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Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
Agreed. I learned years ago that base-system backups are absolutely indispensable for any Apple product. You need a clone of the device right after you buy it without modifications, and keep that vaulted away.
For new iOSes, there is certainly a sense of urgency in trying them out and reverting, because it's an uphill battle going back, and after a certain point, a futile one.
If I am not mistaken, the available timeframe for downgrading following a major update keeps shortening. It used to be longer. Last year, it was a mere week: iOS 18 released on September the 16th, and every version of iOS 17 was unsigned by September the 23rd.
If you want to try, you better try either the GM, or update on day one and try it quickly.
As I said earlier, however, I have no sympathy for willing updaters on relatively older devices. You know what you’ll get and you should expect it. If you don’t know it, you should. Don’t stay behind if you don’t want to, but don’t complain when performance and battery life suffer.
Problem is most people are clueless. Probably some think that if you backup your iPad you can restore an older version of the OS... they are going to be very disappointed...
Fortunately the performance impact of updates is going to be less and less of an issue, especially for the pro and the air, as hardware gets more and more powerful creating more and more headroom for the software.
In terms of battery life, stand-by time is already pretty bad on iPad, so there is not much to lose in my opinion. Especially now that you can set a charge limit and leave your iPad plugged in when you don't use it.
I agree completely when it comes to the point that many still think you can downgrade. Well, I assume they will learn by fire, like some who update the oldest supported devices.
While I completely agree that performance is nowadays less of an issue (although it isn’t mitigated yet, I tried an iPhone 11 straight from iOS 14 to iOS 18 and even though I would describe performance as very decent, there was nevertheless a significant difference with iOS 14. Lag was present on some apps that did not lag on iOS 14), I completely disagree on battery life, with a caveat.
I understand your perspective. You are somebody who has a LOT of iPads, so you need the best possible standby battery life, and you don’t care much (if at all) about screen-on time. But now, put yourself in the shoes of somebody who has a single iPad. If screen-on time is destroyed by updates, the iPad loses a lot of usefulness. Grab a 10.5-inch iPad Pro on the latest supported version, and screen-on time is utter garbage. It has been destroyed.
After some years of inactivity (I had the Pencil but I didn’t use it), I have been using the Apple Pencil 2 with my iPad Air 5. If I may describe it like this myself, even with my honestly ridiculous efficiency (north of 20 hours of SOT on my Air 5 with light use, when many people have complained about battery life with M-series iPads with heavier use), the Pencil affects battery life significantly. In my experience, with similar use, the Pencil usage pattern with low brightness incurs a penalty of about 20%.
Imagine somebody who does not have easy access to a charger or likes to use their only iPad to draw somewhere or take notes with no power outlet nearby. If updates kill screen-on time, sometimes incurring reductions of as much as 60% vs the original iOS version, using the iPad becomes a power-outlet-hunting chore.
Battery life and actual SOT is something users don’t care much about when it is enough… but when it isn’t, it becomes the #1 issue for them.
On standby: M-series iPad Airs and Pros, as we have discussed, are notoriously bad on standby. But I also have the A16 iPad. By chance, I’ve been using the Air 5 100% of my iPad usage time for the past week. The 11th-gen iPad is at 91% after a full week, mirroring the results of the amazing early iPads, 2,3, and 4. So it seems that the M chipsets just cant idle well enoigh.
My Air 5 on it’s original iPadOS version (iPadOS 15) is ridiculously poor on standby. Overnight it dropped from 97% to 95%. The 11th-gen iPad didn’t move, of course.
This leads me to believe that the issue is solely the M chipsets. Trade-offs, obviously. You get the features and the performance but unless the usage pattern is super light, battery life suffers. People have been complaining about the difference in battery life of M-series iPads vs A-Series iPads since the M1 Pro.
I completely agree with everything. You are right, I look at battery life from my point of view. I don't need 10 hours of battery life running, or even half of that. I always charge my devices before they even go under 50%.
Stand-by time is more important when you have multiple iPads, although with the new battery charge even that doesn't matter anymore when you have a Magic Keyboard plugged in all the time that acts as a wireless charger. Other people may need that Screen on time.
As for performance I wouldn't consider the iPhone 11 as the most future proof device. A13 with 4GB RAM is not particularly powerful nowadays. iPads air and pro with M chips have double the number of cores and double the RAM. Also importantly they have powerful GPUs which help with new UIs. My M1 has been handling iPadOS 26 very well (other than the first betas). But I keep hearing people complaining about A12X and A12Z being slowed down by 26, and those devices have as many core as the M1, just clocked lower, and up to 6GB RAM, but the GPUs are not as strong and liquid glass is probably taking its toll.
Also outside of pure perforamnce, I am in the minoriy that cares about reloads and therefore RAM. And while I love IpadOS 26 on my M1, I regret ugrading my M4 to 18. Because tabs reload a lot more than on 17. At least as much as on 26 if not more (I made a post about that). I was ready to expect 26 taking more RAM, but 18? What did it bring. Apple Intellligence? I disable that but nothing, still a lot more reloads than before. I mean it's one update from the original OS with no major features outside some poor AI. To the point that I now regret getting the base model (my other M iPads all have 2TB) and I am considering the M5. Worst part I can't even sell it for a good price because, although it's like new with a 100% battery, I accidentally scratched the back and there is no way that I can sell it for anything remotely close to $1000 with those scraches (it was $1500 new), even if they are purely cosmetic. I guess I am lucky if I can sell it for half the price... which is such a shame when I recently sold a M2 12.9 with the same specs, a much inferior device, heavier, with no OLED, but in mint condition for $650...
I have the impression that the M4 is the new A12X, an extremely future proof chip paired with the same RAM as devices from 3 years earlier (A9X to A12X, M1 to M4), just before the transition to more RAM (M5, in the past A12Z and M1), which does not give it the headroom to go to the end of the updates without an impact on performance (I am sure my M1 16GB will end its life with the same performance as when it launched and I will be able to test that since I have a 2TB M1 11 on 15, which will stay there, and a 2TB M1 12.9 which I'll update till the end, which is iPadOS 28 or at best 29)