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Really disappointed in my iPhone 7 Plus

J

Jayson A

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 16, 2014
2,671
1,935
This has been on my mind a lot lately and it just keeps getting worse.

I have the iPhone 7 Plus (128GB). This thing should be an absolute beast performance-wise. It's the newest addition to the iPhone family, it has the dual cameras, and 3GB of RAM to top it all off... However... I can't help but feel really disappointed in the performance of this thing. I still see stuttering in a lot of places in iOS 10.2.

1. App switcher stutters like crazy.
2. Opening and closing animations aren't consistent. Sometimes it stutters, sometimes it's fairly smooth.
3. Scrolling stutters in various areas
4. Rotating the home screen is glitchy at times. Sometimes the dock flickers and sometimes a few apps will become un-aligned with the rest and then suddenly jump into place after the animation is already finished.
5. Switching to another app from the app switcher stutters sometimes.
6. I probably don't have to say this, but pressing the home button makes me cringe every time I see that stupid laggy animation. If you've been under a rock... it's the effect where the app starts to zoom out slowly, then picks up speed, but the wallpaper didn't get the memo and lags behind after the animation should've been completed. It feels disconnected and just looks plain wrong. No other iOS devices have this dis-jointed app closing animation.

Why do I always feel like I bought the wrong iPhone? The iPhone 4 had antenna issues and they ended up even changing the way the signal bars looked in iOS because it made people think they had more signal when really it was just a different graph.

Then when I got the iPhone 6, there was bending concerns and iOS 8 was decent on it, but iOS 9 ran like absolute crap. iOS 10 ran a lot better on it, but it still felt smoother than my iPhone 7 Plus.

The camera in the iPhone 7 Plus is it's only redeeming factor... other than that, it doesn't seem much better than my old trusty iPhone 6 in terms of performance... actually, there are a lot of places where I feel that my iPhone 6 ran more smoothly.

I have to say... this is the first time I've ever purchased a brand new iPhone and felt the performance was lacking... especially running an OS that was basically made for it.

I feel like Apple has really spread themselves way too thin on how many devices have to run iOS now.

They've got iPad Air 1, 2, iPad mini 3, 4, iPhone 5, 5s, 6/+, 6s/+, SE, 7/+, iPad Pro models, iPod touch... there's just so many freaking devices now on iOS... it's crazy.

Anyone else underwhelmed by their iPhone 7? This supposed to be the best iPhone experience, but it feels worse than the 6s in many places (except for camera).
 
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Lennyvalentin

Lennyvalentin

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2011
1,431
793
I don't know what your personal threshold is for 'stuttering like crazy', but a certain amount of animation jerkiness is probably to be expected from a battery-powered handheld device that is redrawing a rather high-resolution screen - even though the plus has a 1920*1080 LCD panel, the framebuffer is actually even higher resolution than that; some weblinks say 2001 * 1125 (2.25 Mpixels), while others claim 2208*1242 (~2.74 Mpixels.)

I wouldn't be too concerned. I don't own a 7+, just a regular 7, but it is still the smoothest animating phone I've ever used, and significantly smoother than my old iPhone 5S, which has a much lower rez screen.
 
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V

Vexxx

macrumors regular
Oct 19, 2014
122
40
I wanted the new home button and water resistance, but testing many 7+ phones side by side with my 6s plus showed that 6s plus is a lot smoother so no 7+ for me. Maybe you should get 6s plus too. ;)
 
J

Jayson A

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 16, 2014
2,671
1,935
jav6454 said:
Name the apps you have installed. Also, how many background apps do you have running?
Click to expand...

1. I don't use background app refresh
2. I don't quit any of my apps. Doing that doesn't save battery or increase performance anyway.
3. It doesn't matter how many apps I have installed. Why would that make a difference? Regardless of what people think, just having apps on your phone will not bring down its performance. Also, having apps open doesn't affect performance either because they're not actually actively running, they're just suspended in memory. When more memory is needed, the old apps will be flushed from memory automatically. I never closed apps on my iPhone 6 either (and that only had 1GB of RAM)
[doublepost=1482354308][/doublepost]
Vexxx said:
I wanted the new home button and water resistance, but testing many 7+ phones side by side with my 6s plus showed that 6s plus is a lot smoother so no 7+ for me. Maybe you should get 6s plus too. ;)
Click to expand...

Well, at the time, I didn't think it was possible for the newest iPhone to be slower than the previous model, plus I wanted the better camera and 3GB of RAM
 
sunking101

sunking101

macrumors 604
Sep 19, 2013
7,416
2,656
Man the 6S+ absolutely slays the 6+, and the 7+ obviously should do too. You must have a duffer or a bad iOS installation/dodgy app.
 
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cipher29

cipher29

macrumors regular
Mar 6, 2009
244
292
After having the absolute disaster of a phone that was the iPhone 6 Plus, I find my 7 Plus is screaming fast.. The only time I see any sort of stuttering is when playing Sim City, which is a highly intensive game from a graphics perspective. Daily use is smooth as butter.

My 6+ on the other hand was a complete nightmare.
 
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S

sinatik

macrumors member
Jul 20, 2016
77
40
Virginia
Coming from an iphone 6, I was pleasantly surprised by how snappy ios 10 was on my new iphone 7+. Some people apparently have unrealistic expectations of how software works.
Nothing is perfect, but ios 10 on iphone 7 works great!
 
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Freakonomics101

Freakonomics101

macrumors 68030
Nov 6, 2014
2,739
1,798
cipher29 said:
The only time I see any sort of stuttering is when playing Sim City, which is a highly intensive game from a graphics perspective.
Click to expand...

Well isn't the 7 Plus designed to do well with intense games? I wouldn't expect there to be more stutter than with any other app.

Edit: but all these complaints about stutters on iOS 10 in general, I either don't notice or I don't take the time to actually look for the stutter. I haven't had any stutter issues, even with the 6s Plus. My mom's iPhone 5 isn't doing that bad either.
 
Last edited:
jshtroutman

jshtroutman

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2016
116
59
Can't say I can relate to your problem. I do however understand how those problems could be very agrivating. I can't say for sure but I really hope it's just a software issue. My 7 runs like butter and your 7+ should too.
 
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OriginalAppleGuy

OriginalAppleGuy

Suspended
Sep 25, 2016
971
1,137
Virginia
I have a 7 plus as well. When it was new, it seemed to be a bit slower / somewhat jerky. But, it seemed to be doing a lot of things in the background. Battery life improved after a while too. Perhaps you are experiencing something similar? Everything seems to be fine now.
 
Mlrollin91

Mlrollin91

macrumors G5
Nov 20, 2008
14,120
10,106
I went to a 7Plus from a 6s and notice the speed difference. OP. I know you've had some bad luck but besides the wallpaper animation, I don't notice anything else.
 
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IowaLynn

IowaLynn

macrumors 68020
Feb 22, 2015
2,145
588
I bought the 6S+ in Jan and gave up. Had t close / dismiss apps regularly, as well as turn wifi off then back on.

Just picked up refurb from Apple, and flawless. I prefer refurb as I trust they have latest parts and improvements.

Thought that by waiting to buy 6s+ in Jan that I avoid early issues and problems - though was very disappointed mine came with 9.1 whereas refurb was current as of Dec 5th this month, 10.1

I considered the 7s and 7s+ but felt still "too new."
 
johannnn

johannnn

macrumors 68020
Nov 20, 2009
2,204
2,306
Sweden
Maybe you have a lemon and should visit Apple.

If stuttering animations is the major issue, have you tried disabling them (setting → accessibility → reduce motion)? I personally hate to wait for useless animations all the time, and I find my phone to get longer battery as well.
 
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Z

Zebesbrain

macrumors newbie
Oct 1, 2014
18
0
You're definitely not alone. I experience all the jerkiness and frame drops you explained in your post. I restored, started clean, etc etc. It's iOS 10, not your device. If you check out Lockergnomes review on Youtube, he explains it quite well and also says a lot of people wrote him describing the same lagginess. AND IF YOU DON'T SEE THE LAG IT DOESN'T MEAN IT ISN'T THERE. I've gotten to the point where I don't care as much as you do OP cause the apps open fast, and the performance in general is great. But the overall lag in the OS is definitely a con. Open Music and scroll around, awful scrolling lag and frame drops. Open up a few apps and turn your phone to landscape and jump around to different apps and the homescreen, terrible jitter and actual glitching out. App images get stuck, cutoff, and distorted. The animations throughout the entire OS are pitiful. And no, reducing motion doesn't magically fix a deep OS problem like this. It's bad coding, plan and simple. Will it ever get fixed? Probably not. Is it snappier than Android? It's looking closer and closer everyday.
 
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