iPhone 4S with iOS 8

[Christoffee]

I've updated my "Media" phone. I use it for Spotify, Plex, Radiplayer, calendar and reminders. So not a heavy duty phone at all. But everything is fine on it. I still have a 4S as my daily driver. Might do it in a couple of days.

 

[Homme]

So now with the final version of iOS 8 on this device, does it still have

Phone calls through continuity to iPad (ars technics confirms this has this and not any iPad though I dunno if they can VOIP)
SMS relay ( to at least an iPad)
Instant hotspot
Wifi calling??? Anyone with t-mobile

I know it doesn't have handoff/airdrop and that... At least it has more features than say..... iPad 2 and iPad 3

 

[alice04]

Downloading iOS8 with my mom's 4S now. Hihihi 😀

 

[pacorob]

Yep. Sticking with iOS 7. Still buggy and slow on the 4s.

Downgraded last night back to 7.1.2.. will wait for 8.0.1 or 8.1.

I will then also hold off in upgrading to iOS8, i haven't tried it myself but saw it at a colleague and everything seems very slow (e.g. safari, youtube, scrolling in Settings, Music album covers). I'm still quite happy with the speed of iOS7.1.2 on my 4S. I will also wait for 8.1 or stay with 7.1.2 if it won't be any better.

i do like these nice features of iOS8 though:
- instant reply to e.g. iMessage, WhatsApp
- 3rd party keyboards
- share/connections between various apps e.g. send Photos to WhatsApp via the 'Photo' app (not possible yet because WhatsApp still need to build that in).

 

[neversink]

Seriously it's time to upgrade if you're still using the iPhone 4S. You cannot expect a buttery smooth iOS 8 experience on hardware that old. I think it's incredible that Apple is trying to support the device, and it's why I love Apple they never abandon their customers, but really forget about it and buy the next iPhone when it comes out.

You have to be kidding, I hope.
Apple doesn't abandon their customers, you ask!!! Look at Aperture, Look at iWeb, and what happened to Final Cut Pro. Plus, they have sealed the iMac so you can't make internal upgrades. Come on! I love Apple and have half dozen computers and a ridiculous amount of devices from them, but I am still living on planet Earth and not in the "everything-Apple-does-is-great" virtual planet. And don't forget how they were forced to deal with in_App purchases that were targeting children. It took Apple a long time to act on that, and only when threatened with a class-action lawsuit.

 

[nilk]

Things seem to be faster and responsive enough after I turned off transparency, and I'm happy with performance in iOS 8. I didn't expect transparency to make a difference, because I would think the GPU would do most of the work for that and not impact CPU or I/O, but maybe I'm wrong. Previously, I was experiencing pauses in app switching occasionally, but even that wasn't too bad.

I haven't disabled much else. I have Reduce Motion = Off (the default) because I never found it made a difference in iOS 7 (seemed to give you the illusion of being faster, but transitions seem to still take the same amount of time -- and I like the transition effects). I have all the background stuff running like background app refresh, automatic downloads, location services, etc.

SwiftKey still comes up very slowly (but is fast once launched), so I'm switching back to the stock keyboard as default for now (but I still have SwiftKey configured and can switch to it if I'm going to type something lengthy). I'm not sure if this a problem with 3rd party keyboards in general, or just SwiftKey.

The camera app had a lot of pauses and freezes in iOS 7, and iOS 8 is the same. I'm suspecting it could be my fairly massive Photo / Video library which takes up the bulk of my space (I have 64GB model with about 8GB free). Maybe that impacts the camera app. Or maybe having more free space might help performance in general (that seems to be generally true with solid state storage).

 

[thelatinist]

When I first installed iOS 8 I restored from an iCloud backup. I had nothing but problems: Wifi slow or cutting out completely, lag, crashing apps, apps freezing on install, and horrible battery life. So last night I broke down and did another restore, this time setting up as new. This seems to have fixed all of my issues. YMMV.

 

[stiligFox]

After not even a week with iOS 8, it's driving me crazy on this phone. If I have an open, switch to Safari, then back, the original App has crashed. Back to safari, all my pages have to reload. It's fruatrating! I'm going to try downgrading tonight. I sure hope they are still signing iOS 7...

 

[Homme]

So I updated to iOS 8.0.2

I recommend this to 4S users. The phone feels almost to 7.1.2 speeds (probably better in some cases)

 

[humar]

So I updated to iOS 8.0.2

I recommend this to 4S users. The phone feels almost to 7.1.2 speeds (probably better in some cases)

I feel the same. Seems to be faster, at least as the 7.1.2.
Now we just have to hope for a battery optimization..

 

[Homme]

I actually think battery life in this update is somewhat better than iOS 8.0.. But definitely improved

 

[chriz74]

I actually think battery life in this update is somewhat better than iOS 8.0.. But definitely improved

yesterday I got 5 hours and 2 minutes usage and 10 hours circa of standby. Now I dwngraded to ios 7.1.2 ... will see what the battery is like. Anyway 7 is much better in terms of usability and fluidness.

 

[pacorob]

So I updated to iOS 8.0.2

I recommend this to 4S users. The phone feels almost to 7.1.2 speeds (probably better in some cases)

This sounds great but can you give examples of features/app which are better in iOS8.0.2 in comparison to 7.1.2?

Is Safari and Settings app a lot quicker then 8.0 which was awfully slow (at a colleagues 4S).

 

[macmacguy]

So I updated to iOS 8.0.2

I recommend this to 4S users. The phone feels almost to 7.1.2 speeds (probably better in some cases)

Thank your for this piece of information.

 

[oMc]

yesterday I got 5 hours and 2 minutes usage and 10 hours circa of standby. Now I dwngraded to ios 7.1.2 ... will see what the battery is like. Anyway 7 is much better in terms of usability and fluidness.

Keep us informed.

 

[chriz74]

Keep us informed.

Here you go, after downgrade I got 6 hours and 10 minutes use / 19 hours and 49 minutes standby (from full charge to zero). I didn't put in airplane mode at night nor turned it off. It's over 1 hour more than iOS 8.

 

[Hoppimike]

Apple could make iOS 8 run butter smooth on iPhone 4S. But they won't.

The experience will be adjusted at a particular level which will force you to upgrade to a higher iPhone. 🙂

Sad but true story.

If this is true... then surely the other phone manufacturers do it too. The last available version of Android for most of its phones also runs like a dog lol

Personally I'm planning to keep 7 on here and simply jailbreak and go back to 7 if they ever force me onto 8. 🙂

 

[pacorob]

Here you go, after downgrade I got 6 hours and 10 minutes use / 19 hours and 49 minutes standby (from full charge to zero). I didn't put in airplane mode at night nor turned it off. It's over 1 hour more than iOS 8.

Did you do the exact same things on that day as you did when it was running iOS8? I think it's very hard to have everything exactly the same.
But it could ofcourse be that iOS8 is asking more from your battery.
I'm still running iOS7.1.2 on a 4S so i haven't tested it for myself.

If this is true... then surely the other phone manufacturers do it too. The last available version of Android for most of its phones also runs like a dog lol

Personally I'm planning to keep 7 on here and simply jailbreak and go back to 7 if they ever force me onto 8. 🙂

I don't understand why sanke1 believes that Apple doesn't want to run iOS8 smoothly on a 4S. What is his source that he/she is absolutely sure of this? This was also said for previous versions and iPhones (like iPhone 4 with iOS7 but in that case it was really a hardware issue - only single core processor).

 

[chriz74]

Did you do the exact same things on that day as you did when it was running iOS8? I think it's very hard to have everything exactly the same.
But it could ofcourse be that iOS8 is asking more from your battery.
I'm still running iOS7.1.2 on a 4S so i haven't tested it for myself.

yes, and the days before. I noticed faster battery drain every single day since updating to fresh ios 8. Going back to 7 solved the issue.

 

[Hoppimike]

I don't understand why sanke1 believes that Apple doesn't want to run iOS8 smoothly on a 4S. What is his source that he/she is absolutely sure of this? This was also said for previous versions and iPhones (like iPhone 4 with iOS7 but in that case it was really a hardware issue - only single core processor).

Just suspicion I think - it does tend to be something of a trend. But as I say it seems to happen with Android phones too, at least that I've seen.

 

[oldmacs]

Just suspicion I think - it does tend to be something of a trend. But as I say it seems to happen with Android phones too, at least that I've seen.

I don't think Apple purposely slows their phones down, more it just doesn't devote time to optimising iOS for older devices with its initial releases. I think we'll all find that with 8.1, 8.2 Apple greatly improves performance on older devices as it will have the time to optimise it for the older hardware.

 

[ajay96]

8.1 makes it a lot better on my 4s.

 

[Altis]

8.1 makes it a lot better on my 4s.

Are you running the beta? Please tell us about your experience.

Thanks!

 

[pacorob]

Are you running the beta? Please tell us about your experience.

Thanks!

Yes please do tell us more about your user experience with 8.1 beta (developer release) on the 4S. Maybe you can also create a Youtube video?

 

[humar]

Just installed on my 4S.
Smoother than 8.0.2. All is just fast.
I wait a couple of days to tell something about battery life.

Just one thing: I can't pair with bluetooth my 4S with my late 2008 MacBook with Yosemite GM and I don't know why. Maybe my MacBook is too old? Any suggestion?