iOS Performance on older iPads

[Yebubbleman]

I have a first generation iPad that I bought refurbished from Apple's Online Store at around the time that the iPad 2 models had just come out. I am capped at iOS 5.1.1 and while my performance is certainly better on 5.1.1 than it ever was on 5.0 and 5.0.1, it's very clear to me that Apple left this iPad out of the iOS 6 party for very good reasons as iOS 5.1.1 does a great job of showing my iPad's age.

That being said, so far, for those of you with an iPad 2, how is your performance running iOS 6? Do you find that it is sluggish or decidedly slower than it was running iOS 5.x.x? I'm giving some thought to replacing my iPad with a refurbished iPad 2 in the same fashion, but I don't want to be on a year and a half cycle of replacing iPads. If iOS 6 is the end of the line for the iPad 2, that'd be fine by me as long as performance running it was better than my iPad running 5.1.1. Anyway, insight on this would be much appreciated.

 

[Ole'schooliBook]

iPad 2 here...Bought in the first month of it being released and have used every iOS update since.

I honestly find iOS 6 to be a great improvement in speed and fluidity in certain apps. The main one is the Music app. Before, in iOS 5, it was laggy and graphically stuttered when scrolling through music. Now it's back to it's silky smooth rendered interface that was present before Apple switched from the iTunes-esque design of iOS 4(??? I think that was the version-Music was basically like iTunes on the Mac. *sigh* I miss that).

Gaming is great with the A5! It's driving only a quarter of the pixels of the new iPad, therefore the frame rates keep up with the newer tech, and it still looks nice. I haven't come across a game that lags or loads slowly, but then again, I use my iPad more for browsing/communicating so perhaps a more hardcore gamer could shed a more informed opinion on this aspect.

Web browsing is lightning fast in Safari, far faster than iOS 5 ever was. Although I still wish it was possible to have youtube (or any streaming media) playing in a tab and not have it stop when switching to another open tab.

One thing I wish Apple did enable on the iPad 2 is Siri. It would have been great to have that integration and I find it slightly hard to believe that there was a hardware limitation. But who knows, I'm not an Apple engineer, and if it meant sacrificing precious system resources and bogging down performance in other tasks, I suppose it was the right decision to make (although the new iPod touch gets it and apparently has the same A5).

If you can find a good deal on a used/refurbished iPad 2 (Less than $300 for a 32 gb wifi version), I would say jump at it. It's got a lot of life left in it and is more than capable of the things it was meant to do best: web surfing, gaming, communicating, reading in a richer environment than the iPhone. In my personal opinion, the jump from iPad 1 to iPad 2 was quite significant in terms of performance. The jump to the new iPad was great because it included the Retina display, but performance wise (the tangible and perceived speed increase by the end user, not sharpness of graphics), it was less than the previous bump.

Good luck!

 

[Night Spring]

I have an iPad 2 on iOS 6 and an iPad 1 on 5.1.1, and yes, the iPad 2 is much faster. Not that I have anything too taxing on either iPad, just some reading apps and a few casual games. But I haven't noticed any performance problems on the iPad 2 when I upgraded it from 5.1.1 to 6.0, and I feel fairly confident that the iPad 2 will be fine with any future versions of iOS 6. Now, when we get to iOS 7, that's where I'd hesitate to upgrade the iPad 2, even if Apple allows it.

 

[Ole'schooliBook]

I have an iPad 2 on iOS 6 and an iPad 1 on 5.1.1, and yes, the iPad 2 is much faster. Not that I have anything too taxing on either iPad, just some reading apps and a few casual games. But I haven't noticed any performance problems on the iPad 2 when I upgraded it from 5.1.1 to 6.0, and I feel fairly confident that the iPad 2 will be fine with any future versions of iOS 6. Now, when we get to iOS 7, that's where I'd hesitate to upgrade the iPad 2, even if Apple allows it.

I would say not upgrading to iOS 7 is kind of a wait-and-see decision, not an arbitrary one to make without knowing the demands of the new software-not to mention we're not even a month into iOS 6). I just upgraded my iPhone 4 (same generation chipset as iPad 1) to iOS 6 and am quite pleased with the speed of tasks compared to iOS 5. Not necessarily faster in anything, but not necessarily slower either (in my opinion, YMMV).

 

[Night Spring]

I would say not upgrading to iOS 7 is kind of a wait-and-see decision, not an arbitrary one to make without knowing the demands of the new software-not to mention we're not even a month into iOS 6). I just upgraded my iPhone 4 (same generation chipset as iPad 1) to iOS 6 and am quite pleased with the speed of tasks compared to iOS 5. Not necessarily faster in anything, but not necessarily slower either (in my opinion, YMMV).

True. I may not have stated my point as clearly as I could have -- what I was trying to say was that upgrading my iPad 2 to iOS 6 was a no-brainer. I didn't even think about it. Upgrading to 7, I would research first, wait to hear other people's reports, etc.

 

[OSMac]

The 2 was a decent speed bump over the original, but might be worth the wait for refurb retina versions to hit your target price if you use it alot for web and pdfs.

When the mini is released some expect a ipad 3 refresh then refurb prices should change on the current model, should just be a couple weeks to find out...

 

[nightlong]

iPad 2 ... Mostly better, a few glitches which I've mentioned in other threads ... Rotation lock sometimes gets confused at first when it's been turned off, and goes back and forth horizontal/vertical until I reset it, then is okay. I think the battery depletes a bit faster with IOS6. Some apps get stuck when upgrading, but if I then go to my Purchased file they will complete from there.