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There's no visual difference between iOS 7 and 8, yet the devices are slower. Why is that?

I would say, if you can't see a difference between iOS 7 and iOS 8, you aren't looking hard enough and I don't mean to nitpick, though maybe one should be more specific when comparing the two OS's. I don't think my device is slower.

I am running iOS 8.1 on an iPhone 5S and in my opinion it is faster and has better battery life. I still end up with 80% battery life at the end of the work day. I don't turn off data and I don't have LTE in my building, because the company has a Micro-cell system that overrides native LTE in the neighborhood. My phone on iOS 7 had way worse battery and would usually have 50-60% by the end of the work day. Go figure.
 
People have been talking about the bugs in iOS 8 and those that still persist in iOS 8.1, so the question I've been asking myself is if Apple really need more time to deliver a proper point update (like the months it took to release 7.1) or if this is something else?

Now, before I start I'd like to point out that I generally feel that the worst part about iOS 8 is really the performance in terms of speed and smoothness, unlike people generally complaining about certain bugs or crashes. Perhaps this belongs in that category as well. I have one 5, two 5S's and people sharing their opinion on how iOS 8 runs on the new 6 devices.

First off, I've mentioned it before, but the weather app in iOS 8 will still lag regardless if you're using 5, 5S or 6. Going through the list view and detailed view, flicking between several cities, you'll notice frames drop and that 60 fps isn't really in the weather app at all. This never happens on a separate 5 I have running iOS 7.

The other thing I've noticed on two 5S's is this:



That might have been an overreaction, but the point remains. You might be thinking I'm nitpicking, but these small things, coupled with different bugs and other issues of performance does end up to a conclusion that the so called "flawless" experience or smoothness is not really there anymore. That 60 fps experience that was pretty much constant, is sort of missing, for now. Are these the small steps of planned obsolescence?

Image

Now people might be saying that iOS has become more sophisticated, which is true, but judging by the increase in CPU and GPU performance from the A8 since the first iPhone (50 times = CPU, 84 times = GPU), would you say that the system requirements of iOS has gone up that much as well? Without being a software engineer at Apple, I wouldn't really say so. The A6, A7 and A8 are all still very powerful and capable chipsets and given how it seems that we're entering a tick-tock phase with not the huge jumps as we've seen before, these chipsets should still last for quite some time without hiccups.

How do you feel about this? Do you share a similar sentiment? Do you agree or completely disagree? Unfortunately I feel I need to add that I have no intention of switching to a different phone etc. So all questions or claims that I should stop complaining and leave will be redundant. I'm heavily invested into this OS and the ecosystem in general.

All I'm asking is a genuine discussion of how you feel your phone is working and if you share the same thoughts.


This is exactly how I feel.. Small problems are the things I target.. Cause they are the thiBF's that cause me a problem.. And I'm not sure if they are slowing on purpose.. That's because the iphone 4S is running pretty smooth on ios 8 when then iphone 4 runs bad on ios 7... I think the processors and cpu speeds and performance is getting pretty good which should make the performance lasting.. I don't see a reason other than marketing and sales, that iphone 5 should not get an ios 10 upgrade, bevause the ios 9 will be the last it will get ...


It's not a planned obsolescence, just bad coading... If u actually report the bugs on the bugreport.apple.com, you will see that rhat they do respond to stuff.. They may not respond on your big report, but they'll close it saying its duplicate (which is also filed by some one else).. A great example in my case is that, in ios 7 when u are in the middle of the screen, the font you see of the time of the call, the place from which he is calling (work, home,) which is below the name, was very thin.. I reported a bug saying they should be the same font the buttons below it(keypad, contacts, etc) have.. I never thought apple will respond to it, but guess what, in ios 8 they are changed..

If you really love apple and its products, you should also help them improve.. I don't think feedback form works.. Become a free safari developer, and report bugs on their bug report site.. www.bugreport.apple.com

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I think its more a case of trying to do too much too quickly.

If you ever listen to podcasts with ex-apple employees (e.g. Debug podacst - http://www.imore.com/debug-48-melton-ganatra-episode-ii-understanding-apple) they talk a lot about the iOS life cycle. Sounds like they release a new version of iOS, they then spend the first couple of months fixing bugs. Then they have a few months of planning the next release, and in the end have maybe 3 or 4 months in order to code. So to us its 12 months between releases, but actually its only 3-4 where they have time to code things.

I hold out hope that instead of new features, they start looking to bug fixes and performance. Maybe a iOS 8.5 instead of 9!
I also hope that having the iPad Mini 1 still around means they may take the performance improvements for older hardware mroe serious.. but thats wishful thinking!

Another small point is that, according to the ex-apple employees, they never ever do any sort of planned obsolescence, or code anything to be slow on old hardware. They actually get quite angry when people even suggest that they do - so i'm going to believe them :)

True that.. Even I don't think they do something like planned obscolescense but yes I would love an ios 8.3 rather than an iOS 9

Now come to think of it , ios 4 has gone very very far with numbers, I think they reached ios 4.3.2 right?
 
I've had almost every iPhone since the original one, and the iPhone 6 Plus is the first time that the new phone doesn't feel any faster or smoother than the old one, and I'm coming from a two year old iPhone 5. My 5 running iOS 6.x was at least as snappy as the 6 Plus maybe even more so.
I suspect the lack of a RAM upgrade. The 6 has only 1GB, same as the two year old iPhone 5. Isn't this the first time they've kept the same amount of RAM for 3 generations? I can't think of any reasons besides incompetence, greed, or planned obsolescence to explain that decision.
As for iOS 8, I like many of the features, but it certainly has been buggy. iOS 1.0 (or whatever is was called) had no trouble staying connected to wifi, why can't 8.1?
All I've wanted for the last 3 years is a phablet that runs iOS. I love the screen size, but otherwise iPhone 6+ has been a big (pun intended :) disappointment.
 
This is exactly how I feel.. Small problems are the things I target.. Cause they are the thiBF's that cause me a problem.. And I'm not sure if they are slowing on purpose.. That's because the iphone 4S is running pretty smooth on ios 8 when then iphone 4 runs bad on ios 7... I think the processors and cpu speeds and performance is getting pretty good which should make the performance lasting.. I don't see a reason other than marketing and sales, that iphone 5 should not get an ios 10 upgrade, bevause the ios 9 will be the last it will get ...


It's not a planned obsolescence, just bad coading... If u actually report the bugs on the bugreport.apple.com, you will see that rhat they do respond to stuff.. They may not respond on your big report, but they'll close it saying its duplicate (which is also filed by some one else).. A great example in my case is that, in ios 7 when u are in the middle of the screen, the font you see of the time of the call, the place from which he is calling (work, home,) which is below the name, was very thin.. I reported a bug saying they should be the same font the buttons below it(keypad, contacts, etc) have.. I never thought apple will respond to it, but guess what, in ios 8 they are changed..

If you really love apple and its products, you should also help them improve.. I don't think feedback form works.. Become a free safari developer, and report bugs on their bug report site.. www.bugreport.apple.com

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True that.. Even I don't think they do something like planned obscolescense but yes I would love an ios 8.3 rather than an iOS 9

Now come to think of it , ios 4 has gone very very far with numbers, I think they reached ios 4.3.2 right?
iOS 4.3.5 is the last version, but iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 are the only iOS/iPhone that were the newest for more than 1 year.
 
ios has become very laggy. while android L has been smoother. i think its time to seriously think how new OS runs on all devices
 
iOS 8 runs perfectly on iPhone 6 and I bet it does on iPhone 6+. When I had it on my 5S, yeah there were a few times where it had dropped frames or was a LITTLE sluggish, but it was not bad.

iOS 8 does not run perfectly on my iPhone 6. I frequently notice laggy UI transitions and things just are not as smooth as I expect. A 5S on iOS 7 is much smoother and consistently so.
 
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I would say, if you can't see a difference between iOS 7 and iOS 8, you aren't looking hard enough and I don't mean to nitpick, though maybe one should be more specific when comparing the two OS's. I don't think my device is slower.

I am running iOS 8.1 on an iPhone 5S and in my opinion it is faster and has better battery life. I still end up with 80% battery life at the end of the work day. I don't turn off data and I don't have LTE in my building, because the company has a Micro-cell system that overrides native LTE in the neighborhood. My phone on iOS 7 had way worse battery and would usually have 50-60% by the end of the work day. Go figure.

We're talking about a visual difference? As far as I know the general consensus is that iOS 8 is no different visually than iOS 7. The visual language and graphics are based off the same engine. Hence that animations etc shouldn't require better hardware in order to run well.
 
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We're talking about a visual difference. As far as I know the general consensus is that iOS 8 is no different visually than iOS 7. The visual language and graphics are based off the same engine. Hence that animations etc shouldn't require better hardware in order to run well.


I disagree with a general consensus. A general consensus of whom?
 
I disagree with a general consensus. A general consensus of whom?

Anandtech, GSMArena, ArsTechnica, The Verge.

I'd love to hear what you find to be visually different. Not just colouring, but actually something substantial that has different lighting, animations etc.
 
As a developer, I'm often struck by how easy it is to add functionality which adds a significant load to processing. As tasks become abstracted, modularized, etc. calling them becomes easier and become part of an even more complex new level. May not look like much change to the user, but just a small "oh, handle this use case" can add 2-10x processing to a task.

So yeah, the user-facing activity may look about the same as prior version (be it OS or app), but even "minor" improvements can add a whole lotta processing. Example: used to be the useable screen area was a given size so positioning something on the display was simple ... but since then we've added tablet, upscaled phone->tablet, 2x "retina", taller "4 inch", 4.7", 5.5", 3x down sampled, outright variable/dynamic sizing, usable status bar space, call/navigation/hotspot indicator bar, ... ALL of which add ever more complexity to deciding where to position something on the display. Now apply that kind of simple->complex "minor improvement" to EVERYTHING you can think of going on with the OS or app, plus redundant actions as complexity explodes and functionality starts overlapping, well, you end up with something which still looks simple but in fact requires a huge increase in processing power just to keep up with users' no-latency expectations.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass
 
You're asking about iOS 8?

Are you ignoring how iOS 7 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 6 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 5 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 4 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

...

No, there is nothing special or different with iOS 8. If you think there is, then you've obviously never used previous devices or paid attention to the complaints of those who did.
 
Somebody is busy benchmarking iOS8.

If he finds anything like a trace of planned obsolescence iOS8 will be picked apart and used in a big, expensive class action suit against Apple.

Nothing will stop a developer timing how long UI primitives take. If Apple decided to slow down drawing a bitmap a bit, just to give the OS a sluggish feel somebody will find the sleep(1µs) in the code.

Provide proof for that in court and you can imagine the damages awarded to the poor people grievously exploited by mean Apple.

If that happens, others will revisit previous iOS versions and do the same.
 
You're asking about iOS 8?

Are you ignoring how iOS 7 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 6 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 5 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 4 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

...

No, there is nothing special or different with iOS 8. If you think there is, then you've obviously never used previous devices or paid attention to the complaints of those who did.

Do you understand the concept of having a civil discussion? Not a single person has replied in your fashion cause they clearly understand that we all perceive it differently. There's no need for you to be rude and childish. I have used previous versions (7,6,5) and I have my own experience with them taking into account. I think I made it fairly clear why I find it to be different this time with regards to the hardware.

Somebody is busy benchmarking iOS8.

If he finds anything like a trace of planned obsolescence iOS8 will be picked apart and used in a big, expensive class action suit against Apple.

Nothing will stop a developer timing how long UI primitives take. If Apple decided to slow down drawing a bitmap a bit, just to give the OS a sluggish feel somebody will find the sleep(1µs) in the code.

Provide proof for that in court and you can imagine the damages awarded to the poor people grievously exploited by mean Apple.

If that happens, others will revisit previous iOS versions and do the same.

What you're saying obviously makes sense.
 
What you're saying obviously makes sense.

For instance Ars Technica.

For all platforms and all benchmarks they tried iOS8 performs better than iOS7.

I'm not a programmer, but a devops system engineer doing government work. Our team measures and test everything. Part of the normal process. Code a bit, once you got something that compiles, run in through the mill, test its correct functioning, and measure its performance. DTAP. Development, Test, Acceptance, Production. Code that performs worse than the previous version doesn't get past acceptance. Code that behaves differently than the previous version doesn't get past Acceptance. (Unless it's a fixed bug..) Testing and benchmarking is largely automated, and we have separate developers making nothing but automated tests for new functionality.

And I'm pretty [******] sure Apple does more or less the same.
 
You're asking about iOS 8?

Are you ignoring how iOS 7 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 6 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 5 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 4 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

...

No, there is nothing special or different with iOS 8. If you think there is, then you've obviously never used previous devices or paid attention to the complaints of those who did.

This.
Whiners gonna whine.
 
We're talking about a visual difference? As far as I know the general consensus is that iOS 8 is no different visually than iOS 7. The visual language and graphics are based off the same engine. Hence that animations etc shouldn't require better hardware in order to run well.
There's a whole lot more to it than what something looks like. It's like comparing two cars that might look the same but have completely different things inside.

----------

You're asking about iOS 8?

Are you ignoring how iOS 7 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 6 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 5 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

Are you ignoring how iOS 4 slowed devices down and caused problems, getting people to complain about planned obsolescence?

...

No, there is nothing special or different with iOS 8. If you think there is, then you've obviously never used previous devices or paid attention to the complaints of those who did.
Got to make it all controversial and read more and more into it with every release. We'll have more of the same with iOS 9 and so on.
 
Planned obsolescence is just a BS concept typical of forums like this. Period.

This.
Whiners gonna whine.

There's your door. Off you go...

Long_Dark_Hallway_v2_wip_by_spinagain.png


There's a whole lot more to it than what something looks like. It's like comparing two cars that might look the same but have completely different things inside.

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Got to make it all controversial and read more and more into it with every release. We'll have more of the same with iOS 9 and so on.

I'm obviously well aware of that. I think you misunderstood the point I was making. I guess a similar analogy would be something you would see in a sequel of a game. Imagine they use the same engine for the sequel (same volumetric lighting, same engine etc) and the only thing they do is basically add features or functionality in terms of gameplay. Since the engine is the same and they've not to change animations, lighting etc, the sequel should run just as well as the first one. See where I'm going with this?

Hopefully we won't.

Somebody is busy benchmarking iOS8.

If he finds anything like a trace of planned obsolescence iOS8 will be picked apart and used in a big, expensive class action suit against Apple.

Nothing will stop a developer timing how long UI primitives take. If Apple decided to slow down drawing a bitmap a bit, just to give the OS a sluggish feel somebody will find the sleep(1µs) in the code.

Provide proof for that in court and you can imagine the damages awarded to the poor people grievously exploited by mean Apple.

If that happens, others will revisit previous iOS versions and do the same.

If you're referring to me, then I can assure you I'm not really benchmarking anything. ;)

It's simply something I noticed since I'm a heavy user of iOS and have a profound interest in tech. What you're saying is probably the first though most think of when we mention planned obsolescence, but in reality it could be as simple as releasing an OS that doesn't run very well, with no plans to really improve the experience in the future. Hence just leaving it the way it is and subtlety implying to customers that they should move on to the latest phone/device.

----------

As a developer, I'm often struck by how easy it is to add functionality which adds a significant load to processing. As tasks become abstracted, modularized, etc. calling them becomes easier and become part of an even more complex new level. May not look like much change to the user, but just a small "oh, handle this use case" can add 2-10x processing to a task.

So yeah, the user-facing activity may look about the same as prior version (be it OS or app), but even "minor" improvements can add a whole lotta processing. Example: used to be the useable screen area was a given size so positioning something on the display was simple ... but since then we've added tablet, upscaled phone->tablet, 2x "retina", taller "4 inch", 4.7", 5.5", 3x down sampled, outright variable/dynamic sizing, usable status bar space, call/navigation/hotspot indicator bar, ... ALL of which add ever more complexity to deciding where to position something on the display. Now apply that kind of simple->complex "minor improvement" to EVERYTHING you can think of going on with the OS or app, plus redundant actions as complexity explodes and functionality starts overlapping, well, you end up with something which still looks simple but in fact requires a huge increase in processing power just to keep up with users' no-latency expectations.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass

Thanks for your input. As I mentioned, I'm not a developer and I do welcome people sharing their thoughts on this from a different perspective.
 
There's your door. Off you go...

Image



I'm obviously well aware of that. I think you misunderstood the point I was making. I guess a similar analogy would be something you would see in a sequel of a game. Imagine they use the same engine for the sequel (same volumetric lighting, same engine etc) and the only thing they do is basically add features or functionality in terms of gameplay. Since the engine is the same and they've not to change animations, lighting etc, the sequel should run just as well as the first one. See where I'm going with this?

Hopefully we won't.



If you're referring to me, then I can assure you I'm not really benchmarking anything. ;)

It's simply something I noticed since I'm a heavy user of iOS and have a profound interest in tech. What you're saying is probably the first though most think of when we mention planned obsolescence, but in reality it could be as simple as releasing an OS that doesn't run very well, with no plans to really improve the experience in the future. Hence just leaving it the way it is and subtlety implying to customers that they should move on to the latest phone/device.

----------



Thanks for your input. As I mentioned, I'm not a developer and I do welcome people sharing their thoughts on this from a different perspective.
The underlying point is that the engine isn't the same.
 
It runs perfectly on my iPhone 6. Are you referring to the 6+? I do not have one so I cannot say what the performance is like.


Lagging, bending? There are too many whiners on MacRumours!

My 6 plus doesn't lag, or bend! Unless you call loading the App a lag! The 6 plus is the best iPhone I have ever had!
 
The underlying point is that the engine isn't the same.

And that is really the whole discussion. How the underlying engine is supposedly different, while the visual presentation is exactly the same as iOS 7, yet it runs worse.
 
And that is really the whole discussion. How the underlying engine is supposedly different, while the visual presentation is exactly the same as iOS 7, yet it runs worse.
Given how much has changed under the hood in iOS 8 it's certainly different enough.
 
And that is really the whole discussion. How the underlying engine is supposedly different, while the visual presentation is exactly the same as iOS 7, yet it runs worse.

I was expecting them to change the underlying engine (or code) to make things more snappy or less laggy compared to iOS 7.1.2 but it did exactly the opposite.

However, I have very less lag issues on my iPhone 5c which is on 8.1 compared to 8.0

But my iPad Air stays on 7.1.2 as tab reload problem is even worse on 8.1
 
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