Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
clean install: check
Upgrade: check current with 8.1.3
Even reset settings after another week of constant reloading of web pages

My experience with IOS 8xxxxxx is that it is closer to unusable than perfectly usable. It works like a charm on same in house system on wife's Air 2. We gave her iPad 2 to one of our daughters and she gave it back saying she didnt have enough time to fool with it because it was too slooooooow and constantly reloaded web pages. Go figure!

Have you turned off Background app refresh and automatic app updates?

Also try turning transparency off - that helps a lot. Reduce motion can also help (But I leave it on as I like the animations).

I tested iOS 7 vs iOS 8 when iOS 8.0 came out, and iOS 8 was actually faster for a few things, but was overall a bit slower. Not massively slower, but definitely noticeable.
 
iOS 8 is certainly not as fast or smooth as iOS 7 on the iPad 2, but it can be perfectly usable!

Did you do a clean install or an upgrade?

I actually tried 8.1.3 on an iPad 2 and it's slightly better than iOS 7.1

Btw I think the iPad 2 and the original iPad mini are old hardware by any means today.

----------

Have you turned off Background app refresh and automatic app updates?

Also try turning transparency off - that helps a lot. Reduce motion can also help (But I leave it on as I like the animations).

I tested iOS 7 vs iOS 8 when iOS 8.0 came out, and iOS 8 was actually faster for a few things, but was overall a bit slower. Not massively slower, but definitely noticeable.

Yep. I'd turn off almost everything on such an old hardware to gain performances.
 
Btw I think the iPad 2 and the original iPad mini are old hardware by any means today.

Not too old to run high action, fast-paced 3D games like Asphalt 8 and so on. But a black and white interface, showing a few icons at a time? That, of course, is asking a bit much from them.
 
Not too old to run high action, fast-paced 3D games like Asphalt 8 and so on. But a black and white interface, showing a few icons at a time? That, of course, is asking a bit much from them.

Asphalt 8 runs even on low end cheap phones.... It's not a benchmark.
 
The fact that it does run on so-called "low-end" devices is precisely my point: That "old hardware" still offers a lot of processing power. The fact that a simple interface for selecting app icons doesn't run so smoothly says a lot about the coding behind that interface.
 
Old hardware offers a lot of processing power relative to hardware several years older, but not so much compared to today's CPUs.

Having said that 8.1.3 with more features than 7.1.2 runs better on my iPad 2 than 7.1.2. But I think it's at the limit.
 
The fact that it does run on so-called "low-end" devices is precisely my point: That "old hardware" still offers a lot of processing power. The fact that a simple interface for selecting app icons doesn't run so smoothly says a lot about the coding behind that interface.

It's not the interface. There are a lot of things behind the icons you are seeing. A lot of things introduced by iOS 6, 7 and now 8. Some processes are discharged during app execution... It's not like "the game is running fine, so the UI must be ok".
The iPad 2 has only 512 Mb of RAM and was launched with iOS 4 ....
 
It's not the interface. There are a lot of things behind the icons you are seeing. A lot of things introduced by iOS 6, 7 and now 8. Some processes are discharged during app execution... It's not like "the game is running fine, so the UI must be ok".
The iPad 2 has only 512 Mb of RAM and was launched with iOS 4 ....

Not sure of what the "it" is in the quoted post but the latest iOS clearly does run on "low end" devices, which at this point is the 4s and iPad 2.
 
Last edited:
If I open the camera from lock screen. Then lock via power button. Then open/unlock phone as usual using home button and Touch ID It doesn't go to home screen. It goes to camera. And yep also tried waiting for a while.


Also why have I got a keyboard data chinese japenese keyboard iCloud backup in my iCloud backups? Don't have an app called that.
 
If I open the camera from lock screen. Then lock via power button. Then open/unlock phone as usual using home button and Touch ID It doesn't go to home screen. It goes to camera. And yep also tried waiting for a while.


Also why have I got a keyboard data chinese japenese keyboard iCloud backup in my iCloud backups? Don't have an app called that.

I posted about this when 8 came out and I bought my iPhone 6
Its a donkey move. So stupid and ruins the smooth user experience. Apple employees use android as this is the only explanation to this annoyance.

Makes sense, last opened app. Same behavior using safari.

see above
 
I posted about this when 8 came out and I bought my iPhone 6
Its a donkey move. So stupid and ruins the smooth user experience. Apple employees use android as this is the only explanation to this annoyance.



see above

I like this behavior, I know when I unlock the phone it opens to the last app I used.
 
I like this behavior, I know when I unlock the phone it opens to the last app I used.

so you like using your camera, 20 minutes later you unlock your phone to use something else and it opens your camera?
 
If I open the camera from lock screen. Then lock via power button. Then open/unlock phone as usual using home button and Touch ID It doesn't go to home screen. It goes to camera. And yep also tried waiting for a while.


Also why have I got a keyboard data chinese japenese keyboard iCloud backup in my iCloud backups? Don't have an app called that.

Last opened app. What's wrong ?

----------

so you like using your camera, 20 minutes later you unlock your phone to use something else and it opens your camera?

Yes, why not?
The phone can't know what are you going to use, so it will open the last used app
 
I posted about this when 8 came out and I bought my iPhone 6
Its a donkey move. So stupid and ruins the smooth user experience. Apple employees use android as this is the only explanation to this annoyance.



see above
You put your computer to sleep and then start using it later, what do you know, once you get back to it you are back with the last application you used right there in the front as it was when you put the computer to sleep. Seems like consistency with a rather standard computing concept that has been around for a long time.
 
Yes, why not?
The phone can't know what are you going to use, so it will open the last used app

nah I prefer it to be reset, cleaned up, like I leave my (hotel) room in a mess, when I come back its been tidied.
 
nah I prefer it to be reset, cleaned up, like I leave my (hotel) room in a mess, when I come back its been tidied.

Yes but your iPhone it's not an hotel room.
What if you left you documents prepared on the table and youll find they put all of them in your luggage when you come back?
 
No, I tried, the last app opens. If the last app is safari, Safari opens.

mine was a question about do you like the behaviour I described. I have had it. Like I said I brought it up when iOS 8 came out.
 
Yes I like the behavior. I like to lock my phone and return to what I was working on.

Each to their own I guess. I take a photo from lock screen I don't want to goto camera when I unlock phone 5 minutes later. If I wanted camera I would slide up from lock screen.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.