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iPad 2 iOS 8 Performance

Dino F said:
...personally, I think iOS 8 runs really buggy for me on my iPad 2 (now updated to iOS 8.0.2 - but issues still remain). I wish I had stuck to iOS7 if I am honest!

I updated via the OTA update.

The worst thing is, are the animations when zooming in and out of folders/apps. I rarely get a single smooth animation - they just constantly stutter, like the iPad is finding it really difficult to process the zoom!

It really is quite frustrating when I tap on a folder/app, and I have to sit there and wait/watch the stuttering animation go through the motions before the app/folder actually opens! :mad:

Even if I turn the animations off and instead use the 'fade' animation (instead of the 'zoom'), even that stutters!!

I also get blank icons for the bookmarks which I have added to the homescreen. The only way to get these to display correctly is to delete them and re-add them to the homescreen?! :confused:

Is there any way I can wipe my iPad and do a clean install of iOS 8, to see if it makes any difference to the stuttering/speed issues?
Click to expand...

I found this with my OTA update as well. A restore using iTunes seemed to fix these issues, and while it was a bit slower than iOS 7, it was a lot better than iOS 8 OTA :p

The iPad 2 is still the most used iPad out there so Apple is bound to improve performance, and hopefully 8.1 will :)
 
the most annoying bug I have experienced is at random times, all touch gestures will stop working on my apps. The app itself does not freeze I just can't do anything in the app as it does not recognize touch. The funny thing is that I can go back to the homescreen and that works fine. To fix it I have to turn my iPad off and then back on.

Anyone else experience this?
 
The iPad 2 didn't really have enough memory to run iOS 7 reliably. I have to restart my iPad every few days with iOS 7.1.2 to prevent weird out of memory problems like iCloud turning off from happening. Bit sounds like iOS 8 is worse so it requires restarts more often.
 
I upgraded my iPad to IOS 8.0 without thinking there might be a problem, and it was an absolute disaster. I missed IOS 8.0.1 (thank goodness) and waited for 8.0.2. Read the forums and decided to upgrade as 8.0 had made my iPad 2 literally unusable.

There was some improvement but overall it was terribly disappointing and I had missed the window of opportunity to downgrade to 7.1.2 so - to be honest - still disappointed.

I read about switching Spotlight off (because of alleged background indexing) and did so. I then decided to do a hard reset and see what things were like. Big problem ... my iPad froze with the Apple logo onscreen and nothing I did got it out of that loop.

So, taking a deep breath, into DFU mode and restored via iTunes. It seemed to take forever and I waited and waited. I disconnected my iPad from the computer and ... problems resolved. No freezing keyboard any more, Safari more or less back to normal, and animations smooth and predictable. That was about a week ago and I would say that each day of use has improved things. This may be due to the fact that more and more apps have been upgraded to benefit from IOS 8.

I wait to see what the 8.1 reviews have to say before pressing the button, and I don't think I will ever be an early upgrader again.
 
MacManiac1953 said:
I upgraded my iPad to IOS 8.0 without thinking there might be a problem, and it was an absolute disaster. I missed IOS 8.0.1 (thank goodness) and waited for 8.0.2. Read the forums and decided to upgrade as 8.0 had made my iPad 2 literally unusable.

There was some improvement but overall it was terribly disappointing and I had missed the window of opportunity to downgrade to 7.1.2 so - to be honest - still disappointed.

I read about switching Spotlight off (because of alleged background indexing) and did so. I then decided to do a hard reset and see what things were like. Big problem ... my iPad froze with the Apple logo onscreen and nothing I did got it out of that loop.

So, taking a deep breath, into DFU mode and restored via iTunes. It seemed to take forever and I waited and waited. I disconnected my iPad from the computer and ... problems resolved. No freezing keyboard any more, Safari more or less back to normal, and animations smooth and predictable. That was about a week ago and I would say that each day of use has improved things. This may be due to the fact that more and more apps have been upgraded to benefit from IOS 8.

I wait to see what the 8.1 reviews have to say before pressing the button, and I don't think I will ever be an early upgrader again.
Click to expand...

I found the same thing, a clean install much better than the OTA upgrade. I found in my testing that iOS 8 on a clean install was only a little slower than iOS 7.
 
oldmacs said:
I found this with my OTA update as well. A restore using iTunes seemed to fix these issues, and while it was a bit slower than iOS 7, it was a lot better than iOS 8 OTA :p
Click to expand...

MacManiac1953 said:
So, taking a deep breath, into DFU mode and restored via iTunes.
Click to expand...

....how would I download a fresh copy of iOS 8.0.2 then to my iPad?

Would I connect my iPad to iTunes, make a backup to iTunes, and then restore the iPad, via iTunes and then restore the back up via iTunes?!

Want to see it putting a fresh copy of iOS 8.0.2. will make any difference to my iPad 2 because as it is now, its so stuttery everywhere, it really is NOT a joy to use anymore.:(
 
Dino F said:
....how would I download a fresh copy of iOS 8.0.2 then to my iPad?

Would I connect my iPad to iTunes, make a backup to iTunes, and then restore the iPad, via iTunes and then restore the back up via iTunes?!

Want to see it putting a fresh copy of iOS 8.0.2. will make any difference to my iPad 2 because as it is now, its so stuttery everywhere, it really is NOT a joy to use anymore.:(
Click to expand...

I think to see a difference, you've got to skip the restore part and start with a fresh iPad. I'm not sure how well a backup and restore works. Anyone done the update through iTunes?
 
Start from fresh improves speed if your iPad was dirty before upgrade.
But if it worked correctly, it doesn't change anything. It's placebo.
Maybe, when it's empty, it's a bit faster due to less apps running in background (push ...)
The only hope we can have is to wait for Apple optimizations ...
 
Morac said:
The iPad 2 only has 512 MB of RAM compared with 1 MB for newer devices. That's already an issue under iOS 7 since it causes apps to get swapped out of memory and some more memory intensive apps to be problematic, causing memory errors in iOS itself.

I can't see iOS 8 using less memory than iOS 7, so I expect this to get worse.
Click to expand...


You're right. I've updated my iPad 2 32GB to iOS8 and I wish I could take it back. It is SO SLOW...I've restored a couple of times, erased stuff, but no improvement. Before that it was as good as new, I take really good care of my stuff.

Luckily I'll be updating my iPad for the new model, but I was planning to leave this one around the house for anyone to use. Any suggestions on what I could do?
 
So, given Apple are going to keep selling the iPad Mini (same CPU and Ram as iPad 2) that iOS 8.1 or 8.2 will improve the performance on the older iPads. If not then buying an iPad Mini from an Apple Store is going to be a very poor user experience.

Have to say that Apple should be a bit harsher with the device updates. iOS7 should have been dual core-only (i.e. ditch the iPhone 4), iOS8 should have been fully optimised for 1 GB devices (i.e. ditch iPad mini/2) and iOS9 should require a 64 bit chip. Keeping the very old devices technically 'up to date' just reduces the user experience.
 
kiranmk2 said:
So, given Apple are going to keep selling the iPad Mini (same CPU and Ram as iPad 2) that iOS 8.1 or 8.2 will improve the performance on the older iPads. If not then buying an iPad Mini from an Apple Store is going to be a very poor user experience.

Have to say that Apple should be a bit harsher with the device updates. iOS7 should have been dual core-only (i.e. ditch the iPhone 4), iOS8 should have been fully optimised for 1 GB devices (i.e. ditch iPad mini/2) and iOS9 should require a 64 bit chip. Keeping the very old devices technically 'up to date' just reduces the user experience.
Click to expand...

Selling the iPhone 4 and then not updating it a week later would not go over well.

What they have to do is optimize better, 7.1 is much better for iPhone 4. It's too bad you have to wait for them to fix it. iOS 8 causes lag on the 6 Plus too.
 
I don't really think iOS 8 was optimized at all since it was being developed pretty much up to the day it went Gold Master and that only happened because it had to be pre-installed on the iPhone 6/6+. I consider iOS 8.0 to basically be another beta release. 8.1 is the release Apple wanted, which is why the new iPads are coming with it preinstalled. Maybe Apple will optimize for 8.2 which is supposedly in development. There's only so much that can be done though.
 
Paddle1 said:
Selling the iPhone 4 and then not updating it a week later would not go over well.

What they have to do is optimize better, 7.1 is much better for iPhone 4. It's too bad you have to wait for them to fix it. iOS 8 causes lag on the 6 Plus too.
Click to expand...

Why? - I think most people who aren't tech savvy (the people who would have picked up an iPhone 4 in 2013) would rather be 'stuck' at iOS6 rather than unknowingly accept an upgrade that cripples their phone.
 
kiranmk2 said:
So, given Apple are going to keep selling the iPad Mini (same CPU and Ram as iPad 2) that iOS 8.1 or 8.2 will improve the performance on the older iPads. If not then buying an iPad Mini from an Apple Store is going to be a very poor user experience.

Have to say that Apple should be a bit harsher with the device updates. iOS7 should have been dual core-only (i.e. ditch the iPhone 4), iOS8 should have been fully optimised for 1 GB devices (i.e. ditch iPad mini/2) and iOS9 should require a 64 bit chip. Keeping the very old devices technically 'up to date' just reduces the user experience.
Click to expand...

They're also still selling the iPod Touch 5th gen as their flagship iPod.... The A5 iPads make up over 50% of the installed iPad base, and I can't see that changing suddenly... Apple's going to have to optimise iOS 8 :p

iOS 7 was easier to optimise as it was mainly a new look, rather than iOS 8 which is a full reengineering of under the hood.

I don't think they should be harsher, they should just spend more time on optimisation. The only true iOS disaster was iOS 4 on the 3G. iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 wasn't as bad as people say it was!! I
 
champagnepapi said:
Sorry to just barge in like this in your thread but, has anyone used Continuity between iPad 2 and iPhone 5, how does it work?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Yeah, just hit the button in safari that is a box with an arrow going up to pull up the share options. Then up top in pop up is the airdrop icon. Your iPhone will pop up there and just tap the icon.

Make sure that both devices are on the same wifi and same iCloud account.
 
chances14 said:
the most annoying bug I have experienced is at random times, all touch gestures will stop working on my apps. The app itself does not freeze I just can't do anything in the app as it does not recognize touch. The funny thing is that I can go back to the homescreen and that works fine. To fix it I have to turn my iPad off and then back on.

Anyone else experience this?
Click to expand...

Yup all the time, I thought it was cause my 1 year old kept playing with it. I hope this gets fixed in 8.1 because it's really annoying to have to restart each time.
 
Hopefully people will start reporting about iPad 2 iOS 8.1 performance soon.

I have one on 7.1.1 that works fine right now. But I unfortunately upgraded to iCloud Drive on my iPhone 5, so I'd like to update my iPad 2 IF performance is okay.
 
I just updated my iPad 2 and now I cannot browse any website, Safari just hangs and goes no where.

EDIT: Web pages are working now. So far so good. Just wish they would have fixed the bookmark thing. I hate having to manually close it every single time.
 
Last edited:
Beelzbub said:
I just updated my iPad 2 and now I cannot browse any website, Safari just hangs and goes no where.

EDIT: Web pages are working now. So far so good. Just wish they would have fixed the bookmark thing. I hate having to manually close it every single time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the report! How does it compare to iOS 7?
 
IOS 8.1 so much better than IOS 8

my iPad 2 is functional again! Much faster than it was with the previous one....so far so good...
 
had a very strange thing happen to my ipad 2 today.

I updated to 8.1, installed with no issues.

However, I noticed that the performance was awful. Safari wasn't loading webpages, apps were taking 10-15 seconds to even come up. So i restarted the device, but it got stuck on the apple logo screen. I tried restarting it a couple more times but it continued to get stuck on the apple logo screen.

So I put the device into DFU mode and then exited and booted it up in normal mode. This time it booted up and everything seems to be back to normal.

I haven't noticed any considerable performance improvements over 8.0.2
 
I too wish I had never upgraded from iOS7.

I did a fresh install via iTunes with my iPad 2 and although in the main it runs apps ok etc. Safari is a huge disappointment, so much so that I'm now using Chrome again.

Tabs were/are really slow to load, on average 5 seconds a tab. I think the bottom line here is that the 2 simply hasn't got enough memory.
 
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