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How does the iPhone 4S perform on the latest version of iOS 8?

east85

east85

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 24, 2010
1,343
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I currently have one that was new out of the box with iOS 7.0 (the first release of 7). How much of a performance hit would I take by upgrading it to the latest version of iOS? I currently own an original iPad Mini with the A5 processor and it seems to run fine on 8+ but then again Apple is still actively selling that model.
 
Looking for non-dated responses in regards to the latest version of iOS. The ones that do mention the latest version I've already read. Thanks though.
 
I have quite a few company iPhone 4S's 8GB and they run fine on the latest version of iOS 8.

But all they are used for is texting, email, phone calls, directions and Safari use. Pretty basic stuff.
 
east85 said:
Looking for non-dated responses in regards to the latest version of iOS. The ones that do mention the latest version I've already read. Thanks though.
Click to expand...

If the iPad mini is tolerable than it should perform similarly to it. iOS 7.0 was a slower unstable version of iOS as well.
 
Beelzbub said:
I have quite a few company iPhone 4S's 8GB and they run fine on the latest version of iOS 8.

But all they are used for is texting, email, phone calls, directions and Safari use. Pretty basic stuff.
Click to expand...

I'll likely update in this case. Honestly I have reduced motion turned off on the iPad and it performs fine. I will only be using Hangouts on it with Google Voice. I mainly use my iPad and MacBook for everything else.

Paddle1 said:
If the iPad mini is tolerable than it should perform similarly to it. iOS 7.0 was a slower unstable version of iOS as well.
Click to expand...

This is a fairly good point. To be honest I can tell the response time is improved on iOS7 over 8 on my mini but it's somewhat negligible. Clean install is what I'm going to be doing. Thanks again.
 
east85 said:
I currently have one that was new out of the box with iOS 7.0 (the first release of 7). How much of a performance hit would I take by upgrading it to the latest version of iOS? I currently own an original iPad Mini with the A5 processor and it seems to run fine on 8+ but then again Apple is still actively selling that model.
Click to expand...


It performs like a dead dog.
 
east85 said:
I currently have one that was new out of the box with iOS 7.0 (the first release of 7). How much of a performance hit would I take by upgrading it to the latest version of iOS? I currently own an original iPad Mini with the A5 processor and it seems to run fine on 8+ but then again Apple is still actively selling that model.
Click to expand...

One thing you would need to consider is device security (SSL updates and others missing from iOS 7) for online security, IIRC the SSL bug was a big one.
Performance will lag on the 4S, can't comment on iOS 8.2 (due to being content with 8.1.1 balance)

FatPuppy said:
It performs like a dead dog.
Click to expand...

Not sure about iOS 8.2 but, prior to iOS 8.1.1, I'd agree.

iOS8.1.1 seems the best iOS 8.x.x so far for stability with slightly less lag on my 4S.
(Not Jailbroken)
 
I haven't had any issues, its slower than ios7 still (which is unfortunate given how well ios 7 ran on the 4S and how similar 7 and 8 seem to be) but its completely functional. Apple improved it a fair bit with the 8.1 update

some of ios 8's new features make it worth the upgrade but thats up to you
 
nordique said:
I haven't had any issues, its slower than ios7 still (which is unfortunate given how well ios 7 ran on the 4S and how similar 7 and 8 seem to be) but its completely functional. Apple improved it a fair bit with the 8.1 update

some of ios 8's new features make it worth the upgrade but thats up to you
Click to expand...

Nothing whatsoever can ever be worth the trade-off in slower performance for me. What did iOS8 bring to the table that can be considered essential, and worth having no matter what the cost? I don't see anything. It's all subjective of course and depends on how you use your phone, or what you see as being lacking.
I would prefer 7.1.2 on my 6+, so I wouldn't be wanting iOS8 on a 4S. Cripes no!
 
sunking101 said:
Nothing whatsoever can ever be worth the trade-off in slower performance for me. What did iOS8 bring to the table that can be considered essential, and worth having no matter what the cost? I don't see anything. It's all subjective of course and depends on how you use your phone, or what you see as being lacking.
I would prefer 7.1.2 on my 6+, so I wouldn't be wanting iOS8 on a 4S. Cripes no!
Click to expand...

I think if I had the option to downgrade my 4S back to 7, I would take it for the increased performance.

For me the bigger detriment for the 4S on 8 was battery life - It might just be me, but it feels like it runs out a lot quicker.

That said, I do enjoy some features of ios8 - they're smaller features, but I find that the affect the overall workflow - for instance I find myself using the quick reply to texts quite often, I have found some handy apps for the widgets preventing me from opening apps, I also find going through emails to be the most enjoyable ios experience thus far on 8.

That said these are all minor things - and I do struggle with why ios8 is seemingly so taxing for the 4S....it didn't seem like a huge upgrade over 7, so I wonder if its simply because it was poorly designed? I'm not sure what the deal was.

But I do ultimately still find the phone functional with 8. I have turned off spotlight search and reduced motion and things like that which seem to speed it up a bit, and it doesn't really hinder me from anything. To me its no where near as bad as ios7 was for the iphone 4.
 
Could be better.

I've turned on Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency under Increase Contrast through the Accessibility settings and it helps out the UI a good bit. Much more fluid, less things to render. Funny because in iOS 7.1 it was perfectly smooth with transitions and translucency. Then I had it jailbroken and sped up the animations to being nearly instant and it was fast. Dang iOS 8.

I kept my 4s and 5c on 7.1.2 till I sold them. But I recently inherited my brothers 4s and instead of reseting it on the phone with 7.1 he restored with iTunes. D'oh!

I don't find it that slow though. But I've got older devices that make it feel blazingly fast. So it's all relative. But it is slower than it was before the update. I also turned off the recent contacts in the app switcher. Less lag there too.


If you're on 6.X or 7.1.X, keep it! Unless you need the features. Otherwise, we just have to deal with what we've been given or get a newer device. This 4s is just a secondary device for me, so doesn't affect me much. But I know plenty of people still using it as their main phone.

My cousin has to deal with an 8GB iPhone 4 on iOS 7. It's painful to watch. Along with the iPhone 3G on iOS 4, or the iPad 1 on 5.1.1, or the iPod touch 4th gen on 6.1. Had those too. The exception there was that I could downgrade all of them to whatever I wanted with SHSH blobs. With the A5 devices, that went out the window.
 
constant reloading of apps - multitasking is now non-existent.
safari - forget about watching video or multiple tabs open.
apps - prepare to wait 5 seconds for them to open
battery - prepare to be 30% at 2pm
 
Very bad performance on iPhone 4s. Comparable to 100$ Android phones. Can't believe Apple destroyed a 3 years old top of the range phone.
 
Last edited:
It's doable but I wish I hadn't upgraded mine. The iPhone 4 with 7.1.x & 8GB is faster than the 4S with 8.1.2. It's like, tap to launch an app., grow a beard, shave it off clean, then check the iPhone and the app. is ALMOST finished loading.

It all works well once loading is complete, it's just ever getting to that point reminds me of an old outdated Windows computer loading the OS.

Now obviously, it's not that slow, but going from snappy to sluggish really irritates me, so I embellished a little, but you get my point.
 
oneshotpro said:
constant reloading of apps - multitasking is now non-existent.
safari - forget about watching video or multiple tabs open.
apps - prepare to wait 5 seconds for them to open
battery - prepare to be 30% at 2pm
Click to expand...

I registered just so I could post that the above is absolutely true.

Multitasking is completely and utterly broken. Every app and every Safari tab (even single tabs) reload/refresh and lose their place when multitasking/switching between apps.

My battery life has dropped to "dead by 4 pm".

I installed 8.x from scratch in FWU mode or whatever it's called. I am now on the latest version. I am running bone stock; no jailbreaking.

It lags and stops to think with no warning so often, it's like running Windows Vista on a Pentium 75.

I am so disappointed and angry, I could spit.
 
oneshotpro said:
constant reloading of apps - multitasking is now non-existent.
safari - forget about watching video or multiple tabs open.
apps - prepare to wait 5 seconds for them to open
battery - prepare to be 30% at 2pm
Click to expand...

My 4s runs videos perfectly fine in Safari unless you're trying to view something higher than 1080p. But yes the rest of your post is accurate.
 
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