iTunes Restore Improves Old Device Performance?

[v0lume4]

Hello ladies and gents,

I had an interesting observation today that I wanted to share. A family member recently got a new iPad and, having no need for her outgoing iPad 5, she gave it to me. I haven’t had an iPad in years and thought it’d be nice to give a shot again.

This iPad is running iOS 16. It has almost certainly received every iOS update of its life over the air and has likely never been restored in any capacity. It was quite laggy in apps and would routinely hang up on web pages in Safari. The device was not low on storage and had about 10GB free out of 32GB. Thinking “what do I have to lose?” I performed an iTunes restore on the device. I then set up the device as new and NOT from a backup. For those that don’t know, restoring a device via iTunes reinstalls the OS. This is different than hitting “Erase all content and settings” on-device.

Since doing so, I have noticed a marked improvement of the performance on this aging iPad 5. It’s still not as fast as my iPhone SE (2022), but the difference when navigating around the OS and, especially, webpages is palpable.

I was just curious if anyone else has performed an iTunes restore on an iOS device and have had similar positive improvements?

 

[v0lume4]

Additional ramblings: I’ve seen some folks fix some issues with iOS 16 iPhone battery woes by doing this very thing.

I know that reinstalling the OS is common practice with proper desktop OS’s, but it surprised me to see a tangible difference in performance on OS.

 

[Paddle1]

Yes, sometimes things get a bit bogged down and a restore can help with these issues.

 

[Cobold]

To my understanding, an iTunes restore does simply overwrite the current iOS and is not really doing such a thing as a „format“ on a desktop PC.

That’s what’s the DFU mode on iOS devices is for. That is the real full „format and reinstall“ thing as it rewrites all the partitions and firmwares etc - things a restore does not do in fact.

 

[v0lume4]

To my understanding, an iTunes restore does simply overwrite the current iOS and is not really doing such a thing as a „format“ on a desktop PC.

That’s what’s the DFU mode on iOS devices is for. That is the real full „format and reinstall“ thing as it rewrites all the partitions and firmwares etc - things a restore does not do in fact.

I think an iTunes restore does reinstall the OS. FWIW, an IPSW file is downloaded at the beginning of the
process.

The verbiage on this webpage leads me go believe that as well: https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/restore-to-factory-settings-itnsdb1fe305/windows

If that’s incorrect I’d be happy to be corrected.

 

[JM]

I did a full DRU reset and restor from itunes backup and things started working like a charm.

It'll also clear out the all the ios code gunk.... so it makes sense.

 

[v0lume4]

I did a full DRU reset and restor from itunes backup and things started working like a charm.

It'll also clear out the all the ios code gunk.... so it makes sense.

Definitely. I still can’t believe the difference in performance on this iPad.

What device did you do a restore on?

 

[JM]

Definitely. I still can’t believe the difference in performance on this iPad.

What device did you do a restore on?

Oh right, didn’t mention that

iPhone 13mini. I had been having some annoying bugs that were happening all the time and figured I give the pure vanilla iOS a shot to see if they still existed after the reset. They were gone, and it was actually nice to have Siri working properly suggesting things and the battery life was about the same even with all the default things turned on (except for location for product development).

I had been transferring iOS from one device to the next from the iPhone 7 to iPhone 11 to iPhone 13mini. I’m sure bunk code was built up after all that time.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I've done a restore on an iPad 2, and didn't get much out of it. Then I did the same thing on an iPad Air 2, and again, didn't gain much from it.

The biggest speed booster I've noticed, is to have 5-10+GB free on the internal disk. Filling it up more than that, and it slows down.

 

[FeliApple]

I’ve repeatedly mentioned that Apple forced my 9.7-inch iPad Pro from iOS 9 into iOS 12 due to the A9 activation bug on iOS 9. It affected battery life significantly. This happened shortly after iPadOS 13 was released, so after trying everything I could to get as close to the original iOS version’s original battery life, it occurred to me that maybe restoring and setting up as new could help, but it was too late by then: iOS 12 wasn’t signed anymore. iPadOS 13 significantly worsened both performance and battery life in terms of both screen-on time and standby, so I am grateful I didn‘t try it back then. Now it would be far too late: Apple’s pathetic policy of forcing updates through restores makes that option a non-starter.

I’ve wondered whether it might have helped ever since, had I done it immediately after updating. It’s far too late now, though. That said, performance is fine, so maybe it would‘ve been a wasted effort regardless.

 

[v0lume4]

Checking in again. iTunes restored a family member’s iPhone 7 Plus. Similar outcome as the iPad in my OP. Much better performance. Situations where the phone would routinely hang up for a second or two are now gone. Apps launch quicker.

For full transparency, the phone also had a new battery installed at the Apple Store before I did the restore. However, the battery was still rated at peak “performance capability” in the settings app, so I do not attribute this performance increase to the battery replacement.

Very satisfied with what I’ve seen. Here’s to hoping someone finds this down the line in a Google search.