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Apple Doesn't Deliberately Slow Down Older Devices According to Benchmark Analysis
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Ding, ding, ding! 7 pages of comments and you (based on a search of this thread) are apparently the only one to have mentioned the one place where hardware does slow down with age - the flash storage. It is well known that flash slows down over time, particularly on devices which repeatedly are filled close to maximum, have some things deleted, then re-filled.
Formatting the device may help a little, but is unlikely to restore the exact level of performance of the device when it was brand new. It's one of the (apparently?) lesser-known facts about flash storage.
My experience is apple have an iOS "2 year rule" - we slow down at 2 years. (slight slow down before 2 years sometimes).
This is perfectly inline with the carriers 2 year contracts. Coincidence
!
I installed an SSD on a Windows XP machine and it turned it into a flying machine, super fast.
In the long run the "slow down & battery drain" will "bite apple on the bum" - as iPhones have hit £1000 Joe public are getting wise to these sharp practices of iOS slow downs and battery drains and will vote with their wallet and jump ship.
They can get away with £45.00 per month being reasonable, but £75.00 is starting to raise eyebrows.
I'm already seeing this in real life.
This is perfectly inline with the carriers 2 year contracts. Coincidence
!I installed an SSD on a Windows XP machine and it turned it into a flying machine, super fast.
In the long run the "slow down & battery drain" will "bite apple on the bum" - as iPhones have hit £1000 Joe public are getting wise to these sharp practices of iOS slow downs and battery drains and will vote with their wallet and jump ship.
They can get away with £45.00 per month being reasonable, but £75.00 is starting to raise eyebrows.
I'm already seeing this in real life.
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Should be forever pinned at the top of the site, honestly.
IDK if that's really a thing anymore with the latest flash tech. It's been changing rapidly. At least my consumer-grade server SSDs aren't getting any slower after years of abuse from a database. But you can probably find benchmarks for that.
RE: Futuremark used the 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme "Graphics" test ...
Why a GRAPHICS test ???
That's the LEAST relevant test to use !
Would strongly prefer something that monitors the Memory Footprint !
The reason Users are seeing a (real) Slow Down is because the Memory Footprint keeps increasing with each iOS update, sometimes it increases alarmingly !
And, it's common knowledge to most iOS App Developers with Advanced Apps.
Why a GRAPHICS test ???
That's the LEAST relevant test to use !
Would strongly prefer something that monitors the Memory Footprint !
The reason Users are seeing a (real) Slow Down is because the Memory Footprint keeps increasing with each iOS update, sometimes it increases alarmingly !
And, it's common knowledge to most iOS App Developers with Advanced Apps.
Older devices slow down because newer iOS and apps are optimized for more RAM and faster processors.
It is like buying a 4-cylinder car for one person. Get married and have some children. As the kids grow bigger, the car takes longer to merge into traffic. The automobile hasn’t slowed down. The load increased.
It is like buying a 4-cylinder car for one person. Get married and have some children. As the kids grow bigger, the car takes longer to merge into traffic. The automobile hasn’t slowed down. The load increased.
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Just the fact that they had to do extensive benchmarks smells fishy.
It's common knowledge that before they release a new OS they release an update to the current revision OS. That one's the one that slows things down and introduces all kinds of instability. Done it forever, both iOS and OSX, and before that MacOS. Then when you upgrade you get bug fixes but even more lag.
Remember, they live on hardware sales. Gotta get you to buy the new stuff.
It's common knowledge that before they release a new OS they release an update to the current revision OS. That one's the one that slows things down and introduces all kinds of instability. Done it forever, both iOS and OSX, and before that MacOS. Then when you upgrade you get bug fixes but even more lag.
Remember, they live on hardware sales. Gotta get you to buy the new stuff.
This is great news! It means that since I updated my iPhone 6 I must be moving and thinking faster than before when I use my phone!
It is a fact not a conspiracy. The benchmark is testing raw CPU/GPU power. Obviously these wont change unless hardware is damaged.
Newer iOS versions include more feature, making them heavier to run.
Apple could easily just update only the necessary update such as security fixes. But they chug it down their user and make our phones run Slower
The perception that the phones are slowing down are for a few reasons:
1. Immediately after installing, Spotlight us busy indexing, killing battery life and speed.
2. Newer OSes have more features and do more in the background. So it would naturally it would feel slower. Heck, if I could compile and run System 6 on my MacBook Pro, it would feel really fast too.
3. .0 releases of a new major OS is likely missing some optimizations and has a few bugs. They’ll get fixed.
1. Immediately after installing, Spotlight us busy indexing, killing battery life and speed.
2. Newer OSes have more features and do more in the background. So it would naturally it would feel slower. Heck, if I could compile and run System 6 on my MacBook Pro, it would feel really fast too.
3. .0 releases of a new major OS is likely missing some optimizations and has a few bugs. They’ll get fixed.
I don't think CPU and GPU benchmarks are relevant to this conversation. I don't think at least, that the conspiracy was that they reduced clocks on those things, that would be easily notable. These benchmarks are Futuremark being a hammer seeing everything as a nail.
However what we can see is that major OS releases do add fractions of seconds on casual interactions like opening apps, which do add up over time.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/ios-9-on-the-iphone-4s-a-stay-of-execution-nothing-more/
However what we can see is that major OS releases do add fractions of seconds on casual interactions like opening apps, which do add up over time.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/ios-9-on-the-iphone-4s-a-stay-of-execution-nothing-more/
Thank you for being a voice of reason, too bad people will not understand.
Apple is not causing the CPU/GPU to run slower, it's requiring much more horsepower to do the simple and mundane tasks than it used to - Swiping from page to page, bringing up the keyboard, opening safari, etc...
iOS 11 vs 10.3.3 Speed Test on ALL iPhones!
I mean, I'm still gonna bitch on here. You can benchmark everything to prove anything, and TBH, I don't really see the difference between the benchmarks that PC GPU makers put out there and these benchmarks here.
OTOH, in that video I linked to above, you can CLEARLY SEE the degradation in performance that iOS 11 has had on the 5S and 6 and 6+. There is no denying that.
There has got to be an explanation for this.
Because look, sure, each iOS version adds new APIs and new services, but how much do the existing (read: most) APIs and services change between the versions? Is it a lot? A little? How much in in, say, mdnsresponder or discoveryd, is getting changed and extended such that it is slowing the device down? cloudd? nsurlsessionid? sandboxd? etc...?
Personally, I have unfounded suspicion that what's going on is that they are only optimizing iOS builds for certain chipsets in newer phones.
No, that's not it. I get notified of a new message or email on my iPhone 6+, and I take my phone out of my pocket to view the message. I tap a few times on the screen and place my finger on the Touch ID. Then I see a blank white screen (sometimes it's black) for several seconds. Several seconds is long enough for me to wonder if the OS has frozen. Sometimes I have to switch from portrait to landscape to get anything to show up on the screen. Or maybe I didn't have to do that. It's hard to tell. Maybe if I waited 15 seconds the messages app would have started working all on its own. It didn't work that way when I got the phone new three years ago. Then I marveled at how instant it seemed. I never remember seeing a blank screen, or having nothing happen for several seconds when I tapped a notification.
Do the new phones do that? I have been planning to upgrade to the iPhone X, but if it's not going to improve the UE, I probably won't bother. Someone with an 8: How many seconds (3, 5, 8, 15?) does it take for the mail app or the messages app to open when you click on a notification? Do you have to change the phone's orientation to get the white or black screen to go away? It would help me to know if I'm better off staying with my 6+.
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.
who ever plotted graphs didn't do a good job, if the max value is 1000, why is the graph showing 3000 as max ? trying to hide something ? and the article doesn't show any change in values from 2013 to 2017, i understand that there will be change in values & that change might be just measurement variation.
I am not saying Apple intentionally slows older models, Apple is better than Android, iOS devices actually get updates, iPhone 5S getting iOS 11 update is awesome, i can't think of an Android device from 2013 getting an update.
I am not saying Apple intentionally slows older models, Apple is better than Android, iOS devices actually get updates, iPhone 5S getting iOS 11 update is awesome, i can't think of an Android device from 2013 getting an update.
Sounds like something is seriously wrong with the software on your device. I'm on an 6s running iOS 11 and it hardly takes a second to go from the lockscreen to Touch ID to my mail. Maybe 2 seconds if there is something that needs to be preloaded from the internet in the email itself. Messages launch in about a second or 2, nothing like what you're describing. I know the 6s is a generation ahead, but the difference shouldn't be this big. You should try making a backup and reinstalling the entire OS.
For me, there are somethings that have slowed down a little since iOS 10 like the music app, but some apps have improved as well, like the app store and podcast. They've become faster and more reliable.
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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.
Yeah, and if you believe that I got a warshing machine that doesn't eat socks I'd like to sell ya. (I know - I just get giddy when people mispronounce it that way).
Facts:
US Moon landing - real.
9/11 - real.
Aliens - I wanna believe.
Photoshop - real.
iPhones - really get real slow with each iOS update. No really...they really, really do! For real!
Facts:
US Moon landing - real.
9/11 - real.
Aliens - I wanna believe.
Photoshop - real.
iPhones - really get real slow with each iOS update. No really...they really, really do! For real!
I've had the slow down happen on a couple of phones most notably my 6s whose battery life suddenly went bonkers after I upgraded to iOS10 and everything felt much slower going forward. I loved that phone until the update.
Now i do not dare update the phone or iPad unless I have no other choice. My experiences with at least two phones is that they became practically unusable when the OS was upgraded. It's kind of sad I want to keep the phone etc. on the OS it shipped with rather than upgrading, but that is the case these days.
I will complain if their sloppy software makes whatever relatively new Apple products I have work less efficiently post upgrade.
Some of the arguments made here make sense (older phone are not optimized for the current software which is rushed out the door which causes more problems.) I certainly understand aging hardware (2.5 years etc.), but not the rush of software and hardware that results in some of these issues.
Now i do not dare update the phone or iPad unless I have no other choice. My experiences with at least two phones is that they became practically unusable when the OS was upgraded. It's kind of sad I want to keep the phone etc. on the OS it shipped with rather than upgrading, but that is the case these days.
I will complain if their sloppy software makes whatever relatively new Apple products I have work less efficiently post upgrade.
Some of the arguments made here make sense (older phone are not optimized for the current software which is rushed out the door which causes more problems.) I certainly understand aging hardware (2.5 years etc.), but not the rush of software and hardware that results in some of these issues.
The fact that this post and article exists is insane to me. Those of you that are in denial (the benchmarking company included) that updates slow down iOS devices are either trolls or people that discard your iOS devices after no more than two years of use (I'm not hating, I sometimes do this, but because I'm not in denial that my two year old iOS devices are about to start running like crap as soon as I really get into year three).
I have not updated either my sixth generation iPod touch nor my iPad mini 4 to iOS 11 and I likely won't ever due to this phenomenon. In fact, since I still want to experience iOS 11 on something that won't have me feeling sad that my hardware that I do love is much slower now, that I will very likely be replacing both of those with more modern equivalents (which is sadly an iPhone SE and a fifth generation iPad). Stupid that it should come to that seeing as my iPad mini 4 and sixth generation iPod touch are both still in great shape.
Nevertheless, this has happened with several other iOS devices that I've owned in the past: the fifth generation iPod touch, the third generation iPad, the first generation iPad, the fourth generation iPod touch, the third generation iPod touch, the first generation iPod touch, etc. It has been happening since "iPhone Firmware" became "iPhone OS" (well before "iOS" even became a thing).
DFU restore on major iOS versions DOES help. However, it's nowhere near enough. I did benchmarks (Geekbench 3, at the time) on a fifth generation iPod touch of it with iOS 6, it being upgraded to iOS 7, and then it being DFU restored to iOS 7. iOS 6 to iOS 7 had a noticeable decrease in performance. The DFU restore DID make it faster, but still plenty slower than iOS 6. Incidentally, I haven't done a whole version update to a new iOS version on a device since the iOS 5 era and I can tell you, it does help, but nowhere near enough.
Yeeeeeeaaaaah, about that...on a Windows PC (or even a Mac), you can put whatever OS you want; even an earlier one. On an iOS device, your options are "restore to the current" or "restore to the current and bring back things that only contribute to your sluggishness". An iCloud back-up is really only useful if you have to replace your device with one of the same kind and you're running the same version. Otherwise, they suck for this kind of thing. Even so, reinstalling the OS doesn't change the fact that the OS is running balls slow because the software is still too new.
Doesn't help as much as you'd think it would; see above.
They already do abandon older users by making their devices run as slow as they do though! Here's the solution:
Rather than five years of support (from the time the processor family is announced that September to the time that device is left in the cold), do three years of OS updates, and then two more years of security update patching for those devices. They are still secure to use for five years so that anyone still wanting to can without feeling like they have to buy a new iPhone or iPad. Google does something similar with their phones
They're really not though. Like I said above, if they give the same amount of time for security updates, but 50-60% of that time for OS update support, then they're fine. Imagine how much better to use the iPad mini 4, the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, and the sixth generation iPod touch would be if rather than be on iOS 11, they'd be on iOS 9 with the current security patch.
I have not updated either my sixth generation iPod touch nor my iPad mini 4 to iOS 11 and I likely won't ever due to this phenomenon. In fact, since I still want to experience iOS 11 on something that won't have me feeling sad that my hardware that I do love is much slower now, that I will very likely be replacing both of those with more modern equivalents (which is sadly an iPhone SE and a fifth generation iPad). Stupid that it should come to that seeing as my iPad mini 4 and sixth generation iPod touch are both still in great shape.
Nevertheless, this has happened with several other iOS devices that I've owned in the past: the fifth generation iPod touch, the third generation iPad, the first generation iPad, the fourth generation iPod touch, the third generation iPod touch, the first generation iPod touch, etc. It has been happening since "iPhone Firmware" became "iPhone OS" (well before "iOS" even became a thing).
DFU restore on major iOS versions DOES help. However, it's nowhere near enough. I did benchmarks (Geekbench 3, at the time) on a fifth generation iPod touch of it with iOS 6, it being upgraded to iOS 7, and then it being DFU restored to iOS 7. iOS 6 to iOS 7 had a noticeable decrease in performance. The DFU restore DID make it faster, but still plenty slower than iOS 6. Incidentally, I haven't done a whole version update to a new iOS version on a device since the iOS 5 era and I can tell you, it does help, but nowhere near enough.
To restore speed to your device simply reinstall the OS and restore from backup...
...just like a Windows PC.
Yeeeeeeaaaaah, about that...on a Windows PC (or even a Mac), you can put whatever OS you want; even an earlier one. On an iOS device, your options are "restore to the current" or "restore to the current and bring back things that only contribute to your sluggishness". An iCloud back-up is really only useful if you have to replace your device with one of the same kind and you're running the same version. Otherwise, they suck for this kind of thing. Even so, reinstalling the OS doesn't change the fact that the OS is running balls slow because the software is still too new.
Doesn't help as much as you'd think it would; see above.
They already do abandon older users by making their devices run as slow as they do though! Here's the solution:
Rather than five years of support (from the time the processor family is announced that September to the time that device is left in the cold), do three years of OS updates, and then two more years of security update patching for those devices. They are still secure to use for five years so that anyone still wanting to can without feeling like they have to buy a new iPhone or iPad. Google does something similar with their phones
They're really not though. Like I said above, if they give the same amount of time for security updates, but 50-60% of that time for OS update support, then they're fine. Imagine how much better to use the iPad mini 4, the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, and the sixth generation iPod touch would be if rather than be on iOS 11, they'd be on iOS 9 with the current security patch.