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iPhone 6 Plus is the iPad 3 of iPhones

Ultra AleM

Ultra AleM

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 22, 2012
674
66
Italy
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

I think a more apt analogy is the iPhone 4. Cool hardware (especially the retina display), but didn't really have the specs to future-proof it against future updates.

I don't think the A8 sucks though. The A7 chip alone is more than capable of driving the 2048x1536 resolution of the iPad mini 2 and iPad air, so it should have no problems powering the 1920x1080 display of the iPhone 6+. Both ran smoothly (and still run smoothly) even with 1gb of ram.
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

While 1GB of RAM is probably not the best idea in this day and age, its not as bad as the iPad 3. The problem with the 3 was that its graphical system and CPU could not keep up with the Retina display, and it actually benchmarked slightly lower than the iPad 2. The iPhone 6+ has actual performance improvements over the 5S, and can cope with the extra pixels.

The non-flawless performance you talk about is seemingly something that is a problem with all iOS 8 devices. iOS 8 has some issues that cause it to stutter and lag at times, even on the latest devices. Hopefully this will be fixed with 8.2 or other future versions 8.x.
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's necessarily the pixel count that impacts the performance.

The iPhone 6+, unlike any other iPhone, is constantly downsampling images and text from it's native resolution of 1242 x 2208, down to 1080 x 1920.

I don't think the iPhone 6+ performance will take as big a hit as the iPad 3 did when it comes to future OS updates, however, if the iPhone 6S+ does get 2GB RAM, it's performance will be much better for a much longer period of time.

I think the 6+ will become more like the iPhone 4 in that respect. The difference between the iphone 4 and iPhone 4S wasn't much in 2011 but it is night and day 3 years later.
 
I agree, it might be an iOS 8 problem, since it's one of the most problematic updates ever. But I don't think the situation will improve that much. iPhone 6 Plus will continue to have not so great performance.
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

It's not too many pixels, but it's because of the downsampling involved from 2208x1242 to 1920x1080. The downsampling is the reason why frame drops occur.
 
I had no issues with my ipad 3... Although I should mention it was my first ipad. I loved it. I expected my newer ipad mini 2 to out perform it, so that does not change my view of the device.

I love my new 6 plus now too (except it's a bit too big). All the issues I have experienced with it I had with my iPhone 5 before the upgrade. IOS 8 has been a real issue. I am hoping that they figure out how to stabilize the OS before they start trying to add new features to it.
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

No: I'm still using my iPad 3 everyday, on the latest OS, and I'm very happy with it.
 
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Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

Nope. I've got an iPad 3 still in service and running great on iOS 8.
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

Sorry but so far my Plus HAS been flawless in operation. Not one crash, just buttery smooth perfomance and it has 128GB NAND!
 
yjchua95 said:
It's not too many pixels, but it's because of the downsampling involved from 2208x1242 to 1920x1080. The downsampling is the reason why frame drops occur.
Click to expand...

I'm still not convinced that this is solely the reason for stuttering UI on the 6+. I see frame drops on my iPad Air and my iPhone 5 did it on iOS 8 too.

This could definitely be a problem in the future if the OS gets more graphic intensive, but for now I think the problem is definitely with iOS 8.
 
cambookpro said:
I'm still not convinced that this is solely the reason for stuttering UI on the 6+. I see frame drops on my iPad Air and my iPhone 5 did it on iOS 8 too.

This could definitely be a problem in the future if the OS gets more graphic intensive, but for now I think the problem is definitely with iOS 8.
Click to expand...

On my iPad Air 1, it's very obvious when bringing up Control Center from the lock screen.

My iPhone 5 is completely stutter free, however.
 
Never had an iPad 3. But I can't see my six plus lasting four years (which is how long Apple seems to support iPhones). I often say it's the best and worst iPhone exoerience I've ever had.

The 5s we have performs better in most instances side by side. Disappointed.

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cambookpro said:
I'm still not convinced that this is solely the reason for stuttering UI on the 6+. I see frame drops on my iPad Air and my iPhone 5 did it on iOS 8 too.

This could definitely be a problem in the future if the OS gets more graphic intensive, but for now I think the problem is definitely with iOS 8.
Click to expand...

You could very well be right. The thing that has me skeptical is how well iOS 8 runs on our older devices. I have no idea why. But it's certainly noticeable.
 
lordofthereef said:
Never had an iPad 3. But I can't see my six plus lasting four years (which is how long Apple seems to support iPhones). I often say it's the best and worst iPhone exoerience I've ever had.

The 5s we have performs better in most instances side by side. Disappointed.

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You could very well be right. The thing that has me skeptical is how well iOS 8 runs on our older devices. I have no idea why. But it's certainly noticeable.
Click to expand...

Maybe you have a bad 6 plus, my 6 plus runs rings around my old 5 and iPad mini 2. Only issues are those that iOS 8 brought up on all the devices.
 
Wyvernspirit said:
Maybe you have a bad 6 plus, my 6 plus runs rings around my old 5 and iPad mini 2. Only issues are those that iOS 8 brought up on all the devices.
Click to expand...

I didn't mention the 5. I mentioned the 5s. I've also taken it in to Apple twice, something I've mentioned in other threads. They say it's normal. I can also reproduce all my woes on every display unit I've ever used. It's just how it is. Perhaps I'm way more sensitive than some. My wife insists she can't see and frame rate dips. Ever. Perhaps this has to do with nearly two decades of building computers to completely max out gaming experience. I don't know.

On the same token some people are more sensitive to screen quality and color. I don't seem to be.
 
lordofthereef said:
Never had an iPad 3. But I can't see my six plus lasting four years (which is how long Apple seems to support iPhones). I often say it's the best and worst iPhone exoerience I've ever had.

The 5s we have performs better in most instances side by side. Disappointed.

----------



You could very well be right. The thing that has me skeptical is how well iOS 8 runs on our older devices. I have no idea why. But it's certainly noticeable.
Click to expand...

Same here, I have a love/hate relationship with my 6+. Nice screen, battery life, loudspeaker and speed...but lousy occasional lag, stutter and plentiful tab/app reloading. Some days I love it, some days I draw up plans to get rid of it.
 
lordofthereef said:
I didn't mention the 5. I mentioned the 5s. I've also taken it in to Apple twice, something I've mentioned in other threads. They say it's normal. I can also reproduce all my woes on every display unit I've ever used. It's just how it is. Perhaps I'm way more sensitive than some. My wife insists she can't see and frame rate dips. Ever. Perhaps this has to do with nearly two decades of building computers to completely max out gaming experience. I don't know.

On the same token some people are more sensitive to screen quality and color. I don't seem to be.
Click to expand...

Which is why I mentioned the iPad mini 2 (same A7 chip, higher resolution then the 5s)
 
Wyvernspirit said:
Which is why I mentioned the iPad mini 2 (same A7 chip, higher resolution then the 5s)
Click to expand...

Right. Not the same performance though.

Regardless, my point is that I notice a difference rather easily, in performance, between the two devices. And Apple has deemed the plus NOT faulty on two separate occasions. Couple that with me seeing the same flaw in every 6 plus I have touched (but NOT a 6, mind you), that is evidence enough for me to make the conclusions I make.

I am fully able to admit that I may just be more sensitive to this than many/most and have no problem with that.

EDIT: By the way, this is actually the first search on FPS (on the iPhone 6 plus) I have ever done, honestly. This is the first link that came up... Not going to lie, I don't look at benchmarks as a means of solid evidence that there is or isn't a problem, or one things is better than another (part of why I never really looked it up, but curiosity got the best of me). But I know what I am visually experiencing.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14...-of-iphone-6-plus-drives-lower-fps-benchmarks
 
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I owned an iPad 3 so I know what you're talking about in terms of forget-ability. Apple really abandoned ship quickly with the iPad 3 as it was updated to the 4 quickly and it just never performed to its potential.

I have noticed the lack of RAM on my 6+ a lot. I am a heavy user, and I'd say 3-4 times a day I have an app crash, Safari freezing, etc. This is something I never experienced with my 6 which I had since release day (same apps used as well).

I suppose as more native content to the 6+ becomes available from web and iOS developers alike, it will become a more smooth experience. I believe some of the software Apple is clearly using to downscale to the 1080p screen has some obvious flaws, however I don't think it's something they couldn't fix with a significant update.

While not all of these issues would be fixed with 2GB RAM, there are definitely some freezes that are caused due to the rather lacking amount of RAM on the 6+. For example, when my audio (either Bluetooth or headphones) cuts out when my 6+ freezes, that's a classic tell-tale sign of insufficient RAM. I imagine Apple chose not to include 2GB of RAM not because of cost but rather they wanted to avoid fragmentation in their product line (Apple hates fragmentation). They decided to go with an efficient scaling system that would compensate for the necessary RAM, however they forgot to make the system efficient.

I imagine that the next major iOS update will make the 6+ nearly identical to the 6 in terms of freezing and crashing with some software tweaks and enhancements.
 
Ultra AleM said:
It's the first iPhone which has not flawless performance on its native operating system. Too many pixels for the A8 chip and 1GB of memory. It will probably end like the iPad 3: less durable iPad ever.

Do you agree?
Click to expand...

Nothing like the iPad 3, the A8 is far far far more faster then the chip that was powering the iPad 3 and the iPad 3 was running quite close to 6 Plus resolution (2030x1550 vs. 2208x1204) . Not to mention it being a 64 bit chip and apps starting to become updated to 64 bit code which will give the A7/A8 devices a 30-40% speed increase in apps, also developers updating and making their apps with Swift now aswell.

I dont experience lag on my 6 Plus basically ever, only time i experience a little frame rate drop that i can notice is in the weather app when changing cities, other then that my 6 Plus runs superb, on iOS 8.1.3 with reduce transparency on. Coming from a 5S, to the 6 to the 6 Plus, both the 6 and 6 Plus are the fastest most snappiest smartphones i ever owned

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Newtons Apple said:
Sorry but so far my Plus HAS been flawless in operation. Not one crash, just buttery smooth perfomance and it has 128GB NAND!
Click to expand...

My apps barely ever crash too, even with TLC memory, i am actually geniunely suprised and quite happy at how well the apps i use perform now and that they really dont ever crash ever really now after few updates hit them. They run fantastic
 
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