iPhone 6+ Lag

[Bahroo]

Dunno how else to put it: the same tasks that lag on the +, do not on the 6.

The lag may not be bad for most users (the same ones who think they have a "perfect" phone until an OCDer finds 20 things wrong in seconds) but the issue is a hardware one, and even if it doesn't bother you, it's there.

It's not a broken phone. It's the "desktop class" scaler.

About the only thing the + has going for it over the 6 at this point is .8" of screen size. You make lots of compromises to get it too.

Pass. Maybe the 6S+ will fix it

its not a broken phone nor is anything wrong with it, any lag on the 6 Plus is merely software as the GX6450 GPU in both phones are more then capable of running at 1080p resolution and even a little higher (like how it downscales to 1080p on the Plus)

Adreno 330 at QuadHD resolutions runs QuadHD fairly smooth, and the GX6450 is faster then that and is also running at lower resolution then QuadHD

Give it a month, where thousands of apps will have been recompiled for the new iPhones and iOS 8, and also at least iOS 8.1, or something like iOS 8.0.4 or so

also people being "dissapointed" about the 6 Plus having supposively worse GPU performance in some cases need to keep in mind, apps still need to be updated and another iOS update atleast, and also this is exactly why Apple made Metal for the iPhones, its going to extract quite a dam bit more power from these GPU's and also the CPU and you will see a nice bump in FPS, graphical effects, and everything, even non gaming apps will take advantage of Metal, using the GPU more efficiently, assisting in UI rendering and effects, also being more power efficient at the same time.

Metal is Apple's propietary low level driver access to the SoC and GPU, and there will be no reason at all why developers would not use this in their apps over OpenGL and etc.

the 6 Plus will be running games at 60 fps at 1080p soon, or maybe not 60 fps locked all the time but very smoothly with great effects due to Metal, iPhone 6 and 5S are going to get performance boosts aswell of course.

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Hi crazy ones, it's a given that proceeding any new apple device launch, there will be issues of the OS, and compatibility issues of third-party apps. That is unavoidable. Time seems to stop whenever Apple launches a new iPhone, and updates can't seem to happen faster enough. It's especially imperative then that we stay patient for Apple and all developers to catch up with updating their apps. The issues usually don't arise from a single source, but a multitude of entities involved. Updating apps for latest iOS compatibiilities can be tedious most of the time, and it takes time for all that are involved. The iPhone is a synergy of hardwares and softwares. The integration is unimaginably complex, and any node that is bugged will ultimately exacerbate the whole user experience.

Seeing that not all 6+ users are experiencing lags, it would seem highly probable that the issue is software related. The apps in which you experienced lags may not be polished enough, or iOS 8 still has some refinement due. Of course this is my anecdotal view on this as I recall having the same experience for all previous iPhone and iOS launches. Bugs seem to crawl out from every crack initially. But once all the craze and updates for most of your daily driver apps are out, you might think different again.

Users feedbacks are critical in this initial launch period. I suggest whoever that are affected by the lag to issue a feedback to Apple and developers. The distortion of space time during this period does exist. Believe it and exercise some patience.

this, alot is going to be different in a month or so when thousands of apps will have been recompiled for iOS 8 and also the new Apple A8 chips, and also iOS 8.0.4 or iOS 8.1 will probably be out by then , roughly.

 

[JFazYankees]

iOS 8.1 beta 1 has definitely fixed a good amount of the lagging and stuttering of my 6 Plus.

 

[AppleRobert]

Here's the thing:

"little bits of lag here and there" or "not really noticeable" or "minor" or "not impacting my experience" are all COMPROMISES.

The folks that can "live with it": GFY (good for you...).

I couldn't. But that's what makes the situation so great: You can have a larger phone that gives you .8"s of extra real estate and comes with a bunch of "I can live with it's" of you can choose the 6, give up that screen size, and not have to make those sacrifices.

And for the "it's a software issue" folks, riddle me this:

Why does the + need a "desktop class" scaler to begin with?

Hmm? Makes you think it might be HARDWARE related, don't it?

Keep "living with it" if it makes you happy, but no new phone should jitter and lag the way the + does. It was a poor choice by Apple to force it to downscale, but as long as people are willing to compromise, they're happy to take your $$$. They won't get mine

The 6 doesn't come with compromises? How about the resolution and PPI? How about battery life?

GGEEZZZZ!! Keep living with those COMPROMISES!

 

[jetlitheone]

The 6 doesn't come with compromises? How about the resolution and PPI? How about battery life?

GGEEZZZZ!! Keep living with those COMPROMISES!

Lol, right.

They each have compromises.

In before someone says you cant tell the difference in sharpness between the 6 Plus and the 6

 

[AppleRobert]

Lol, right.

They each have compromises.

In before someone says you cant tell the difference in sharpness between the 6 Plus and the 6

As many posts stating lag concerns, I see just as many posts saying they don't experience it or it doesn't dissuade them at all from the use of the device.

Just like living with the extra size is worth it for the screen quality and battery life over portability and better handling.

 

[james92se]

My 6+ consistently gets stuck in landscape mode in the native messaging app even when I rotate my phone blatantly upwards. I can even shake it around quite a bit and it stays stuck.

I have to exit out completely and open it back up to get it unstuck. It's annoying enough that it makes me prone to using the orientation lock but then that hinders other apps and times in which I want to use the phone in landscape mode.

My 6+ 128gb is empty as can be as I'm using it as a new phone and have not yet restored from my iCloud backup. Beyond the annoying messaging landscape feature constantly getting stuck I have also noticed some obvious stuttering - particularly when playing Pandora or music from your music library and also doing some web browsing. The music will cut out for a split second as you rotate the phone or load web pages and whatnot. People can explain all of this away as they wish but my iPhone 5 never hiccuped at all with these exact same tasks. And again, my phone is clean and empty as can be so its not like it's bogged down as an excuse.

None of this is a deal breaker to me and I still love the phone but to turn a blind eye or try to downplay these obvious hiccups is fanboy apologetics at their finest.

The people who claim to not see it are clearly unobservant at best or in willful denial at worst.

 

[teknikal90]

the iphone 6 and 6+ have the same A8 SOC and yet the + powers a display with 2x the pixels. and then it would have downscale it to 1080p.

makes sense that it lags.

 

[Bahroo]

The 6 doesn't come with compromises? How about the resolution and PPI? How about battery life?

GGEEZZZZ!! Keep living with those COMPROMISES!

Ive literally stared at both screens in the Apple store, same website, same spot, same brightness, looking really closely at both displays, yes the 6 Plus is a tad bit sharper but just a little bit,

Both displays are honestly fantastic and the "760p" display on the 4.7 inch 6 is still ridiculously good and the Plus takes that a littl notch higher

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the iphone 6 and 6+ have the same A8 SOC and yet the + powers a display with 2x the pixels. and then it would have downscale it to 1080p.

makes sense that it lags.

Hardware isnt the issue its software

 

[TommyilRomano]

I have had the Plus for a few days and I don't notice any lag other than when changing to landscape.

 

[c613m]

The 6+ is slightly slower than the 6, it's not really noticeable unless you use the 6 as well. I tested the 6+ against the 6. The 6 won this time around but I sdjusted quicker than I thought.

I know which iPhone I'll be getting next year

 

[jlbunting]

Pull down Spotlight search on the home screen and rotate. That's lag.

same here. lag. should just be a software fix.

 

[WilliamG]

iOS 8.1 beta 1 has definitely fixed a good amount of the lagging and stuttering of my 6 Plus.

What exactly has it sped up? I've seen zero difference between 8.0 and 8.1 on my 6 Plus. Even little things like bringing up multiple tabs in Safari is quite stuttery/laggy in 8.0 and 8.1

 

[JFazYankees]

What exactly has it sped up? I've seen zero difference between 8.0 and 8.1 on my 6 Plus. Even little things like bringing up multiple tabs in Safari is quite stuttery/laggy in 8.0 and 8.1

Touch ID is way faster, bringing up Control Center doesn't lag as much, and other general fixes. I restored, not updated, by the way.

 

[WilliamG]

Touch ID is way faster, bringing up Control Center doesn't lag as much, and other general fixes. I restored, not updated, by the way.

I have two iPhone 6 Plus devices here, and an iPhone 6. One of the Plus devices is running iOS 8.1, and the other two are running iOS 8.0. There is zero difference on those devices in Touch ID or Control Center speed.

 

[Zinthar]

Hardware isnt the issue its software

I don't think we have enough information yet to make that claim. It's not simply a matter of the rendering resolution being higher, because if that were the case it'd make no sense for the iPad Air to lag less than the 6 Plus despite having a higher resolution. Adding in the need to downscale may be the cause of the lag.

Hopefully it is merely a case of iOS being horribly unoptimized for the 6 Plus, but it's also quite possible the downscaling process may always result in stuttering in certain usage cases.

It's worth noting that the Haswell 13" rMBP, with its far superior Iris graphics (relative to the PowerVR GX6640 in iPhone 6 and 6 Plus), has UI stutter when using Exposé (and in a few other situations) in OS X when you switch to a resolution above native, forcing the machine to downscale. Apple evens warns you of sub-optimal performance when doing so. The increase in resolution alone isn't enough to decrease performance by the margin which occurs -- so again it eiither comes down to either software or the downscaling being the primary culprit. Given that they have yet to fix it (and it's just as bad, if not worse, in the Yosemite beta), I'm leaning towards blaming the downscaling.

 

[JFazYankees]

I have two iPhone 6 Plus devices here, and an iPhone 6. One of the Plus devices is running iOS 8.1, and the other two are running iOS 8.0. There is zero difference on those devices in Touch ID or Control Center speed.

Trust me, there is a difference.

 

[themyst]

Guys, your argument for iOS 8 lag make absolutely no sense.

The iPad Air runs last year's SOC with a lesser GPU and pushes far more pixels than the 1080p on a 6+ and has no issues whatsoever.

My opinion is this is a software optimization issue and not a hardware issue. I would strongly suggest restoring the device and doing a clean install of the latest iOS. There were others with glitchy software issues that a clean restore fixed. Give it a try.

 

[barjatya]

#la-Gate

sorry had to do it

 

[bizack]

iPhone 6 Plus is going to have lag when it comes to anything that's related to UIKit. Everything is being rendered at 3x which would be fine if that mapped to the 1080p screen resolution. But the GPU has to downscale everything by 1.15 so that rasterization at 1242 × 2208 can be displayed as 1080 × 1920. Where you're not going to see lag is with media - videos, photos, etc. Also, most/anything written purely in OpenGL won't have lag (as long as your framebuffer is the correct size). There's no software update to 'fix' this. This is the primary reason I chose the 6 over the 6 plus.

TLDR; iPhone 6 Plus *should* have shipped with a faster GPU

 

[themyst]

iPhone 6 Plus is going to have lag when it comes to anything that's related to UIKit. Everything is being rendered at 3x which would be fine if that mapped to the 1080p screen resolution. But the GPU has to downscale everything by 1.15 so that rasterization at 1242 × 2208 can be displayed as 1080 × 1920. Where you're not going to see lag is with media - videos, photos, etc. Also, most/anything written purely in OpenGL won't have lag (as long as your framebuffer is the correct size). There's no software update to 'fix' this. This is the primary reason I chose the 6 over the 6 plus.

TLDR; iPhone 6 Plus *should* have shipped with a faster GPU

Great explanation, thanks. So once all the apps out there start getting updated to support the native 6+ resolution, these UIKit issues will subside?

 

[Zinthar]

Great explanation, thanks. So once all the apps out there start getting updated to support the native 6+ resolution, these UIKit issues will subside?

That's not possible because the UI is rendering at 2208x1242 (when in Standard/@3x mode) and the UI *can't* render to native 1080p unless Apple adds to iOS another point resolution and scaling factor that perfectly maps to 1080p.

I think the most likely outcome is that we'll have to just get used to it and the ultimate fix will be when the 6S Plus or 7 Plus comes with a 2208x1242 display and dispenses with the need to downscale. Or, alternatively, if Apple dramatically boosts GPU performance in A9 and/or A10.

 

[themyst]

That's not possible because the UI is rendering at 2208x1242 (when in Standard/@3x mode) and the UI *can't* render to native 1080p unless Apple adds to iOS another point resolution and scaling factor that perfectly maps to 1080p.

I think the most likely outcome is that we'll have to just get used to it and the ultimate fix will be when the 6S Plus or 7 Plus comes with a 2208x1242 display and dispenses with the need to downscale. Or, alternatively, if Apple dramatically boosts GPU performance in A9 and/or A10.

I don't see why they wouldn't... considering they've done it when transitioning from 4S to 5. Unless I'm wrong on the implementation there. I don't want to sound like I know anything about how iOS renders for different resolutions, but I do genuinely want to learn.

 

[kittencounter]

Oh my god. It's the macbook pro retina problem all over again. When it first came out there are lags everywhere and ppl started to speculate about the hardware limitation of the Intel GPU. After all the updates most of the lags are gone but there are still some stutters depends on what apps are running and what resolution they are displayed on. From my experiences from the macbook, all I can tell is that it's a software problem and it can be fixed over time. The "desktop class scaler" however is far from "just works". When you run on "best for retina resolution" there is absolutly no lags and everything is butterly smooth. Once you change to other scaling resolution stutters will appear here and there.

Even on Android lags often occure when the layout changes to landscape or the keyboard pops out. It's tricky because the content has to be displayed while the layout still changing. The whole scaling process in the background wouldn't make this easier

 

[themyst]

That's not possible because the UI is rendering at 2208x1242 (when in Standard/@3x mode) and the UI *can't* render to native 1080p unless Apple adds to iOS another point resolution and scaling factor that perfectly maps to 1080p.

I think the most likely outcome is that we'll have to just get used to it and the ultimate fix will be when the 6S Plus or 7 Plus comes with a 2208x1242 display and dispenses with the need to downscale. Or, alternatively, if Apple dramatically boosts GPU performance in A9 and/or A10.

I wonder why they can't simply create a new point that is 640x360 and blow that up into 3x mode. Voila, native res. Shouldn't be too hard to implement in the SDK for say iOS 8.1 or something. (Again, please correct me if i'm way off base here)

 

[WilliamG]

Trust me, there is a difference.

Trust me. There isn't.