rant: iPad (9th-gen) kneecapped by OS26

[zephonic]

Based on previous experience, I knew this would happen and avoided updating.

I don’t know how it happened, perhaps I inadvertently tapped “install later tonight” instead of cancel or something when I was prompted for the umpteenth time. I did not want to update, but some time ago my iPad was updated to 26, and it is exactly what I feared.

Operation is noticeably slower, switching between apps, whatever, just less seamless and effortless than before.

After switching off everything I don’t absolutely need, it is a little bit better, but nowhere close to how good it was before.

Battery life has halved. Read that again. Halved. I could reliably charge my iPad overnight, and get a full day’s use out of it. No more.

It also gets noticeably warm now.


FU, Apple. Your tactics worked again. Forcing me to buy a new iPad. Surely the same will happen soon to my iPhone SE.

OK, that’s it. Rant over.


edit:

This rant took me about seven minutes to type. Battery went from 33% to 27%.

 

[SnowPenguin]

The way they are nagging us about iOS 26 is annoying to be honest. That's specially bad on devices that should stay behind for persofmrance reasons like yours.

 

[zephonic]

Yeah, hope my rant will help some people be a bit more vigilant about not inadvertently hitting the update button.

This iPad was bought in October 2023, btw. When it was current. Fk these clowns. Two years of use. Bad Apple.

 

[zephonic]

And saying battery capacity halved is being generous.

Look at this:



Yup, from 90 to 20 percent in 2 hours. That doesn’t happen every time, but it is definitely a lot worse than before.

And before all you well-meaning souls jump in with advice to turn off Background Refresh and all the transparent graphics, yes I did that already.

 

[It’s always something]

Surely the same will happen soon to my iPhone SE.

For what it’s worth my wife has a 2022 SE, updated to iOS 26, and has not complained about battery life or sluggishness. It is definitely possible that she might be experiencing both (she is not techy in any way lol), but I mention it just in case. Sorry for your pain though with your iPad; that’s terrible.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Based on previous experience, I knew this would happen and avoided updating.

I don’t know how it happened, perhaps I inadvertently tapped “install later tonight” instead of cancel or something when I was prompted for the umpteenth time. I did not want to update, but some time ago my iPad was updated to 26, and it is exactly what I feared.

Operation is noticeably slower, switching between apps, whatever, just less seamless and effortless than before.

After switching off everything I don’t absolutely need, it is a little bit better, but nowhere close to how good it was before.

Battery life has halved. Read that again. Halved. I could reliably charge my iPad overnight, and get a full day’s use out of it. No more.

It also gets noticeably warm now.


FU, Apple. Your tactics worked again. Forcing me to buy a new iPad. Surely the same will happen soon to my iPhone SE.

OK, that’s it. Rant over.


edit:

This rant took me about seven minutes to type. Battery went from 33% to 27%.

I don't know if this still holds true but in the past if you left an iPad plugged in and it reached 100% battery, it would automically download and install an OS update, even a new version.

 

[I7guy]

You need to give the battery life a few days to settle out.

 

[urnotl33t]

It’s more than that, too: it’s the cognitive load for this crap version. Everything requires two or three actions where it was once one. Notifications now need at least two or three actions to see something needing a response (messages). What buffoons thought that was a good idea?

As soon as Ternus is in the Big Chair, his first task should be to rehire Forstall at whatever price it takes. Whomever resigns in protest will make apparent who was responsible for this disaster.

 

[zephonic]

I don't know if this still holds true but in the past if you left an iPad plugged in and it reached 100% battery, it would automically download and install an OS update, even a new version.

It did happen when it was plugged in and it did charge to 100%

But that has never occurred before, at least not to me...

You need to give the battery life a few days to settle out.

It's been more than week, almost two.

It’s more than that, too: it’s the cognitive load for this crap version. Everything requires two or three actions where it was once one. Notifications now need at least two or three actions to see something needing a response (messages). What buffoons thought that was a good idea?

As soon as Ternus is in the Big Chair, his first task should be to rehire Forstall at whatever price it takes. Whomever resigns in protest will make apparent who was responsible for this disaster.

I always thought that firing Forstall was not good, but understandable as he was the most tangible threat to Cook's authority in post-Jobs Apple. To me it seemed Cook set him up to fail with the intention to remove him.

It's been along time, though. AFAIK he has not been active in the industry ever since, all I could find is he produced a few musicals with his wife? Would he even still have the skills needed to right that ship?

But yeah, I agree Federighi has not been the best man for that job. The OS and UI side have gotten worse over the last ten years or so.

 

[winxmac]

I have an iPhone 11 Pro Max which uses the same A13 Bionic that is used in the iPad 9 and I am avoiding to upgrade to iOS 26.x and keeping it on iOS 18.x for as long as possible.

Ever since macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple has been increasing the space between icons, detail view, menu, and they did it again in macOS 26 Tahoe, which they seem to be looking to create a touch screen version of macOS or finally merge macOS and iOS/iPadOS.

Apple has great hardware, no doubt about that, but the software quality is getting lower and lower quickly every yearly release.

Imagine iOS 6 performance on modern hardware but of course Apple won't allow it. Software should not bring the hardware down.

 

[Reverend Benny]

It did happen when it was plugged in and it did charge to 100%

But that has never occurred before, at least not to me...



It's been more than week, almost two.



I always thought that firing Forstall was not good, but understandable as he was the most tangible threat to Cook's authority in post-Jobs Apple. To me it seemed Cook set him up to fail with the intention to remove him.

It's been along time, though. AFAIK he has not been active in the industry ever since, all I could find is he produced a few musicals with his wife? Would he even still have the skills needed to right that ship?

But yeah, I agree Federighi has not been the best man for that job. The OS and UI side have gotten worse over the last ten years or so.

I see that you are using an external keyboard. Have you checked it there are any updates to the HW?
There is loads of things that can drain devices, BT, WiFi and other connected peripherals might have updates available.

 

[rui no onna]

Imagine iOS 6 performance on modern hardware but of course Apple won't allow it. Software should not bring the hardware down.

My iPad's standby battery life back then with the iPad 4 was a month or so. Now I'd be lucky to get a full week.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I see that you are using an external keyboard. Have you checked it there are any updates to the HW?
There is loads of things that can drain devices, BT, WiFi and other connected peripherals might have updates available.

That would be an issue if it was an issue before the update to 26. Since it wasn't an issue before the OS upgrade, (OP can correct me if I am wrong) then that really can't be the reason.

 

[Reverend Benny]

That would be an issue if it was an issue before the update to 26. Since it wasn't an issue before the OS upgrade, (OP can correct me if I am wrong) then that really can't be the reason.

Quite the opposite, since lots of "under the hood" changes, both security patches but also new functions has been added to iOS 26 apps, HW, peripherals and so on may need an update to function properly with the new OS. This isn't something new.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Quite the opposite, since lots of "under the hood" changes, both security patches but also new functions has been added to iOS 26 apps, HW, peripherals and so on may need an update to function properly with the new OS. This isn't something new.

I mean, maybe, but I have literally never updated the firmware on any bluetooth device and literally never run into this problem. I would bet that the old iPad is just taxed by the new requirements of the OS. I have seen that many times.

It does sometimes settle down after a day or two of indexing stuff (although that is more of a Mac thing - not iPadOS) but in this case it doesn't sound like it.

The OP can try updating the firmware on his bluetooth devices, but I am betting it won't do much.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Thank you for taking the grenade for the rest of us.

I will definitely be keeping my iPad 9 on iPadOS 18.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Thank you for taking the grenade for the rest of us.

I will definitely be keeping my iPad 9 on iPadOS 18.

It's what I would do if I still had one.

 

[Reverend Benny]

Thank you for taking the grenade for the rest of us.

I will definitely be keeping my iPad 9 on iPadOS 18.

I'm currently playing around with my mums iPad 9 on iPadOS 26.3.1 and its running fine. Picked it up after charging it to a 100% a week ago and its down to 89%.
My mum isn't using it much more than reading papers and some light web browsing but its doing it well.

Two things do annoy me a little bit tho, for some reason settings takes an extra second to load and the animations from the app library are a bit laggy. I did try a certain webpage I know its a bit heavy and its obvious 3GB of RAM isn't optimal these days. I know its heavy to use with older iOS versions as well and it certainly isn't faster on iPadOS 26.

But from a battery perspective its roughly the same as it was with iPadOS 18.

 

[Reverend Benny]

And saying battery capacity halved is being generous.

Look at this:

View attachment 2613567

Yup, from 90 to 20 percent in 2 hours. That doesn’t happen every time, but it is definitely a lot worse than before.

And before all you well-meaning souls jump in with advice to turn off Background Refresh and all the transparent graphics, yes I did that already.

As a test, try and uninstall the VPN software and reset the network settings.
Disable BT, cellular data as a test and see if that makes a difference. Also go into app settings and make sure the apps are up to date. If all is good, install the VPN software, test again, add cellular data and so on.

What you are experiencing isn't normal on a device no matter what OS version you are running.

 

[zephonic]

I see that you are using an external keyboard. Have you checked it there are any updates to the HW?
There is loads of things that can drain devices, BT, WiFi and other connected peripherals might have updates available.

I didn't think it would make a difference, but to be thorough I checked Logitech's site for updates. None.

 

[zephonic]

As a test, try and uninstall the VPN software and reset the network settings.
Disable BT, cellular data as a test and see if that makes a difference. Also go into app settings and make sure the apps are up to date. If all is good, install the VPN software, test again, add cellular data and so on.

What you are experiencing isn't normal on a device no matter what OS version you are running.

Frankly, that power drain was anomalous. Battery capacity has definitely decreased, but that day was an outlier.

I need to walk back some of my angry statements made in the OP, I'd say it has decreased by closer to a third or so.

Still, very, very noticeable.

And performance has taken a hit, as you experienced on your mom's device.



What bugs me most is it did the update without my consent, as far as I know. I was fully intending to stay on 18. It has worsened the over-all experience just enough to contemplate replacing it with a newer model, but not enough to start a class-action lawsuit.

 

[rui no onna]

What bugs me most is it did the update without my consent, as far as I know. I was fully intending to stay on 18. It has worsened the over-all experience just enough to contemplate replacing it with a newer model, but not enough to start a class-action lawsuit.

The iPad 9 is one of my guinea pigs so I installed 26 on there to check for compatibility and performance hit. Needless to say, it was not pretty. I also have a 2020 12.9" iPP and that one's faring better on 26.

When 18.7.3 rolled out for the iPads and a short backdoor via beta on older iPhones, I switched all remaining iPads in the household to the 18 public beta channel to avoid accidental updates.

I suggest switching to the 18 beta for anyone who still has that option and doesn't want to update to 26.

 

[Reverend Benny]

I didn't think it would make a difference, but to be thorough I checked Logitech's site for updates. None.

If you haven't done so, download the Logitech app, it checks it for you.
Mine had an update when I went from 16 to 17 or if it was 17 to 18 on my Ipad Pro.
Another thing to check related to performance is if the iPad has storage space free.

 

[zephonic]

Nah, storage not the issue. 156 of 256 GB still available.

 

[klasma]

My iPad's standby battery life back then with the iPad 4 was a month or so. Now I'd be lucky to get a full week.

It’s particularly annoying when you own a bunch of iPads, there’s always one that needs recharging. I resorted to automations that notify my other devices when the battery level drops below 25%. But the automations stop working when you don’t unlock the iPad every other day or so… it’s maddening!