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iPod touch Advice needed: should I upgrade to iOS 8

V

vista980622

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 2, 2012
369
178
I mainly use my 5th gen iPod (32GB) to surf the web, listen to music and play some light games. Most of the app I use are competible with iOS 6, although some of them are "legacy version" of these apps as developers have dropped support for iOS 6. I also enjoy using it as my secondary camera when I don't want to carry my Canon 60D. It currently runs iOS 6.1.3 (with a non-official SSL bug patch).

I received an email from Apple suggesting me to upgrade to iOS 8 and the continuity stuff - mainly Handoff and AirDrop are tempting as I have several other Macs (which dual-boot Mavericks and Yosemite)

The problem is I heard a lot of people complaining about iOS 8 performs terribly on their iPod touch. I think iOS 6 runs blazingly fast now and I don't want to lose that performance. But I hear people restoring it as new think it runs pretty fast.

I don't mind restoring as new and re-setup everything. So should I upgrade or hold on? And if the performance is worse, do you personally think new features are worth it?
 
Last edited:
vista980622 said:
I mainly use my 5th gen iPod (32GB) to surf the web, listen to music and play some light games. I also enjoy using it as my secondary camera when I don't want to carry my Canon 60D.

I received an email from Apple suggesting me to upgrade to iOS 8 and the continuity stuff is tempting as I have several other Macs (which dual-boot Mavericks and Yosemite)

The problem is I heard a lot of people complaining about iOS 8 performs terribly on their iPod touch. I think it's blazingly fast now and I don't want to lose that performance. But I hear people restoring it as new think it runs pretty fast.

I don't mind restoring as new and re-setup everything. So should I upgrade or hold on? And if the performance is worse, do you personally think new features are worth it?
Click to expand...

We'll your iPod has the same specifications as an iPhone 4s and it does not perform as smooth on iOS 8 as it did on iOS 7. The stability of iOS 8 is got a whole better with the 8.1 and 8.1.1 update. But if I was you I wouldn't update unless you need it because you want to keep your apps up-to-date or need an app that requires iOS 8. I would say go to a friend with an iPhone 4s and see if it is not to slow for you.

Greets
 
Mac-lover3 said:
We'll your iPod has the same specifications as an iPhone 4s and it does not perform as smooth on iOS 8 as it did on iOS 7. The stability of iOS 8 is got a whole better with the 8.1 and 8.1.1 update. But if I was you I wouldn't update unless you need it because you want to keep your apps up-to-date or need an app that requires iOS 8. I would say go to a friend with an iPhone 4s and see if it is not to slow for you.

Greets
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. I don't see any of my friends using iPhone 4S... Most of them either use Android devices or use iPhone 6 Plus...

By the way, I'm on iOS 6. How does iOS 8 perform compared to iOS 6?
 
Ohw okay nothing to do about that.. And if you're on iOS 6 I wouldn't upgrade. iOS 6 is maybe the most stable and fastest version of iOS. Also the music app is much better on iOS 6.. I think upgrading to iOS 8 will ruin your experience..
 
Mac-lover3 said:
Ohw okay nothing to do about that.. And if you're on iOS 6 I wouldn't upgrade. iOS 6 is maybe the most stable and fastest version of iOS. Also the music app is much better on iOS 6.. I think upgrading to iOS 8 will ruin your experience..
Click to expand...

Wow... Guess I'll hold off that update. This is exactly what I was worrying about - poor performance and instability.

By the way, how can a music app become worse? Is the music playback quality worsened in iOS 8?
 
No background music is still the same. There are some bugs and lag in the music app specially when you have a lot of music. Well performance will not be as good but not non-usable and stability is getting better but still my advice is: don't update!
 
Mac-lover3 said:
No background music is still the same. There are some bugs and lag in the music app specially when you have a lot of music. Well performance will not be as good but not non-usable and stability is getting better but still my advice is: don't update!
Click to expand...

OK! Thanks a lot again for your patience and answering all my dumb questions.

I surely won't update unless they fix those issues. There's no way for me to live with a laggy or buggy music app. Just out of curiousity, I may go to an Apple Store and see how demo iPod touches performs with iOS 8, if I have time.
 
yeah you can do that I think they are all updated so give it a try but certainly check that it is iOS 8 and NOT 7 because apple ships their iPod's still with iOS 7.. And no problem!:apple:
 
vista980622 said:
I mainly use my 5th gen iPod (32GB) to surf the web, listen to music and play some light games. Most of the app I use are competible with iOS 6, although some of them are "legacy version" of these apps as developers have dropped support for iOS 6. I also enjoy using it as my secondary camera when I don't want to carry my Canon 60D. It currently runs iOS 6.1.3 (with a non-official SSL bug patch).

I received an email from Apple suggesting me to upgrade to iOS 8 and the continuity stuff - mainly Handoff and AirDrop are tempting as I have several other Macs (which dual-boot Mavericks and Yosemite)

The problem is I heard a lot of people complaining about iOS 8 performs terribly on their iPod touch. I think iOS 6 runs blazingly fast now and I don't want to lose that performance. But I hear people restoring it as new think it runs pretty fast.

I don't mind restoring as new and re-setup everything. So should I upgrade or hold on? And if the performance is worse, do you personally think new features are worth it?
Click to expand...

iOS 8 will make your fifth gen iPod touch run slow. iOS 6 runs great on that device. iOS 7 runs great, albeit not as great as iOS 6 did, and iOS 8 runs slowly.

I currently have 6.1.3 on one of my fifth gen iPod touches and 8.1.2 on the other. The former touch has all of my music and some videos (and some legacy apps that might as well be running in iOS 6 versus something newer) whereas the latter touch has all of my apps (I have an Android phone, so this is where my iPhone apps live) all up to date, and a playlist of songs that previously lived on my former iPod shuffle.

The situation is not great, by any means. But my guess is that it will be the best that can be done pending my going out and trying to find some place selling a 64GB iPhone 5S that I can buy out of contract. Though I am a bit resentful of Apple for not addressing my needs with a piece of hardware to replace the fifth gen iPod touch.
 
iOS 8 Mishap

Forced to update from iOS 7 since iPhone 5S never had Find My Phone/Mac activated; it would not activate on iOS7. Battery problems, random restarts and other annoying things happening. Will iOS8.3 address this issues?
 
Yebubbleman said:
iOS 8 will make your fifth gen iPod touch run slow. iOS 6 runs great on that device. iOS 7 runs great, albeit not as great as iOS 6 did, and iOS 8 runs slowly.

I currently have 6.1.3 on one of my fifth gen iPod touches and 8.1.2 on the other. The former touch has all of my music and some videos (and some legacy apps that might as well be running in iOS 6 versus something newer) whereas the latter touch has all of my apps (I have an Android phone, so this is where my iPhone apps live) all up to date, and a playlist of songs that previously lived on my former iPod shuffle.

The situation is not great, by any means. But my guess is that it will be the best that can be done pending my going out and trying to find some place selling a 64GB iPhone 5S that I can buy out of contract. Though I am a bit resentful of Apple for not addressing my needs with a piece of hardware to replace the fifth gen iPod touch.
Click to expand...

I just had a chance to try 5th iPod touch loaded with iOS 8 at the Apple Store. It's not unusably slow, but definitely much slower than on iOS 6.

The new coat of paint looks nice (in most places, beside the icons) and AirDrop seems quite fantastic most of the time. But I just use DropCopy anyway.

But dear lord... Safari crashes like hell and simple text selection leads to unstoppable auto scrolling... Weather app has such terribly jerky animation. Rotation is glitchy. All the blur leads to laggy (<25fps) animations. Everything still works, just in a less stable (polished) manner I guess.

And you're right. These performance and stability problems are not present on iPhone 5s with iOS 8. (Beside the weird unstoppable auto-scrolling bug), so I just filed a radar report. Hope they'll fix it.

Hope they'll either address these issues, or turn on TSS signing for iOS 7.1.2. Oh, a revised iPod touch with A7/A8 chip would also be nice.

----------
gcjibaro said:
Forced to update from iOS 7 since iPhone 5S never had Find My Phone/Mac activated; it would not activate on iOS7. Battery problems, random restarts and other annoying things happening. Will iOS8.3 address this issues?
Click to expand...

Based on rumors, iOS 8.3 would focus on iPad features such as split screen multitasking and improved maps... But who knows? Hopefully some decent performance, battery efficiency and stability tweaks can sneak into iOS 8.3
 
vista980622 said:
I just had a chance to try 5th iPod touch loaded with iOS 8 at the Apple Store. It's not unusably slow, but definitely much slower than on iOS 6.

The new coat of paint looks nice (in most places, beside the icons) and AirDrop seems quite fantastic most of the time. But I just use DropCopy anyway.

But dear lord... Safari crashes like hell and simple text selection leads to unstoppable auto scrolling... Weather app has such terribly jerky animation. Rotation is glitchy. All the blur leads to laggy (<25fps) animations. Everything still works, just in a less stable (polished) manner I guess.

And you're right. These performance and stability problems are not present on iPhone 5s with iOS 8. (Beside the weird unstoppable auto-scrolling bug), so I just filed a radar report. Hope they'll fix it.

Hope they'll either address these issues, or turn on TSS signing for iOS 7.1.2. Oh, a revised iPod touch with A7/A8 chip would also be nice.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's still usable, but it runs a lot slower than it ought to. Certainly slower than Apple's now-flagship iPod should be. While I'd love an A7 or A8 enabled touch as well (as I'm sure a lot of people here would be), I'm not holding out much hope and I don't think you should either. Incredibly sad. The iPod touch blew me away when it first came out like no other product before or since has.
 
Yebubbleman said:
Yeah, it's still usable, but it runs a lot slower than it ought to. Certainly slower than Apple's now-flagship iPod should be. While I'd love an A7 or A8 enabled touch as well (as I'm sure a lot of people here would be), I'm not holding out much hope and I don't think you should either. Incredibly sad. The iPod touch blew me away when it first came out like no other product before or since has.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'll just get an iPhone 6 with bad ESN...
 
vista980622 said:
Maybe I'll just get an iPhone 6 with bad ESN...
Click to expand...

I was considering that for myself as well. Though, I think I'd have slightly better mileage finding a new 64GB iPhone 5s. Though those are pretty hard to find online given their discontinuation.

mangomind said:
I would hold off. I have an inkling that a new iPod touch will be released this year, with an enlarged screen.
Click to expand...

I wish I knew what facts or insight fueled your inkling and I furthermore wish I believed in whatever those are, because all of the facts I have before me would suggest that is extremely unlikely.

Aspasia said:
Ah, wishful thinking. If that happened, I'd buy four.
Click to expand...

Same here, for sure. I was in Mexico for the weekend, and having my iPod touch (where the possibility of incurring an international roaming fee from my carrier prompted me to shut off my phone for the duration of my stay) was a godsend where my iPad would've been too large to be convenient. While I don't believe that Apple will recognize it, there are definitely use cases where the iPod touch is unarguably the only device that makes the most sense to use.
 
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