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If possible go for the 5S.

Performance is basically on par with the 6. Its also much more future proof. The 5S is twice as fast as a 5 in benchmarks.

Yet unnoticeably faster in day to day usage. Not really any more future proof either with the same 1GB of RAM.
IMO.
 
I disagree, my iPhone 5 (32GB) performed worse on iOS 7 than on iOS 8.

iOS 8 operates more fluidly overall on my old iPhone 5.

This is an excellent point and should be examined further. If the iOS7 firmware is anything other than 7.1.2 I wholeheartedly agree.

7.1.2 runs silky smooth though on the iP5 platform and I wouldn't upgrade now to iOS8.
 
Really? I must have gotten a bad iPhone 5 then. No problems with that at all. Going on two and a half years now too.

Ditto this. No sleep/wake button or battery issues on my 5, and it's just over two years old.

Overall it's be a great phone. I have the silver/white, so it still looks good two years later other than some scratches on the bottom chamfered edge that you can't see when I have a case on it. iOS 7 and 8 have both been fine for me, but I'll be wary of iOS 9 pending reviews. I use mine for everything including light gaming, and it handles it all.

The 5s would probably still be a better investment (longer support life, TouchID, more LTE bands, faster processor, etc), but if you can't afford it then the 5 should do just fine. Even a 4S running iOS 7 or prior would be fine other than no LTE.
 
Jeepers, when I left this thread last night I thought it was resolved. Now I'm not so sure.

I was going to go for the 5, now wondering whether to stretch the budget for the 5S.
 
This is an excellent point and should be examined further. If the iOS7 firmware is anything other than 7.1.2 I wholeheartedly agree.

7.1.2 runs silky smooth though on the iP5 platform and I wouldn't upgrade now to iOS8.

I always update to the latest iOS within a day of its release.

I went to iOS 8 from 7.1.2, and was pleased with it.

In each case, I did a clean install and never restored from backups.

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Jeepers, when I left this thread last night I thought it was resolved. Now I'm not so sure.

I was going to go for the 5, now wondering whether to stretch the budget for the 5S.

You should. It's almost identical to the 6 aside from the smaller screen size, and having less pixels to push means the GPU in the A7 will be more future proof. Besides, it's the earliest one to support the Metal API.
 
The main issue going with the 5 is that it has a 32-bit processor. That's not an issue now, or for next year.

But, from that point on, the developer support will likely tilt more decidedly more towards 64-bit only, especially if Apple cuts off 32-bit support in iOS 10 or 11. The iPhone 5 can remain a perfectly viable device for years to come. Just don't expect to have the latest apps and app updates widely available for the 5 after next year.

So, it comes down to how long you intend to keep the phone. The 5s is more futureproof because it shares the same 64-bit microarchitecture and 1 GB of RAM with the 6 and 6 Plus. App Store submissions now require 64-bit support, so the clock is already ticking on when developers will leave the 32-bit processors behind.
 
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Then something must have been very wrong with your backup on iOS 7. Consensus is that iOS 7 runs significantly better on all devices than iOS 8. Even the new iPhones have trouble running iOS 8 smoothly.

Says who?
My iPhone 5S runs roughly the same with iOS 7.1 and 8.1, but the latter offers more functionalities.....

I don't know about iPhone 5 since I sold it with iOS 7 installed....

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Really? I must have gotten a bad iPhone 5 then. No problems with that at all. Going on two and a half years now too.

Clearly not all the iPhone 5 had a defective battery....
 
The 5 is still very capable. Bought it at launch and it's still working great. I bought it to replace my 4 back then, but the 5 is holding on way better than the 4 after two years. Camera still amazes me every day. I'm going to replace it with a 6S for two reasons though:
- Only 16GB
- Limited LTE support

If it wouldn't have had these issues, I would've kept it until the end of time.
 
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Says who?
My iPhone 5S runs roughly the same with iOS 7.1 and 8.1, but the latter offers more functionalities.....

I don't know about iPhone 5 since I sold it with iOS 7 installed....

Any respectable tech site, users among these forums. I suppose you and I define "roughly" differently in this case.
 
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Any respectable tech site, users among these forums. I suppose you and I define "roughly" differently in this case.

There have been plenty of people who had fairly similar experiences with iOS 8 as with 7. Not sure that there's really a consensus on much beyond that it differs for different people.
 
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Then something must have been very wrong with your backup on iOS 7. Consensus is that iOS 7 runs significantly better on all devices than iOS 8. Even the new iPhones have trouble running iOS 8 smoothly.

Consensus? According to who? Anyone who put up with the frequent app crashes, resprings, and "white screen of death" that often occurred under iOS 7 certainly wouldn't agree with you. With iOS 8, I've had exactly one random restart occurrence in 5 months, and can't remember the last time I had an app crash. In my observation with my phone, iOS 8.1.3 runs at least as smoothly as it did under iOS 7.1.2. Or I guess my 5s isn't a part of "all devices"?

Speak for yourself, but don't try to generalize your observations to everybody else.

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Any respectable tech site, users among these forums. I suppose you and I define "roughly" differently in this case.

Any of these "respectable tech site(s)" comparing version 7.1.2 against version 8.1.3? Or were these all early reviews based on iOS 8.0? Please cite sources -- should be easy to find given that this is a "consensus" view.
 
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Any respectable tech site, users among these forums. I suppose you and I define "roughly" differently in this case.

According with "users among these forums", the iPhone 6 could self bends just by keeping in your front pockets and iPad air 2 screen could distorts just by keeping in your hands. That doesn't make it true....
 
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iOS 7.1.2 on my i5 used to have a system-wide spinning data wheel which was related to the app store. A hard reset made it go away for a while but other than that it was a reasonably bug free experience.
iOS8 on my 6+ has a Safari-only spinning data wheel which requires the app to be force-closed to cure it. Sadly it comes back within minutes, so it is basically always there. There are also numerous system-wide bugs and none of the new features are worth much to me in compensation. So iOS 7.1.2 wins hands-down IMO.
iOS6 looks dated now but it was better than the pair of them when it came to performance. Sure it's missing some features we take for granted now, but it got the basics right. Super smooth and bug-free in the main.
 
There have been plenty of people who had fairly similar experiences with iOS 8 as with 7. Not sure that there's really a consensus on much beyond that it differs for different people.

I'd say in terms of pure performance iOS 8 has been more clunky. I do remember iOS 7 initially being delivered with slower animations, but they were still at 60 fps, which I don't find to be the case in iOS 8 in several instances.

The point is though that these would be considered details which the average iPhone user wouldn't really notice. Then again, I'd argue that this is the place to be if you're not the typical average user.

It should be noted that bugs are a different matter, where both have been riddles with issues.

Consensus? According to who? Anyone who put up with the frequent app crashes, resprings, and "white screen of death" that often occurred under iOS 7 certainly wouldn't agree with you. With iOS 8, I've had exactly one random restart occurrence in 5 months, and can't remember the last time I had an app crash. In my observation with my phone, iOS 8.1.3 runs at least as smoothly as it did under iOS 7.1.2. Or I guess my 5s isn't a part of "all devices"?

Speak for yourself, but don't try to generalize your observations to everybody else.

Well Arstechica and Anandtech would be a few. But I find it very surprising, given the amount of articles even on Macrumors, that it would somehow surpass people that iOS 8 has been shambolic. I'm not really talking about bugs, since both releases have been riddled with various different bugs. I'm referring to performance really, where I feel iOS 7 generally had a very smooth and consistent experience, which cannot really be said to the same degree regarding iOS 8. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus struggle in some cases which to me is really just a sign of how unpolished it's been.

What I do find strange is how it seemed to have hit a nerve on you. You take this awfully personally as if I somehow said something derogatory towards you personally. Cool your jets. Is it really necessary to become that upset about it?

I honestly think one would have to be fairly oblivious to somehow not see that iOS 8 has been awfully shoddy. Here's a pretty good summary of what some people within the community or industry feel. There are a few noteworthy people there. Marco Arment had a pretty interesting post about the state of iOS 8, which gained a lot of traction.

Remember, both have had their fair share of bugs, but I'm mostly talking about performance and the so called 60 fps experience.

http://mjtsai.com/blog/2015/01/06/apples-software-quality-continued/

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/1...and-ipad-2-a-little-faster-kind-of-sometimes/
 
Well Arstechica and Anandtech would be a few. But I find it very surprising, given the amount of articles even on Macrumors, that it would somehow surpass people that iOS 8 has been shambolic. I'm not really talking about bugs, since both releases have been riddled with various different bugs. I'm referring to performance really, where I feel iOS 7 generally had a very smooth and consistent experience, which cannot really be said to the same degree regarding iOS 8. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus struggle in some cases which to me is really just a sign of how unpolished it's been.

Why would it be surprising? My experience with iOS 7 was a far more arduous climb than iOS 8 has been. Given the number of crashes and restarts I experienced with the early iterations of iOS 7, I would not call that smooth or consistent. Doesn't matter that the screen scrolls smoothly, if apps crash and the phone resprings constantly. iOS 8, even version 8.0, has produced comparatively few crashes and been free from random restarts. I would take that kind of stability tradeoff for a slight performance dip anytime, except that since iOS 8.0.2 my phone has performed every bit as well as it did under iOS 7.1.2.

Imory said:
What I do find strange is how it seemed to have hit a nerve on you. You take this awfully personally as if I somehow said something derogatory towards you personally. Cool your jets. Is it really necessary to become that upset about it?

Not upset at all. Just pointing out the fallacy of presuming to speak for everyone and "all devices" when nothing of what you claim applies to my experience and that of many others.

Imory said:
I honestly think one would have to be fairly oblivious to somehow not see that iOS 8 has been awfully shoddy. Here's a pretty good summary of what some people within the community or industry feel. There are a few noteworthy people there. Marco Arment had a pretty interesting post about the state of iOS 8, which gained a lot of traction.

And Marco Arment posted this a day later.

http://www.marco.org/2015/01/05/popular-for-a-day

I don't think I'm being oblivious when I observe that iOS 7 crashed and restarted far more frequently than iOS 8 has, or that I don't notice any difference in performance or smoothness or what not when using iOS 8.1.3 compared to 7.1.2. The difference is that I'm not presuming to know what other people observe or should observe.

Imory said:
Remember, both have had their fair share of bugs, but I'm mostly talking about performance and the so called 60 fps experience.

http://mjtsai.com/blog/2015/01/06/apples-software-quality-continued/

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/1...and-ipad-2-a-little-faster-kind-of-sometimes/

If you had written your original post about performance and the "so called 60 fps experience," I would not take issue with it. But, you were generalizing about iOS 7 running "significantly better" across all devices. And to that end, there are too many cases to the contrary to just let it go by without commenting.
 
Why would it be surprising? My experience with iOS 7 was a far more arduous climb than iOS 8 has been. Given the number of crashes and restarts I experienced with the early iterations of iOS 7, I would not call that smooth or consistent. Doesn't matter that the screen scrolls smoothly, if apps crash and the phone resprings constantly. iOS 8, even version 8.0, has produced comparatively few crashes and been free from random restarts. I would take that kind of stability tradeoff for a slight performance dip anytime, except that since iOS 8.0.2 my phone has performed every bit as well as it did under iOS 7.1.2.



Not upset at all. Just pointing out the fallacy of presuming to speak for everyone and "all devices" when nothing of what you claim applies to my experience and that of many others.



And Marco Arment posted this a day later.

http://www.marco.org/2015/01/05/popular-for-a-day

I don't think I'm being oblivious when I observe that iOS 7 crashed and restarted far more frequently than iOS 8 has, or that I don't notice any difference in performance or smoothness or what not when using iOS 8.1.3 compared to 7.1.2. The difference is that I'm not presuming to know what other people observe or should observe.



If you had written your original post about performance and the "so called 60 fps experience," I would not take issue with it. But, you were generalizing about iOS 7 running "significantly better" across all devices. And to that end, there are too many cases to the contrary to just let it go by without commenting.

iOS7.1.2 = no screen freezing, springboard crashes, major app crashes, Safari issues, portrait/landscape issues, copy/paste issues, lag, WiFi issues...just off the top of my head.

iOS8.1.2 = all of the above issues.

YMMV.
 
iOS7.1.2 = no screen freezing, springboard crashes, major app crashes, Safari issues, portrait/landscape issues, copy/paste issues, lag, WiFi issues...just off the top of my head.

iOS8.1.2 = all of the above issues.

YMMV.
Well, aside from the "YMMV" part which already is a huge enough qualifier to it all, you also have to keep in mind that something like iOS 7.1.2 (which was the last iOS 7 update basically), is a ways off from iOS 8.1.3 which is on the earlier side of iOS 8 updates--something like iOS 7.0.6 would be a closer "equivalent" as far as something comparable.
 
Hi all



I found a shop selling reburbised iPhone 5 for nearly half the price of the iPhone6, but I want to know is it worth it?



She would like it for on the hop photos, emails, social media etc. Not really into gaming.



What do you think?


I'm on an iPhone 5 (about 22 months old now) and it's holding up well under iOS 8.1.3. Battery capacity is still good (about 85% of new) and buttons are working great.

The big downside I see is that the iPhone 5 will be nearing the end of its iOS lifecycle soon. I think iOS 9 may be the end of the road, because the iPhone 5 uses a 32-bit processor. The 5S uses a much more advanced 64-bit CPU and will have a bit more software life to it.
 
Wait a hot minute and the price will drop on the iPhone6.



Not worth getting the iPhone 5 now.


The 5 is more than fine for basic tasks. I'd say the used/refurbished 5S is probably the best balance between cost and capability.
 
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