Here is a link to a video of the problem:
My iPhone SE (2nd Gen), 2020 model, has become unusably slow. This is only temporarily corrected by factory reset/DFU restore/iTunes restore, etc. What I mean by that is each time I wipe the phone and reinstall a clean copy of iOS, it works just fine. Even after I re-install all my apps, it’ll work fine for a few days. Then after about a week, it reverts to the state shown in the video above.
- Latest iOS is installed (as of the date the video was made 13-Sep-2021)
- All apps are updated to their latest versions
- Turning off background refresh does nothing
- Deleting and reinstalling the problem apps changes nothing
- Removing phone from case does nothing (it didn't feel hot to begin with)
What's really odd is that I previously had an iPhone 8 that exhibited these exact same symptoms, which is precisely why I upgraded to the SE (2nd Gen). I figured that maybe a faster processor would address the issue but it did not. And no, I did not restore to a backup; I got the new phone and painstakingly re-downloaded each app from the App Store.
When I brought the phone into the Apple Store and demonstrated these problems, they just gave me the usual non-solution canned responses that totally disregard previous troubleshooting steps and ignore key points (such as the issue recurring across devices and the fact that wiping all software/firmware only buys me a few days before the phone becomes garbage again).
It most likely cannot be a hardware problem, since the phone performs very well after reformatting, so long as I don’t download any apps other than those bundled into iOS.
Another highly mysterious factor is that only certain features/functions are broken, and they aren’t always the ones that are most processor/memory intensive. As well, when I had my iPhone 8, I also had an iPad 5th generation that was logged into the same Apple ID and synced with everything. The iPad never experienced any issues. Now I have the iPhone SE synced with an iPad 8th generation that also works perfectly (with only 1GB of free space). All apps on the phone are also on the iPad, so that should rule out the possibility of some “bad apps” causing these issues.
Here are some apps/functions that intermittently or consistently don’t work because they are either too slow, take too long to launch or simply crash:
- Swiping down from the middle of the home screen to search for an app (this will make the keyboard freeze)
- Keyboard inputs in most apps (I’ll be typing and nothing appears until a few seconds later)
- Settings app (native)
- Reminders (native)
- Google Maps
- Waze
- Yelp
- Chrome
- Facebook
Apps that consistently work correctly are:
- Calendar (native)
- Notes (native)
- Contacts (native)
- Safari (native)
- Instagram
- Facebook messenger
- WhatsApp
- Gmail
- AirBnB
Does anyone have any theories that could explain what’s going on?
My iPhone SE (2nd Gen), 2020 model, has become unusably slow. This is only temporarily corrected by factory reset/DFU restore/iTunes restore, etc. What I mean by that is each time I wipe the phone and reinstall a clean copy of iOS, it works just fine. Even after I re-install all my apps, it’ll work fine for a few days. Then after about a week, it reverts to the state shown in the video above.
- Latest iOS is installed (as of the date the video was made 13-Sep-2021)
- All apps are updated to their latest versions
- Turning off background refresh does nothing
- Deleting and reinstalling the problem apps changes nothing
- Removing phone from case does nothing (it didn't feel hot to begin with)
What's really odd is that I previously had an iPhone 8 that exhibited these exact same symptoms, which is precisely why I upgraded to the SE (2nd Gen). I figured that maybe a faster processor would address the issue but it did not. And no, I did not restore to a backup; I got the new phone and painstakingly re-downloaded each app from the App Store.
When I brought the phone into the Apple Store and demonstrated these problems, they just gave me the usual non-solution canned responses that totally disregard previous troubleshooting steps and ignore key points (such as the issue recurring across devices and the fact that wiping all software/firmware only buys me a few days before the phone becomes garbage again).
It most likely cannot be a hardware problem, since the phone performs very well after reformatting, so long as I don’t download any apps other than those bundled into iOS.
Another highly mysterious factor is that only certain features/functions are broken, and they aren’t always the ones that are most processor/memory intensive. As well, when I had my iPhone 8, I also had an iPad 5th generation that was logged into the same Apple ID and synced with everything. The iPad never experienced any issues. Now I have the iPhone SE synced with an iPad 8th generation that also works perfectly (with only 1GB of free space). All apps on the phone are also on the iPad, so that should rule out the possibility of some “bad apps” causing these issues.
Here are some apps/functions that intermittently or consistently don’t work because they are either too slow, take too long to launch or simply crash:
- Swiping down from the middle of the home screen to search for an app (this will make the keyboard freeze)
- Keyboard inputs in most apps (I’ll be typing and nothing appears until a few seconds later)
- Settings app (native)
- Reminders (native)
- Google Maps
- Waze
- Yelp
- Chrome
Apps that consistently work correctly are:
- Calendar (native)
- Notes (native)
- Contacts (native)
- Safari (native)
- Facebook messenger
- Gmail
- AirBnB
Does anyone have any theories that could explain what’s going on?
