Seeking advice - Upgrade 5s to latest iOS?

[Count Blah]

Greetings,

I've been living with iOS 7.1.2 on my 5s for these many years, but I'm finding more and more things to be incompatible. And I realize that this Wednesday, will bring an end to iOS 9.

For those with 5s' how do you find the tail end of iOS 9 treating you? Will I want to smash my phone against the wall if I upgrade? I can handle a couple dropped frames here and there, as I navigate the phone. And I fully expect EVERY app to take a fraction of a second longer to launch(yes, 7/2 is a fraction also).

Other than these, anything else I would need to worry about in "upgrading" from iOS7 to iOS9?

Thanks!

PS - Yes, I'll be backing up my phone before doing this.

 

[Andres Cantu]

I've used iOS 9.3.5 on a 5s and honestly, it's not that much different than 7.1.2. Even some say it's not as smooth, the extra features from iOS 8 and 9 are worth it, in my opinion. On a plus side, iOS 10 seems to run better than iOS 9 on the 5, so that's another good sign to update to iOS 10 when it's out.

 

[marty1980]

Our iPhone 5 (not S) runs iOS 9 smoothly. I don't think you'll have many issues with it on a 5S. And since it's the tail end, you can upgrade to the best version of iOS 9.

 

[eyoungren]

It'll be more under the hood updates than anything. The graphical difference between iOS 7, 8 and 9 is not that much and as the 5s does not have Force Touch you won't be getting 3D Touch - one of the 'major' features of the iPhone 6s/6s+.

You will get the ability to put widgets in the Notification Center though. A feature Apple removed in iOS 7 (it was present in iOS 6) but put back.

 

[Channan]

I used the iPhone 5s on whatever version of iOS 9 was current back in April when I upgraded to the iPhone SE. I had no issues with performance at all, and so far it looks like iOS 10 is better than iOS 9 was on my iPad Air 2, so I doubt you'll have many issues with iOS 10 on an iPhone 5s.

 

[Count Blah]

I'll be upgrading tonight.

Thanks all.

 

[myrtlebee]

It's great. I have no complaints with my 5S and have used it on iOS 8 and 9 since purchase. Looking forward to updating to iOS 10. Have no reason to upgrade from my 5S at the moment as it serves me well. Battery life could be better and I do wish it had a larger screen but overall no real issues.

 

[menist]

I'm currently using a iPhone 5c with ios 9.3.5 and it doesn't lag at all. Works just like it would on a iPhone 6.

 

[Count Blah]

Upgrade went smoothly. The battery was not impacted, which is usually my biggest gripe. I HATE the updated podcast app, as it's slow to respond, and tries to bury you with information about the actual podcast, versus having a streamlined interface and letting you hit a button or two to seek out the more information. Frame drops here and there, but overall, better than I expected.

Thanks everyone!

 

[simonmet]

Upgrade went smoothly. The battery was not impacted, which is usually my biggest gripe. I HATE the updated podcast app, as it's slow to respond, and tries to bury you with information about the actual podcast, versus having a streamlined interface and letting you hit a button or two to seek out the more information. Frame drops here and there, but overall, better than I expected.

Thanks everyone!

Don't forget you can disable a lot of features that were added in iOS 8 and 9 and turning some of these off will help with performance and battery life. I recommend turning off anything in iOS you don't need or use on any iPhone for that matter.

For example I turn off the Siri suggestions on the search screen and I absolutely hate the predictive suggestings on the keyboard so I turn that off too.

iOS is still reasonably good at letting you disable things you don't want. Also, I think the public beta program has improved the quality of iOS launches, particularly on older devices.

Sux about the Podcasts app. Have they improved it in iOS 10?