Apple Doesn't Deliberately Slow Down Older Devices According to Benchmark Analysis

[QCassidy352]

«The iPhone 5S gets a little slower, but that's how it goes when the oldest hardware that runs an operating system is only 20 or 25 percent as fast as the most recent hardware»

So it's not like it's due to some Apple mischievous behavior, it's just how things go.

And my response to that, yet again, is: no, it's not "just how things go." It's how things go with iOS. The same thing does not happen with macOS, with Windows, or (I'm told) with Android. My 2013 rMBP is as fast or faster on 10.13 as it was on 10.9, which it shipped with, yet a 2013 iPhone (a 5s) performs far worse on iOS 11 than on 7, which it shipped with (documented in a video posted a few pages back comparing iOS 8 to 11 on a 5s).

This idea that slowdowns are inherent to OS upgrades is nonsense, and it needs to die. The basic UI of iOS is a grid of icons. There's absolutely no reason it should be slowing down to this degree, or at all, when the A series chips are now rivaling Intel's Core family in raw power.

 

[rootee]

#slowghazi
FTFY. Nothing's gonna happen to Apple or Timmy Cook.

That’s one too many syllables, gotta stick to two to keep it catchy

 

[JM]

I have a 23 year old Win 3.1 desktop, I bow my head to you microsoft - it plays lemmings as well as it ever did.

How is the mouse moving? Does it stutter?

 

[soanis]

And my response to that, yet again, is: no, it's not "just how things go." It's how things go with iOS. The same thing does not happen with macOS, with Windows, or (I'm told) with Android. My 2013 rMBP is as fast or faster on 10.13 as it was on 10.9, which it shipped with, yet a 2013 iPhone (a 5s) performs far worse on iOS 11 than on 7, which it shipped with (documented in a video posted a few pages back comparing iOS 8 to 11 on a 5s).

This idea that slowdowns are inherent to OS upgrades is nonsense, and it needs to die. The basic UI of iOS is a grid of icons. There's absolutely no reason it should be slowing down to this degree, or at all, when the A series chips are now rivaling Intel's Core family in raw power.

PREACH

 

[thadoggfather]

Benchmarks dont tell the full story

It’s about the user experience or lack of

Battery life And stability arent benchmarked either, which goes down the drain with newer iOS’es on older hardware, to the point of insane for some users and devices.

 

[thebmall]

#FakeNews

I have a 6s. IOS 11 ran slow (for example, just opening the camera app stuttered) and battery life sucked.

I just downgraded using this technique: http://osxdaily.com/2017/09/20/downgrade-ios-11-to-ios-10-iphone-ipad/

Things are back to normal.

No problems on my Ipad pro 2016.

I don't fault Apple. I feel like this is a thing companies have done forever. Bring out software that bogs down older devices to that you're compelled to upgrade. It would be nice if they bucked that trend, but alas. Personally, I see no reason to upgrade. They lost me on the whole "ditch the headphone jack thing". Not interested in bluetooth earbuds and the like.

 

[MacStu09]

This is the dumbest article and thread I've seen on this site. There's nothing to argue about. Even the article basically concludes with "But...there are so many variables, these tests don't matter whatsoever." Yes, the old devices slow down with updates as the new OS utilizes more resources, but no, the devices aren't literally being stripped of their performance power by updates.

 

[AstonSmith]

I don't believe it's a deliberate effort to slow down old devices. It boils down to the same thing on virtually all software platforms: bloat.

I have kept a backup of all my IOS applications from iTunes and have noticed the file size of many has increased by over 100%. Examples: Amazon's app - 4.6.0 is 45MB, 6.0.2 is 103MB. Chrome 31 is 36MB, 42 is 95MB. RadioTunes 1.5 is 13MB, 4.0.4 is 102MB. There are loads more examples.

IOS itself also suffers in a similar way; it sort of is the biggest app of all. On my iPod 5 on IOS 6, it has 200MB+ of free RAM when freshly started. On IOS 8, it only has 20MB free. To load these bigger apps, it needs to unload more things. This takes time and consumes battery. It's like a perfect storm of slowness.

 

[Count Blah]

It's not denying that devices doesn't slowdown. The point this report is making is that Apple isn't deliberately slowing things down. The device gets slower because the OS is more power-intensive.

You are right. Except for demanding MORE horsepower to do the simplest things, Apple doesn't do anything to slow older phones down.
[doublepost=1507410975][/doublepost]

This proves that Apple doesn't deliberately slow down devices in the sense that it doesn't deliberately add anything "artificial" to slow down their devices or employ deliberate negligence in optimization for the hardware. Rather, the devices slow down simply as a result of new OS's being more CPU/GPU intensive to run.

Link? A synthetic CPU/GPU score does NOT prove that Apple builds software to run efficiently on older hardware.

How can you possibly claim that?

 

[smokinjoe2122]

#FakeNews

I have a 6s. IOS 11 ran slow (for example, just opening the camera app stuttered) and battery life sucked.

I just downgraded using this technique: http://osxdaily.com/2017/09/20/downgrade-ios-11-to-ios-10-iphone-ipad/

Things are back to normal.

No problems on my Ipad pro 2016.

I don't fault Apple. I feel like this is a thing companies have done forever. Bring out software that bogs down older devices to that you're compelled to upgrade. It would be nice if they bucked that trend, but alas. Personally, I see no reason to upgrade. They lost me on the whole "ditch the headphone jack thing". Not interested in bluetooth earbuds and the like.

I have a fault with Apple...This device is still selling for $450 for the lowest model on their website. They also used the same internals for their current "iPad" line up...(A9 2GB ram)...

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone6s

So you think a $450-$550 phone should run as crummy as you experienced? I'd be willing to bet those devices ship with iOS 11.

Also, not everyone can downgrade as the 6s (4.7") only has currently signed 10.3.3 firmware (Due to touch display bugs)

 

[deany]

My 6 is running just fine on the latest iOS 11.

Your device is not functioning as expected.
Please return to store ASAP

 

[J___o___h___n]

Old devices do slow down once iOS is updated. Fact

 

[deany]

Old devices do slow down once iOS is updated. Fact

Yep. because it means folks have to upgrade = more $ for apple

Most things in life can we worked out by a formulae. The apple formulae keeping shareholders happy and ensuring good dividends for apple directors, is simple.

Old iphone < 2years old = get them to upgrade as punters will get new device, due to slow down or battery life = how much per month, okay £10 more = sold. meantime apple users are in DEBT. they dont own phone. apple APPL stock goes up. Joe Publics net worth goes down.
NICE.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Ironically, I upgraded to a 6S primarily because the new OSes were unsusably slow on my 5S, only to find that iOS 11 is unusably slow on a 6S. . But honestly, Apple does more work than most software companies on making their OSes work well on older phones, so I hope this will improve as iOS 11 matures.

iOS 11 runs great on my 6S, there is no general 6S/iOS 11 platform problem.

Note that I’m not saying your specific phone isn’t “unusably slow”, but whatever is causing the issue, it can be resolved. There may already be 100 million 6S running IOS 11; if there were an overall issue it would be huge news.

 

[amazingrugs]

Yes, but this is raw performance in a specific task. People are generally complaining of GUI slowdowns in new versions of iOS.

Ding ding ding!

I don't think its deliberate, but 100% the UI gets more and more sluggish as you go 1 or 2 years out from the OS installed on your device at purchase time. And its frustrating because their isn't a ton that is being added each year that would explain this slowdown. I have a 2017 12.9 inch iPad Pro, and even that has GUI stuttering and choppiness on iOS 11! The 4K Apple TV has slowdown when opening app folders, but not if you set the video output to 1080P. It's maddening.

 

[deany]

iOS 11 runs great on my 6S, there is no general 6S/iOS 11 platform problem.

Note that I’m not saying your specific phone isn’t “unusably slow”, but whatever is causing the issue, it can be resolved. There may already be 100 million 6S running IOS 11; if there were an overall issue it would be huge news.

Please can you send your 6S in for diagnostics, its meant to slow down on iOS 11, your device is not functioning correctly. thanks.
[doublepost=1507416516][/doublepost]

Ding ding ding!

I don't think its deliberate, but 100% the UI gets more and more sluggish as you go 1 or 2 years out from the OS installed on your device at purchase time. And its frustrating because their isn't a ton that is being added each year that would explain this slowdown. I have a 2017 12.9 inch iPad Pro, and even that has GUI stuttering and choppiness on iOS 11! The 4K Apple TV has slowdown when opening app folders, but not if you set the video output to 1080P. It's maddening.

Bearing in mind iPhone is apples biggest profit generater.....
Why dont you think its deliberate?

 

[Tramtrist]

Well Duh. It was only conspiracy theory wankers who thought Apple was purposefully slowing down older models. A newer OS (or application, game, etc) is usually somewhat more demanding than its predecessor and will probably run a little slower on the same hardware; the newer OS is paired with the newer hardware's increase horsepower. That's not a conspiracy. Thats Moore's law in action.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

You are right. Except for demanding MORE horsepower to do the simplest things, Apple doesn't do anything to slow older phones down.
[doublepost=1507410975][/doublepost]
Link? A synthetic CPU/GPU score does NOT prove that Apple builds software to run efficiently on older hardware.

How can you possibly claim that?

Are you saying that new every OS has to consume the same amount of power even when CPU/GPU for new devices gets vastly more power each year? The user can either upgrade to get new features/design or not upgrade and keep the speed. You can't expect new software technologies and bottleneck it with the performance of older hardware at the same time.

If a CPU/GPU score isn't affected by the OS it is running, then why is there variance between each version of the OS? Besides, I'm not saying Apple is making software to run efficiently on older hardware, I'm saying that Apple is not deliberately hindering the hardware in a way that would artificially limit performance.

This is simply obsolescence, not planned obsolesce.

 

[dilbert99]

Did you really expect your iPhone 6 to improve performance after 3 years adding functionalities to the operative system ? Really ?

No I expect it not to degrade adding a few features here and there.
The OS is the base operating system and I expect it to operate efficiently.
Would you expect your digital camera to degrade if you performed a firmware update?
Its not as if performance testing is a new thing to developers. Especially since there are farms of iPhone devices out there to test against.

Tell me what functionality that is running all the time that is slowing things down?

Apple screwed up once before slowing down devices so much that they improved things with the next release.

 

[artfossil]

I have a 2017 12.9 inch iPad Pro, and even that has GUI stuttering and choppiness on iOS 11!

Oh good grief. Why not expend a little effort figuring out why? And no, I don’t believe it’s iOS 11 as my original iPad Pro is better than new on iOS 11. Do a clean install as a first step.

 

[JM]

It never in my experience happened. Not a single time. I never had a genius suggesting a new device when I was asking for support.

It's cause Angela is the boss now it's much more thoughtful to the customer to suggest repair, than a new device... and I posit that Steve wasn't a thoughtful person. Buy his products because it will make the world a better place. And: Apple wouldn't be so lucrative now if it wasn't for Steve's mindset.

But still... my experience happened even if you've never experienced it.

You think Tim would have been able to lead the company to a trillion (almost.. almost) dollar company?

 

[Gasu E.]

And still my iPhone 6 feels slower.

You need to hold it so the CPU cycles are on top. The way you hold it, all the CPU cycles are sinking to the bottom.

 

[Sevendaymelee]

Anyone who ever owned a 4S and updated past ios6 probably just puked a little bit in their mouth after reading this nonsense. Maybe Apple doesn't do it deliberately, but these devices absolutely slow down. Some, like the 4S, to the point of hardly even working.

 

[Nerdissimus]

You mean older devices are just not as fast as new ones? I smell a conspiracy...

No conspiracy, but older devices were fast before OS upgrades and can't get back to that state. Simple enough?

 

[Ethosik]

Can we please give this “UI Lag on older devices” a rest? I have the newest iPad Pro 12.9. I experience horrible UI lag on iOS 11. It is just bugs on a brand new iOS version. Not because Apple is evil. This is what you get when you update on a .0 release. If you do not want these issues, do not upgrade until .1, .2 or .3 even.
[doublepost=1507431667][/doublepost]

Yes but they "feel" slow.
As someone who is using iPhone SE, 6 and 6S on iOS 11, they FEEL slower

It is just iOS 11. Not because your phone is old. My 2 month old $1299 iPad Pro 12.9 is running very very very very slow with iOS 11. It is just bugs with a .0 release. Give it time people.