Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I just don't understand how people can say that mini 2 is fast, IT'S NOT, with ios 8 it has almost as much lag as an iphone 4s.
 
I just don't understand how people can say that mini 2 is fast, IT'S NOT, with ios 8 it has almost as much lag as an iphone 4s.

Not a chance. The A5 is the 4S is a little challenged with iOS 8. The A7 in the Mini 2 is not. If you have one that runs like a 4S, you need to take a look at how you have it set up.
 
Not a chance. The A5 is the 4S is a little challenged with iOS 8. The A7 in the Mini 2 is not. If you have one that runs like a 4S, you need to take a look at how you have it set up.

I do see what he's saying though. It's not unusable by any means but it just feels slower than the iPad air 2. The difference isnt huge but if even I can feel it, it must be there!
 
I just don't understand how people can say that mini 2 is fast, IT'S NOT, with ios 8 it has almost as much lag as an iphone 4s.
I wouldn't go as far to say the mini 2 is slow, it's just stuttery. It loads things quickly, but UI stutters. A lot. Comparing it to a 4S is actually somewhat reasonable. In some situations. Control Center is smooth on the home screen but that's about it, stutters a bit everywhere else for the most part. The 4S however never runs this smoothly, so there's that. However if you go into Safari, go to a website, tab the URL bar, split the keyboard, and then do anything from here, it's worse than an iPhone 4 on iOS 7.0, 15fps sort of lag.

Not a chance. The A5 is the 4S is a little challenged with iOS 8. The A7 in the Mini 2 is not. If you have one that runs like a 4S, you need to take a look at how you have it set up.

The A7 is challenged by iOS 8 too... Because of the translucency. Plus, it has to run a resolution of 2048x1536 while the 4S only has to run 960x640. Blurring content at a much higher resolution like that will obviously be much much tougher as well. My iPad mini 2 stutters ANYWHERE that involves the keyboard. Problem is doubled if it's a split keyboard. Rotating is also more than often slow and stuttery. The mini 2 definitely doesn't seem unburdened by iOS 8 by any means.
 
Not a chance. The A5 is the 4S is a little challenged with iOS 8. The A7 in the Mini 2 is not. If you have one that runs like a 4S, you need to take a look at how you have it set up.

I wouldn't go as far to say the mini 2 is slow, it's just stuttery. It loads things quickly, but UI stutters. A lot. Comparing it to a 4S is actually somewhat reasonable. In some situations. Control Center is smooth on the home screen but that's about it, stutters a bit everywhere else for the most part. The 4S however never runs this smoothly, so there's that. However if you go into Safari, go to a website, tab the URL bar, split the keyboard, and then do anything from here, it's worse than an iPhone 4 on iOS 7.0, 15fps sort of lag.



The A7 is challenged by iOS 8 too... Because of the translucency. Plus, it has to run a resolution of 2048x1536 while the 4S only has to run 960x640. Blurring content at a much higher resolution like that will obviously be much much tougher as well. My iPad mini 2 stutters ANYWHERE that involves the keyboard. Problem is doubled if it's a split keyboard. Rotating is also more than often slow and stuttery. The mini 2 definitely doesn't seem unburdened by iOS 8 by any means.

Let me give you some examples that apply for both 4s and mini 2:
-spotlight keyboard lags (on 4s only spotlight keyboard lags but in safari, messages or other apps, the keyboard is smooth. Meanwhile on the mini 2, the keyboard lags everywhere
-safari tabs lag
-CC lags
-scrolling lags
-folders lag when opening for the first time
And many other UI glitches. Both devices have been restored and set up as new and the bugs above occur even when the device is empty with no files stored.
 
Last edited:
Let me give you some examples that apply for both 4s and mini 2:
-spotlight keyboard lags (on 4s only spotlight keyboard lags but in safari, messages or other apps, the keyboard is smooth. Meanwhile on the mini 2, the keyboard lags everywhere
-safari taps lag
-CC lags
-scrolling lags
-folders lag when opening for the first time
And many other UI glitches. Both devices have been restored and set up as new and the bugs above occur even when the device is empty with no files stored.

Well put. And yes, the mini 2 has many UI lags that happen the first time, but once you do it again, it's smooth. And I don't understand why the keyboard lags on the mini 2. What makes blurring the keyboard with CC lag more than blurring the dock and apps on the homescreen, or safari tab view, etc? Those two areas are pretty smooth, why isn't the keyboard that way? Also since the introduction of iOS 7, dragging up the control center on the keyboard pressed keys and glitches them up, very irritating. One time the backspace button somehow got glitched by CC and it started backspacing when I wasn't even pressing the key!! It kept going and going and it deleted half a paragraph in my essay I was typing. Luckily there's the "Undo" function.
 
My mini 1 lags a lot. Got the air 2 today and wow. Now I'm really seeing the difference, but still enjoyed using my mini and will be keeping it
 
Runs well on IOS8 for me, got it for my mom for Christmas, everything is a real update over the iPad mini.
 
We went through all of these complaints with iOS 7, and iOS 8 isn 't meaningfully different. My two iPads, as well as my now-departed iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S, were all on 7.1.2 and were/are all upgraded to 8.0 or higher. None of them ran any worse on iOS 8 than iOS 7. Things like translucency and parallax all caused issues back then and they still do...you can find hundreds of threads complaining about the same issues. There's nothing new here. That's a different issue, but it's not a new problem in iOS 8.

I wouldn't go as far to say the mini 2 is slow, it's just stuttery. It loads things quickly, but UI stutters. A lot. Comparing it to a 4S is actually somewhat reasonable. In some situations. Control Center is smooth on the home screen but that's about it, stutters a bit everywhere else for the most part. The 4S however never runs this smoothly, so there's that. However if you go into Safari, go to a website, tab the URL bar, split the keyboard, and then do anything from here, it's worse than an iPhone 4 on iOS 7.0, 15fps sort of lag.



The A7 is challenged by iOS 8 too... Because of the translucency. Plus, it has to run a resolution of 2048x1536 while the 4S only has to run 960x640. Blurring content at a much higher resolution like that will obviously be much much tougher as well. My iPad mini 2 stutters ANYWHERE that involves the keyboard. Problem is doubled if it's a split keyboard. Rotating is also more than often slow and stuttery. The mini 2 definitely doesn't seem unburdened by iOS 8 by any means.

Let me give you some examples that apply for both 4s and mini 2:
-spotlight keyboard lags (on 4s only spotlight keyboard lags but in safari, messages or other apps, the keyboard is smooth. Meanwhile on the mini 2, the keyboard lags everywhere
-safari tabs lag
-CC lags
-scrolling lags
-folders lag when opening for the first time
And many other UI glitches. Both devices have been restored and set up as new and the bugs above occur even when the device is empty with no files stored.

Well put. And yes, the mini 2 has many UI lags that happen the first time, but once you do it again, it's smooth. And I don't understand why the keyboard lags on the mini 2. What makes blurring the keyboard with CC lag more than blurring the dock and apps on the homescreen, or safari tab view, etc? Those two areas are pretty smooth, why isn't the keyboard that way? Also since the introduction of iOS 7, dragging up the control center on the keyboard pressed keys and glitches them up, very irritating. One time the backspace button somehow got glitched by CC and it started backspacing when I wasn't even pressing the key!! It kept going and going and it deleted half a paragraph in my essay I was typing. Luckily there's the "Undo" function.


----------

I do see what he's saying though. It's not unusable by any means but it just feels slower than the iPad air 2. The difference isnt huge but if even I can feel it, it must be there!

That's a completely different topic, though. If the iPad Air 2 doesn't run circles around a Mini 2, we have a major problem! :D
 
We went through all of these complaints with iOS 7, and iOS 8 isn 't meaningfully different. My two iPads, as well as my now-departed iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S, were all on 7.1.2 and were/are all upgraded to 8.0 or higher. None of them ran any worse on iOS 8 than iOS 7. Things like translucency and parallax all caused issues back then and they still do...you can find hundreds of threads complaining about the same issues. There's nothing new here. That's a different issue, but it's not a new problem in iOS 8.







----------



That's a completely different topic, though. If the iPad Air 2 doesn't run circles around a Mini 2, we have a major problem! :D

None of the UI glitches I mentioned were present in ios 7.
 
We went through all of these complaints with iOS 7, and iOS 8 isn 't meaningfully different. My two iPads, as well as my now-departed iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S, were all on 7.1.2 and were/are all upgraded to 8.0 or higher. None of them ran any worse on iOS 8 than iOS 7. Things like translucency and parallax all caused issues back then and they still do...you can find hundreds of threads complaining about the same issues. There's nothing new here. That's a different issue, but it's not a new problem in iOS 8.
Ehh, not exactly new, I can agree with that, but it's been intensified. Control Center jumps a little bit in any situation now, where it was always very smooth outside of the App Store, folders, keyboard, Lockscreen, just to name a few.

Splitting the keyboard is definitely jumpier as its being split where before it was pretty smooth, not perfect though. Spotlight had lag I think when initiating Siri here (Siri always has and still does lag when initiating/exiting though), using the control center, and Notification Center. It's just been intensified now because spotlight always has the blurred homescreen, and it actually blurs more and more as it goes rather than just having a blurred version overlaid. However back then we had the home screen icons that would jump as soon as the keyboard came up. Control center and keyboard still lags, always has. Rotating power off screen lags, anything that has to do with App Store lags, always has, CC/NC has always lagged on the Lockscreen, rotating anywhere that has a keyboard lags, always has, the list could go on way longer, but I really need to stop.

So it's not really that I'm neglecting that there was lag before, it's that its STILL there and I feel like apple doesn't care. Also, it has all been intensified for the most part anyway, so. Yeah.
None of the UI glitches I mentioned were present in ios 7.

Refer to my reply just above this. Those things still had lag, it just depended on the situation. For example, CC has always lagged on the Lockscreen and it still does. I do agree though that iOS 8 is definitely laggy on iPad. Intensified in many areas. An entirely new and outrageously intense lag can be observed on any A7 iPad. To see it, do the following: make sure the iPad is landscape. Open safari, go to any webpage. Tap the URL bar and type "wiki" or something that will have a lot of results. Split the keyboard. Now do anything and it lags severely at approx. 15fps. Really, really bad. This didn't happen in iOS 7 because the favorites didn't come up in a blurred section under the URL bar, it was on a completely white page with just the keyboard and favorites.
 
The A7 is challenged by iOS 8 too... Because of the translucency. Plus, it has to run a resolution of 2048x1536 while the 4S only has to run 960x640. Blurring content at a much higher resolution like that will obviously be much much tougher as well. My iPad mini 2 stutters ANYWHERE that involves the keyboard. Problem is doubled if it's a split keyboard. Rotating is also more than often slow and stuttery. The mini 2 definitely doesn't seem unburdened by iOS 8 by any means.

I wouldn't blame gaussian blur as a reason. No, it's simply terrible coding by Apple. They've gone lazy and iOS 7 (7.1.2) which visually is on par with iOS 8, won't result in stuttering/lag which is downright ridiculous on iOS 8.

This is the first time in years where the primary/lead device, iPhone 6/6Plus, will actually stutter and sometimes lag on the OS it was shipped with. That is nothing short of how evident it is that Apple were seriously sloppy with iOS 8. Call it greed if you will.

Better hope 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 will make a difference.
 
I wouldn't blame gaussian blur as a reason. No, it's simply terrible coding by Apple. They've gone lazy and iOS 7 (7.1.2) which visually is on par with iOS 8, won't result in stuttering/lag which is downright ridiculous on iOS 8.

This is the first time in years where the primary/lead device, iPhone 6/6Plus, will actually stutter and sometimes lag on the OS it was shipped with. That is nothing short of how evident it is that Apple were seriously sloppy with iOS 8. Call it greed if you will.

Better hope 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 will make a difference.

Yeah I can agree with you actually... Gaussian blur is not 100% of the reason for the stuttering, it may cause it, but only because of the extremely unoptimized and sloppy execution of it. I still don't understand why blurring a keyboard causes more lag than blurring anything else.

And also, if you do the thing with Safari where you go to a website, tap the URL bar and then split the keyboard, everything still lags a ton with reduce transparency enabled. On an iPad 2, this is smooth either way.
 
I just don't understand how people can say that mini 2 is fast, IT'S NOT, with ios 8 it has almost as much lag as an iphone 4s.

It would seem that Fast...Slow are all a matter of each person's perception. That being said I have an iPad4, a first generation mini, and r mini 2 in my house. At this time each are running 8.1.3 and all seem to be running well. Is that to say there are no issues? No it means that over all each seems to be working and maybe not as well as had they been on 7.1.2 but close enough that I'm content.
The only sure way of knowing it to buy the r mini2 and give it a try.
 
I wouldn't blame gaussian blur as a reason. No, it's simply terrible coding by Apple. They've gone lazy and iOS 7 (7.1.2) which visually is on par with iOS 8, won't result in stuttering/lag which is downright ridiculous on iOS 8.

This is the first time in years where the primary/lead device, iPhone 6/6Plus, will actually stutter and sometimes lag on the OS it was shipped with. That is nothing short of how evident it is that Apple were seriously sloppy with iOS 8. Call it greed if you will.

Better hope 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 will make a difference.

Well if we're to believe the recent rumors on iOS9, that upgrade will primarily be about making improvements under the hood and optimizing the code.
 
I have the mini 3 which has the same internals as the 2. It's plenty fast. If you held me at gun point my 6 plus and air 2 are faster but for general day to day things the speed difference is negligible.
 
I have the Air 2 and the rMini 2. Yes, the Air 2 is slightly faster, but the rMini runs well for me on OS 8. I didn't notice any change in performance when I upgraded. I think the main reason for you to get the rMini 2 however is for portability. If you won't use it away from home or to read with, then I think you are better off staying with your iPad and saving your money. My rMini goes everywhere with me, but I use the Air 2 at home as I much prefer the larger screen real estate.
 
Games force close on my Rmini. Prime World Defenders and OTTTD to name a few.

Other than that, I have no problems with the Rmini for what I use it for.
 
I have the Air 2 and the rMini 2. Yes, the Air 2 is slightly faster, but the rMini runs well for me on OS 8. I didn't notice any change in performance when I upgraded. I think the main reason for you to get the rMini 2 however is for portability. If you won't use it away from home or to read with, then I think you are better off staying with your iPad and saving your money. My rMini goes everywhere with me, but I use the Air 2 at home as I much prefer the larger screen real estate.

I also have both and going in between the two I can see a HUGE difference. The air two is great, but the Rmini is no slouch. It's certainly not a difference that would make me stop using the rmini
 
I don't know. I definitely can feel some lag in the mini 2. I think it came about as a result of iOS 8.

The only time I noticed lag on my ios devices it when I am using them on my home AT&T Wi-Fi. I flipped off Wi-Fi and leave it on data only and runs super fast and smooth. Flip the wifi back on and I get the lag again. I'm pretty sure it is an optimization issue with the built in wifi.
 
I do see what he's saying though. It's not unusable by any means but it just feels slower than the iPad air 2. The difference isnt huge but if even I can feel it, it must be there!

Well, yes, of course it's slower than the Air 2. A7 vs A8x says it all.
 
Have a Retina iPad mini in iOS 8 here. Use it everyday for work and leisure. Quite smooth overall. If anything, it gives me fewer issues than my 5s.
 
I bought a new Ipad Mini2 32GB last "Black Friday" via the Best Buy Website and I am very satisfied with it's speed response and excellent quality.

It cost me only $269 for this quality device.
 
I have both the mini 2 and the air 2, well just a couple of weeks ago I gave the mini 2 to my wife.

I havent received lag, stutter or slowdown more than the normal. The air 2 has the same occasional problems as well, also my iphone 6.

None of it is even really note worthy though, and I believe it to be more ios 8 than device.

The ipad mini 2 seems just as fast, maybe slightly slower(really cant tell either way though).
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.