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TommyA6

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 15, 2013
1,056
516
iPad Air is a great product and the best tablet out there (my opinion)...BUT its overall smoothness in UI navigation in iOS 7.1 needs some improvements. For example, rotation animation in the App store is awful (not smooth at all). The same goes for rotation whenever the keyboard is displayed (although not that awful)...
It definitely isn't on par with iPhone 5s or even iPhone 5.
Try those things for yourselves. Does it bother or annoy you?


PS

All the transparency effects must be turned ON (so turn off "Increase contrast").
 
iPad Air is a great product and the best tablet out there (my opinion)...BUT its overall smoothness in UI navigation in iOS 7.1 needs some improvements. For example, rotation animation in the App store is awful (not smooth at all). The same goes for rotation whenever the keyboard is displayed (although not that awful)...
It definitely isn't on par with iPhone 5s or even iPhone 5.
Try those things for yourselves. Does it bother or annoy you?


PS

All the transparency effects must be turned ON (so turn off "Increase contrast").

Did all that and made sure no heavy processing app was running in background and had no issue on the iPad 4.
 
Did all that and made sure no heavy processing app was running in background and had no issue on the iPad 4.

I would have made a video to show it, but the frame drops aren't captured that well. It definitely isn't buttery smooth on Air.
 
I've definitely seen the problem in the App Store. I have 2 iPad's (iPad 2 and Air) running iOS 7.1.2 and the rotating animation looks like it's running at 10 FPS. My iPad 3 which runs iOS 5 is silky smooth. Blame Jony Ivy.
 
Also, initiating Siri is laggy looking. Notification Center and Control Center on lock screen, pinching to close pictures in App Store, rotating when a picture is being displayed in the App Store, sometimes flipping from picture to picture in the App Store, although it is hit or miss. Notification Center, Control Center, and Siri all lag more when the keyboard is involved. Normal keyboard lags the rotation animation, but the split keyboard is 100% smooth. However, split keyboard causes lag in spotlight, and when simply tapping the address bar. When you fade to the favorites screen and the favorites icons kind of move forward, there is more stuttering with split keyboard, whereas it's usually fine with the normal keyboard. Siri is oddly smooth as it blurs when you do the following:

Wake screen so the lock screen is showing

Slide so you are at the passcode screen

Hold home button down at passcode screen, you automatically will be pushed back to the lock screen and Siri will start. However, the blurring here is very smooth, although it still isn't 100% as the iPhone 5S or iPhone 5 is. It's odd that it is mostly smooth here, because it lags more when you start Siri just when sitting at the lock screen. This all is hard to explain, especially as some people just don't notice stuttering while others do.

I think the algorithms to provide the translucency effect is just highly inefficient, causing the lag. Or the iPad just simply isn't powerful enough to drive the translucency effects perfectly in all situations. I am really hoping it is just software problems. Or we have an iPad 3 situation. Underpowered iPad.

I have seen all of these on my retina mini and on my friends air. Also, my other friends original iPad mini has less lag when it comes to initiating Siri, although it is still there.
 
Last edited:
Also, initiating Siri is laggy looking. Notification Center and Control Center on lock screen, pinching to close pictures in App Store, rotating when a picture is being displayed in the App Store, sometimes flipping from picture to picture in the App Store, although it is hit or miss. Notification Center, Control Center, and Siri all lag more when the keyboard is involved. Normal keyboard lags the rotation animation, but the split keyboard is 100% smooth. However, split keyboard causes lag in spotlight, and when simply tapping the address bar. When you fade to the favorites screen and the favorites icons kind of move forward, there is more stuttering with split keyboard, whereas it's usually fine with the normal keyboard. Siri is oddly smooth as it blurs when you do the following:

Wake screen so the lock screen is showing

Slide so you are at the passcode screen

Hold home button down at passcode screen, you automatically will be pushed back to the lock screen and Siri will start. However, the blurring here is very smooth, although it still isn't 100% as the iPhone 5S or iPhone 5 is. It's odd that it is mostly smooth here, because it lags more when you start Siri just when sitting at the lock screen. This all is hard to explain, especially as some people just don't notice stuttering while others do.

I think the algorithms to provide the translucency effect is just highly inefficient, causing the lag. Or the iPad just simply isn't powerful enough to drive the translucency effects perfectly in all situations. I am really hoping it is just software problems. Or we have an iPad 3 situation. Underpowered iPad.

I have seen all of these on my retina mini and on my friends air. Also, my other friends original iPad mini has less lag when it comes to initiating Siri, although it is still there.

I definetely am in your same situation. iOS 7 just doesn't seem well optimized for Ipad like it is for Iphone. Let's hope iOS 8 to be better.
 
I definetely am in your same situation. iOS 7 just doesn't seem well optimized for Ipad like it is for Iphone. Let's hope iOS 8 to be better.

Yeah, let's hope. I just am hoping that all these can be fixed with a software update, and that it isn't a hardware limitation. I feel as though it is partially hardware being weak, but just too weak for the current software methods to give us the translucency. Surely some sorts of refinements can be made to make the translucency easier to handle or just less buggy.

Also, anyone notice how horrible it looks when the list disappears for nearby Apple TVs for AirPlay? It's like the actual listed devices are over a white, non translucent portion, then behind that is a translucent window. When the thing disappears, the translucent window disappears but the white part sort of disappears in a buggy way. Like one side disappears differently than the other. Again, hard to explain, sorry.
 
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