Slowly raising my hand with the work phone running iOS 16.
Absolutely hated the notification stacking up from the bottom with no way to change it back the way it was for that many years.
Changing for the sake of change is bad.
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Apple Reveals How Many iPhones and iPads Are Running iOS 16 and iPadOS 16
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Absolutely hated the notification stacking up from the bottom with no way to change it back the way it was for that many years.
Changing for the sake of change is bad.
Doesnt apple have a workaround for that now where it temporarily creates space for the update?
Firstly they changed the user interface (moving the menu choices to the lower right corner, among other things) for the worse (and this is not just my personal opinion). But most important, FOR ME,was the removal of the page-turning animation. It shows that the people implementing such changes don't use the app. THEY DO NOT READ. They just write code. The page-turning animation made reading a so much more pleasurable experience! Now the app is so generic, you cannot tell it apart from the dozens of other reading apps in AppStore. I would move to the Marvin app which has a lot more options and a better UI, but alas, it has no page-turning animation, so I'm staying on 15.
While it’s true the “new versions of iOS only exists to ruin my phone and force me to get a new one” paranoia is mostly about nothing, I still don’t think updating on day one is the best solution either.
I update on day one because I know that if somethings truly horrible I can restore, but the majority just simply don’t.
They update their phone when Apple tells them to, and lately Apple has stopped prioritizing big updates the minute they come out.
iOS 16 only became the default upgrade path after 16.2 released, before that it was only an optional upgrade with 15.7 getting continued updates.
Even Apple is pushing the majority of their customers to wait until X.2 or X.3 before they get pushed to update.
Most people who use auto updates don’t actually get them until a week or two after they release.
But yes, probably the biggest reason for that particular myth is because people fill their phone with gunk, then that gunk never gets updated or deleted so it lingers around through updates.
But it also must be said that Apple has messed up here in there. iOS 9 on the iPhone 4S, even with a complete clean install, from what I’ve heard is a disaster of glitches and stutters and general instability.
Could be that, but I have another theory on why there’s a huge discrepancy between iPhone software upgraders and iPad software upgraders.
Apple’s default auto updates feature installs updates overnight when your device is connected to power and Wi-Fi.
The majority of people charge their phone overnight, every night.
That means every night that phone has the opportunity to download, install and update itself.
Meanwhile, since the majority of people don’t use the iPad as often as their iPhone, it usually doesn’t have that same consistent “overnight, every night” charging pattern.
Same with the Mac, which is probably even further behind in software upgrades than the iPad.
At least you're acknowledging you're making generalizations. Going back to your earlier post if I may, you claimed coworkers running older versions of iOS were compromising productivity. If they're using phones provided by the employer, then I certainly understand the need to standardize, but if you're talking about personal phones, I wouldn't want to work for an employer that dictated what software I run on my phone. And what if an employee prefers android? They have to get an iPhone for work purposes?
Whereas I never update iOS or MacOS on Day 1, because I know there are certain to be bugs. So I have plenty of time to decide if the utility of additional features outweigh potential drawbacks, such as reported battery drain for iOS or a redesigned MacOS System Preferences.
Same, but for the TV app. I unfortunately updated my main one but left the one that’s just for TV on 15, thank goodness.
Ordinarily I would agree with you. But combined with the fact that iOS 16 added almost nothing to the iPad, and the fact that the only thing it did change was to make the TV app (and apparently Books app) far worse, there is no reason to update the iPad at all and in fact the are reasons not to update it.
The phone has a better argument for being updated. Even then it’s lower than most years. I think the adoption numbers speak for themselves and show that iOS 16 was not a good release.
I get the bad feeling that Apple doesn’t care. They’ll just find a way to force updates next time around.
I hope I’m wrong but especially on the iPad iOS 16 just screams to me “engagement is more important than user experience.”
Many companies will cut off support using MDM for unsupported hardware and software.
No it’s not.
I agree with the above. I press the update button to keep up with features and security updates and make my family do the same. Dont understand the thinking of battery life over security being a priority. Unless one uses their smartphone as a dumb phone…then at least get a secure dumb phone.
Can always carry around one of these:
https://a.co/d/8s5rLmd
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This is simply not true. The reason why battery life is not one second is because... new hardware has been released. The original iPhone would have one second battery life if it could run iOS 16. Hardware on its original iOS version runs flawlessly, regardless of which iOS version that is.
That does not change things much tho, a developer can still target the APIs introduced in ios/ipados 15 and have 80+% of users being able to use the app day 1.
I haven't seen it IRL. Macrumors postings tend to believe it's a mirror of the real world, but it's not.
I have seen a lot of iOS 16 devices, but that’s anecdotal.
I think that the interesting part is how, for example, the iOS 9 adoption rate by now was 77%. 72% now, which is a negligible difference, especially considering that the “earlier than the previous version” stat is at 4%, whereas before it was at 6%. Both are similar.
Interestingly, it seems that a lifelong history of device degradation through iOS updates has not translated into lower adoption rates. That has remained constant: us “oldest possible version holdouts” continue to be an extreme minority, in spite of lifelong issues (in terms of the entirety of iOS’ lifespan), with both performance and battery life.
Just my own baseless speculation, but I think this is due to five factors:
-Recency bias: people simply forget how good original iOS versions are, especially when they update through every single little point release ever. The decline isn’t sharp, such as the iPhone 6s: it did not go from 7 hours of LTE to 1 hour from one iOS version to the next. The decline is gradual, therefore, people forget.
-Acceptance: many have said “my device has terrible battery life and it isn’t fast, but it’s old, so it’s okay”. I obviously disagree, but I’ve seen that sentiment bounce around a lot.
-App support and features: the main updates candy. You can include security updates as another candy here, too.
-Larger batteries for iPhones: Recent iPhones’ battery life is infinitely better than it used to be. Severe decreases - in the realm of 40-50% - do not cause as many issues and they used to cause: if we have an iPhone 5s on iOS 7 or 8 with 6-7 hours of screen-on time with light use, and 4-5 hours of moderate LTE, a 40% decrease is enough to render it unusable. Grab an iPhone Xʀ, with 16 hours of light use, and 11-12 hours of moderate LTE, and a 40% decrease isn’t as significant. I reckon people consider maybe 10 hours of light use and 7 hours of moderate LTE enough so as not to be too bothered. Also, updated iPhones with larger batteries suffer less from degraded batteries than updated iPhones with small batteries, a significant factor.
-Performance improvements: In spite of severe battery life issues, performance after updating has seen a 180-degree change. The iPhone 4s is unusable on iOS 9, like others have said. The iPhone 6s on iOS 13 or 15 is pathetically slow when compared to mine on iOS 10, but it is certainly usable.
Let’s go to the middle: add 3 iOS versions to an iPhone 4s, iOS 8, and it is abhorrent. My 9.7-inch iPad Pro which was forcibly updated to iOS 12 is absolutely fine in terms of performance.
Regardless, with older iOS devices and older iOS versions being far more usable than they used to be, I am surprised that it hasn’t evolved at all.
The numbers are similar except that in 2023 there are many more iphones (whatever many is) than since 2016. Two billion active iphones are the estimates given. So the scale is different.
So what you are saying is people either don't have degradation or don't notice it or don't care.
There are a myriad of exceptions. My iphone 5s performs better on ios 12 than ios 7, in my anecdotal opinion. The 6 maybe didn't hold up so well. The 6s as well. The iphone 7 and up imo is comparable; given that since 2016 a battery would age dramatically.
The 32 bit devices didn't hold up as well as the iphone 7 and newer. But yeah Apple wants to hit it's target of say 10 hours and the battery capacity reflects that. My XR had consistent battery life till it's end. An iphone 6s to me is not usable unless on ios 10 unless it operates as intended. According your posts the 6s falls flat in some areas which to me is not usable. Sure you can limp along with the functions that work, but let's be honest, the phone is limping along and not FULLY usable.
As I said a 6s on ios 10 is not fully usable. Your line in the sand varies, but I get somethings might work properly and other things not so much or at all. But if one needed a 6s for their daily grind, and all functions 100% working like web browsing the 6s falls flat.
Agreed, I wonder how much of a difference older devices’ improved usability makes.
The degradation is undeniably there, I think it’s a little bit of the other two: recency bias (the iPhone 6s’ usual joke from some Android users of “iPhones need to be tethered to a wall to work, ask iPhone 6s users if you don’t believe me”, which is utterly and completely false, because for a moderate user, an iPhone 6s on iOS 9 or 10 is totally usable in terms of battery life (ignore compatibility issues today and assume that iOS 10 is the latest iOS version, battery life is good for a moderate user, unlike the aforementioned statement claims)), and the undeniable fact that iOS’ performance on older devices has improved, so I reckon that the “it is worse but it’s not as unusable as it used to be” fact plays a huge part.
It is good on iOS 12 because iOS 12 is good, I don’t think it’s anywhere near iOS 7, though. My 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 is good, great even, but iOS 9 was better.
Undeniable fact: 64-bit devices are usable even when fully updated (to varying degrees obviously), 32-bit devices are not. The Xʀ on iOS 16 pales in comparison to iOS 12, but for a moderate user? Totally usable even in terms of battery life. Reports hover around the 7, 8-hour mark. Worse than iOS 12, usable.
An iPhone 6s on iOS 10 has significant issues as an only device today. App compatibility is definitely waning, web browsing isn’t great. Some people might fare better than others, so I’m inclined not to give a definite statement like “unusable”, but yes, it has a lot of issues. I wouldn’t be able to use it as my only device. “Limping along doing what it can” sounds like a great way to describe it; honestly, it’s true. iOS 12 though? Totally different, absolutely usable.
The 6s on iOS 10 is not good enough for that today, unfortunately. I wish it were. I meant iOS 12 onwards, it works far better than iOS 6 or 7 did when iOS 10 and 11 were released, I think. Not perfect, far from it, but it is slowly getting better. Should this trend of iOS updates being harmful in any way at all continue, I’d expect iOS adoption rates to drop, but history shows that my assumption is incorrect: it is likely that the usual holdouts will continue doing what they (we) do, and the usual adopters will continue to update. I mean, if they didn’t stop updating when Apple obliterated devices to the point of worthlessness back with 32-bit devices and if they didn’t stop when the 6s and the 7’s battery life was blasted into oblivion... why would they stop now that everything is much better? (Due to sheer battery size, but better regardless).
In the strictest sense of the word, yes there is an iphone model that has suffered degradation, but this is not a generality. I'm not denying 32 bit devices got the biggest hit and the 6s being a 6 year old phone struggles with today environment, but generally speaking since the iphone 8 there is no degradation, imo.
I also believe there is degradation bias; ie degradation exists everywhere. Take a 6 year old phone with the original battery, run it on the most modern ios version for that phone and then claim there is degradation because a 6 year old battery is being hammered.
ios 9 was not better than ios 12, imo.
I don't think adoption rates will drop. There is a historical trend of adoption rates and likely to maintain the same pace. My gut feeling is that from the iphone X onwards, newer ios versions will not be an issue for the supported life of the iphone ie 5 or 6 years.
I’d say that it is a generality, but it definitely has improved. So much so, that I’d call 32-bit devices unusable (due to performance), iPhones pre-A11 unusable (due to battery life), and A11 devices onwards as “significantly degraded, but totally usable”. Up to a certain point obviously, I don’t know how’s the battery life of the iPhone 13 exactly, some reported a sizeable degradation on iOS 16 but it’s probably good enough, so maybe iPhone X through 12? Subsequent iPhones are too new for this to matter.
Obviously, some less significantly than others, and for all of those models after the A11... it’s very likely users won’t complain all that much. Maybe A11 users, but A12 onwards are probably happy. Doesn’t mean an iPhone Xʀ on iOS 16 is as good as mine on iOS 16 (it isn’t), but it means that a moderate user won’t struggle with battery life (i.e., it won’t matter enough for them to care... yet).
Like I said, I do think that degradation exists everywhere, but there comes a point in which the device is too new for it to be affected to a point where a user will care. If an iPhone Xʀ user gets 16 hours of very light use on iOS 12, and they get 12 hours with the same usage on iOS 15... they probably won’t care.
The difference isn’t massive (I’ve mentioned this), but it’s definitely there. My 9.7-inch iPad Pro has sporadic keyboard lag on iOS 12. It wasn’t there on iOS 9. Honestly? It’s light enough for me not to care, so its probably light enough for almost nobody to care (I hold it to a high standard, like I probably always imply). iOS 9 is definitely better as far as battery life goes, though, but that said, iOS 12 isn’t unusable. 14 hours on iOS 9 to 10-11 on iOS 12 on my 9.7-inch iPad Pro is my experience. Not enough to make it unusable, and good enough for many not to care. You’ve mentioned that you’d consider that negligible, and while I disagree, it’s definitely far better than I expected and totally usable.
I wonder whether the iPhone Xʀ onwards have enough battery life when new for this to stop being relevant to everyone but the most stringent users. A little optimisation would go very far. Continuing with the iPhone Xʀ example, if Apple can guarantee 11 hours of light use (down from 16 on iOS 12) on its final iOS version, and if Apple can hold that percentage drop (so, around 30%) throughout subsequent iPhone models, it is very likely that that degradation won’t really matter anymore. I hope this is the case.
I’ve repeatedly mentioned that battery health is irrelevant if the device isn’t updated. If Apple can guarantee a small drop from those 11 hours, maybe to 9 hours (like it is now with the 6s on iOS 10 with 63% health, a very slight and negligible drop when compared to a 100% iPhone 6s on iOS 9. Negligible enough so that even I don’t care), cementing the old iOS versions’ phenomena of battery health being irrelevant, maybe then they can render the whole staying behind practice irrelevant.
Notice I don’t even demand perfection: I want it not to cause a category degradation: if heavy users find an iPhone 13 Pro Max for a full day with a 100% health battery on iOS 15, allow them to find a 70% health iPhone 13 Pro Max on iOS 13 mostly enough for a moderate day. This is the case for the iPhone 6s on iOS 10. If and when Apple can copy this, consider me satisfied with the quality of iOS updates.
Do note the numbers I gave from the Xʀ: with a degraded battery, I ask for 50-60% the original version’s battery life on an updated device. My 6s on iOS 10 with 63% health gets 90% of the battery life a new 6s on iOS 9 gets. Like I said: don’t give me near perfection, give me good enough.
Anecdotally I categorically deny it from the x and up. My Xs max is not degraded on the latest release of iOS 16.
Again anecdotally my sons’ iPhone 12 isn’t degraded either.
These anecdotal observations cannot be used to formulate a fact based conclusion.
Or battery life is so variable anyway it’s nearly impossible to draw a good conclusion.
I don’t think it does.
Different operating systems have different functions. So iOS 15 may use battery differently than iOS 12, providing better functionality. That’s not degrading that’s usage.
iOS 9 also does less. Hundreds of new features are added into iOS releases.
An iPhone XR was released in 2018. Even if it is on the original iOS release it is not getting claimed hours of battery life.
Again batteries age. Even a five year lightly used battery will age. The question is, is a newer operating system with a margin of error as the older operating system.
The iPhone 6s is not in the same league. It cannot handle the burden of the modern internet. iOS 10 doesn’t support newer web 2.x standards.
I understand you’ve built a solid and anecdotal case for yourself. However a fact based analysis imo would be difficult.
Like I said: It might be decent, good even. It’s most likely not as good as it was on iOS 12. My 9.7-inch iPad Pro gets 10-11 hours on iOS 12. It’s decent. It’s not as good as it was on iOS 9, when it got 14.
This is a little more likely: there is a possibility that the iPhone 12 on iOS 16 is as good as it was on iOS 14. I’d have to see actual numbers, but it’s likely that it hasn’t been updated enough (yet).
Case in point: the iPhone 8 is great on iOS 14. I tried it myself, it’s as good as it was on iOS 11 or 12. Why? It hadn’t been updated enough. It’s far worse on iOS 16. The iPhone Xʀ was like-new on iOS 13. It isn’t on iOS 16.
I have never said “every iOS update inevitably destroys battery life on every device”. I have said “eventually, after enough iOS updates, battery life is obliterated”. Two major versions in and it’s like-new? No problem, wait a couple more. It’ll eventually be affected. Like I said: I hope that iPhones with large batteries prove me wrong, at least so I can say “they’re significantly impacted but totally usable”. We haven’t reached the end of the update lifespan on any large battery device. The Plus models of iPhones have been obliterated. We need more recent examples.
iPads are obliterated, too.
iOS versions have been tested, updates are worse. Like I have repeatedly stated: denying this is pointless by now.
Battery life is of course variable, due to a million factors, factors which you are aware of. With the same usage and the same settings, used by the same person, if updated far enough, it’ll be impacted.
What is “using battery differently”? Three options:
-Battery consumption is the same for the same task on different iOS versions (this happens if the iOS version is good, i.e., if the device isn’t updated far enough).
-Battery consumption is more for the same task on different iOS versions. This always happens if updated far enough.
-Battery consumption is less for the same task. This has never happened thus far.
Yes, that’s exactly why battery life is worse. Increased capabilities = more concurrency = worse battery life.
It is. Battery health is irrelevant if the device is on its original iOS version. My iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 is extremely consistent. So much so, that I can predict screen-on time with my usage on nearly every percent with a very small margin of error. What do I mean? My iPhone Xʀ is at 2h 40 min with 90% remaining with my usage pattern with light use, it is at 5h with 70% remaining, etc. The device takes, without fail, between 70 and 80 minutes to drop from 100%. It can vary a little, but the average is there. Always. My numbers can be wrong within 10 minutes on either side.
Again, battery health is irrelevant if the device is on its original iOS version.
Yeah, it isn’t. It was an example of hopeful expectations: hopefully updated devices can eventually be as good as the 6s is on iOS 10 with an extremely degraded battery.