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Arstechnica confirms big performance hit on iPhone 4S

chekz0414 said:
The A5-A8 are all struggling though, and I think it has to do with 8.0 not being done yet, there are plenty of bugs in this GM that have not been changed from even prior beta versions.
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The A8 is struggling? Where did you read that? I would be utterly surprised if A8 would somehow struggle with something. Bugs are always present at launch, but struggling?

That does sound worrying though. What kind of severe bugs are we talking about? Even though iOS 7 was apparently one of the worst launches in iOS history in terms of stability, I never really noticed the bugs or the inconsistency.
 
Users asked for the android experience and now they've got it.

Oh, they only wanted the android bigger screen.duh, Someone at apple HQ misunderstood

/s
 
Peoples' 4S experience varies greatly. Some are saying that it performs the same if not better than iOS 7, some say its reasonable, slightly slower and some are saying its hopeless.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I was talking about Windows Phone, not Windows for Desktops. But if you want to discuss desktop class OS's, see my reply to zorinlynx below.

Microsoft required you to buy a new phone in order to get Windows Phone 8.1 even if your phone had 8.0 on it. 8.1 had a major architecture change which forced anyone that wanted it to buy a new phone. As others have said you can't expect hardware from 3.5 years ago to perform as hardware today.
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oldmacs said:
I think it needed longer in beta tbh. Apple better clean up its act and get it working better on the A5 devices, and it better no take 6 months!!
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A5 devices are 3 years old.. no other company even comes out with OSes for 3 year old devices.... be happy you can at least update.
 
... Whilst Google make serious optimisations with its run time for Android L, many Apple users here think it is the natural order that a new iOS version should be less optimised than the previous...

edit: in fact, whilst Apple make serious optimisations in its graphics APIs (Metal etc.), people still seem to think it's normal for new versions to be less optimised :O

edit2: People who keep saying the 4S is an old device, you should be lucky. The question being raised is: what was it in iOS 8 that made it perform worse than iOS 7? The performance loss is across all devices, not just the 4S. It's just with the 4S it begins to take it beyond the threshold of what's tolerable. That the 4S is showing signs of age after 3 years isn't in and of itself the scandal. But why now, why the sudden jump? Why is iOS 8 so slow?
 
Imory said:
The A8 is struggling? Where did you read that? I would be utterly surprised if A8 would somehow struggle with something. Bugs are always present at launch, but struggling?

That does sound worrying though. What kind of severe bugs are we talking about? Even though iOS 7 was apparently one of the worst launches in iOS history in terms of stability, I never really noticed the bugs or the inconsistency.
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The reviews of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus mention some "poor performance and glitches" Let me see if I can find the link to whose review(s) I read that in.

Link: (CNET review) "glitches and stutters" http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-iphone-6-plus/2/
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afsnyder said:
A5 devices are 3 years old.. no other company even comes out with OSes for 3 year old devices.... be happy you can at least update.
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It DID need longer in beta. You can see my thread I started "Bugs in iOS 8 GM" and see the universal disappointments in the performance across A5-A7 right now.
 
afsnyder said:
A5 devices are 3 years old.. no other company even comes out with OSes for 3 year old devices.... be happy you can at least update.
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The majority of iPad users are on an A5 device, and the iPod Touch 5 and iPad Mini were introduced at the end of 2012, not even two years old now.

Considering iOS 8 has issues on newer hardware, Apple should fix iOS 8 up ASAP as its obviously got problems.
 
oldmacs said:
The majority of iPad users are on an A5 device, and the iPod Touch 5 and iPad Mini were introduced at the end of 2012, not even two years old now.

Considering iOS 8 has issues on newer hardware, Apple should fix iOS 8 up ASAP as its obviously got problems.
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Agreed, and it better not take them 6 months to do so.
 
its true iphone 4s is slower and it gets hotter when u use multible apps, not to mention the battery drain :( but i like these features too much to not upgrade
 
The device is 3 years old. What do you expect? Name another phone that gets 3 major OS updates.
 
Anyone that thinks Apple isn't slowing down older models on purpose is just delusional. Apple is the master of planned obsolescence. And this doesn't necessarily mean they are evil. It's a business tactic that has been working for them. When I updated my dad's iPhone 4 from iOS 6 to 7, it became unusable. If this is the same case with the 4S when upgrading from iOS 7 to 8, how can anyone think otherwise?

"Planned obsolescence in industrial design is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time. The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases, referred to as shortening the replacement cycle."
 
chekz0414 said:
The reviews of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus mention some "poor performance and glitches" Let me see if I can find the link to whose review(s) I read that in.

Link: (CNET review) "glitches and stutters" http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-iphone-6-plus/2/
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Interesting. Well, I do remember Nilay (The Verge) mentioning a bug or two for the iPhone 6+, which might also apply for the iPhone 6.

Truth to be told though, we all should be waiting for proper reviews made by Anandtech, Ars Technica and GSMArena.
 
oldmacs said:
The majority of iPad users are on an A5 device, and the iPod Touch 5 and iPad Mini were introduced at the end of 2012, not even two years old now.

Considering iOS 8 has issues on newer hardware, Apple should fix iOS 8 up ASAP as its obviously got problems.
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It doesn't for my A6 device. Buttery smooth and works just as I expect... I haven't had a chance to try A5 although I would expect similar or slightly worse performance over 7.1..
 
In technical terms:

iOS runs daemons. Each daemon takes RAM and CPU cycles.

Each new version of iOS has new daemon, some of which are more complex than the previous set.

This increases the load on the CPU and takes more RAM.

This in turn causes older hardware to run slower.

End of story.
 
oplix said:
In technical terms:

iOS runs daemons. Each daemon takes RAM and CPU cycles.

Each new version of iOS has new daemon, some of which are more complex than the previous set.

This increases the load on the CPU and takes more RAM.

This in turn causes older hardware to run slower.

End of story.
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The RAM specification shouldn't be an issue, Apple is sticking to 1GB for whatever reason...
 
Mabus51 said:
Microsoft required you to buy a new phone in order to get Windows Phone 8.1 even if your phone had 8.0 on it. 8.1 had a major architecture change which forced anyone that wanted it to buy a new phone. As others have said you can't expect hardware from 3.5 years ago to perform as hardware today.
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Well that's just wrong, as my phone from 2012 came with Windows Phone 8, and it's since gotten 4 or 5 major updates to 8.1.1.

The architectural change happened from WP7 to WP8, but even then Microsoft supported the OS for ~ 3 years from its' release in 2010. As of right now it's looking as if Windows 9 will work on WP8 devices too.
 
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oldmacs said:
Peoples' 4S experience varies greatly. Some are saying that it performs the same if not better than iOS 7, some say its reasonable, slightly slower and some are saying its hopeless.
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So basically it is like when every new version of iOS comes out lol
 
yet another one of these threads by people who understand **** & just follow what some review site that also knows mostly ****, says. thats all society is now follow this & them cause they said so everyones right & no ones wrong, conspiricies left & right. iphone 4s is "struggling" so is the 5, oh & the 5s, cant forget the 6 now too right?! when no one has it yet..good god & my iphone 5 is doing just fine, maybe if the majority of idiots screaming their phone is getting nerfed by apple "on purpose" stopping enabling all their junk apps they hardly if even even USE on background refresh..

nevermind this is pointless theyll still believe everything everyone, even a zombie says to them. everyones now just spoonfed technology with zero clue how it even works especially when it comes to problems, future support & why a device can only keep up wither newer more intense sw for so long

when 8.1 comes more will be screaming their 4s takes 1 second longer to boot, their 5 doesnt open tweetbot quite as fast, the 5s safari "got slower" & that its "the start of apple preparing for iphone 6s & abandoning the 6/6+"

end of damn rant
 
I did a direct upgrade through iTunes (GM), and my 4S is actually a tiny bit faster- some things take a second longer, but the overall OS feels quicker.

Apple doesn't slow down old devices on purpose- they spend money supporting them, so why on earth would they do this on purpose? Slowness comes with running 3-year-old phone hardware on a new OS.
 
It's pretty obvious that something is(n't) happening in the iOS development labs. The graphic performance of the interface should theoretically have stayed the same, there's no apparent reason for animations to be dropping frames where they didn't before.

Apple is on a very tight timetable to develop and get these pretty sweeping, foundational changes working on its hardware. Naturally, newer hardware is likely given more of a priority when it comes to optimization, whereas older hardware is more of an afterthought. I don't believe they are intentionally sabotaging performance, it's probably the effect of time management.
 
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