist
Honestly I can not complain about the update.
I haven't seen any of the improvements (I use a Bluetooth keyboard so I don't see the predictive keyboard that often) but on the flip side I haven't seen anything bad as a result.
The only problem that I've had to date was the Kindle Software not running properly. If I was in the middle of a book it would crash and I could load it again and read the book. However since they did their update to be iOS 8 compatible...that problem vanished.
I really haven't noticed anything positive or negative as a result of the update.
So...can't complain.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
I didn't notice any real slow down.. Most apps get slower as they get more and more updates.. But Internet has been working weird. Please log in so you can post with name :)
This kind of post just begs for flames - so I choose not to respond.
Pray tell, how do you secure a personal phone? The following scenarios:
Confidential information on phone. Phone is stolen.
Malware through side loading.
Controlling how data can be shared/forwarded.
Personal phones can be as secure as company-issued iPhones. I won't educate you, because, you know, GFE.
WTF is GFE? Girl Friend Experience? Good Faith Estimate? Government Furnished Equipment?
Also loved the hand wavy "oh yeah it can be done, but I won't tell you how." I bet most, if not all, your solutions would be full of holes. But of course, since you won't tell us how you plan to do it, it's easy to claim that IT is too stupid to do it.
GFE - Google Fucking Exists.
It's a 20 second search. If you're intelligent enough to press the keys.
As I said, I'm not going to cure your ignorance.
Normally, it's lmgtfy.
But again, I love how you hand wave everything away.
And you STILL didn't take the 20 seconds to look it up.
I'm not going to spoon feed it to you, you big baby.
I've seen it, I know it exists. You're just too lazy to look at it, yet you have the time to keep nattering away at me. Oh, and given how you represent yourself, I'm not too surprised you know the acronym Girl Friend Experience. What a maroon!
all I really know is I have to carry an iphone every few weeks as part of NOC oncall rotation. It's a heavy brick compared to my nice slim android motorola Defy X-something. All the apps I need and use are free on Android. My employer also provides a nice quad core Macbook Pro, but I have no desire or reason to sync any information or otherwise integrate my phone with it
Since there's no real way to do it, I call your bullshit.
this too. personal phone is off limits to company control.
Probably because Apple has so much leverage. Rejecting one brand of Android phone means the user can switch to another brand after the contract is up in order to stay on the same platform and carrier. Even if a carrier rejects all OHA Android phones due to a CDD change that shuts out certain customizations that the carrier considers essential, a carrier can still choose to carry phones built on other AOSP distributions, such as CyanogenMod or Replicant or (once AT&T's exclusivity expires) Fire OS. All these distributions can use the same Amazon Appstore. But rejecting one brand of iOS phone means the carrier's customers lack access to an entire platform and are likely to take their business to another carrier. Besides, Apple already routinely performs a carrier customization in the form of blocking the tethering feature on plans that lack it.
You're an asshole, because you STILL didn't do the 20 second Google search.
What a fucking retard you are, it's really sad.
The comment was about expecting a new OS to run on year old hardware. My point was that MS's OS's regularly run on 10+ year old hardware without any problem, and that Apple consumers don't see any problem with having to buy new hardware so often.
I don't respond to AC's.