Some people have said it prompts regularly, others say if you download but don't apply it, the notice stops.
I dunno because both my devices are JB and I've turned the alerts off though the number is still showing.
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Still rockin' the iPad 2...
- Thread starter bufffilm
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Some people have said it prompts regularly, others say if you download but don't apply it, the notice stops.
I dunno because both my devices are JB and I've turned the alerts off though the number is still showing.
oldmacs
macrumors 603
I use mine every day and at work. iOS 9 is definitely slower than iOS 7 - my Dad has his iPad 2 on 7 and it is so much faster. iOS 8 was slower than 7 and 9 was slower (god knows how) than 8.
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I think an iPad should last at least 5 years - They're not cheap!
[doublepost=1476450289][/doublepost]
I think an iPad should last at least 5 years - They're not cheap!
gobikerider
Suspended
I saying for the people so obsessed with the smoothness of iOS and having 0 slowdown. I myself will keep my Air 2 for 5 years as it shows no sign of age 2 years in
oldmacs
macrumors 603
The thing is that basic animations should not slow down after 1 or 2 updates. The Mini 2 is a prime example of a device that couldn't handle animations after one update.
gobikerider
Suspended
iOS 8 was notorious for bad performance as it added a lot of new features and had some growing pains. Go to iOS 10 restore set up as new and I guarantee you'll have better performance
oldmacs
macrumors 603
iOS 10 isn't really much better than 8 on the Mini 2, the stutter in 8,9 and 10 have driven me crazy. My iPad 2 managed iOS 4,5,6,7 until it started, where as the Mini 2 barely managed 7. My iPhone 5 on iOS 10 was better than my Mini 2 was on 9.
gobikerider
Suspended
Th A7 iPads are notorious for becoming more stutery the issue is the GPU was not really up to snuff. They needed a A7X
oldmacs
macrumors 603
I find it interesting that you say ios9 is slower than ios8.
Most posts I read here and I think I read that Apple did more to optimize iOS 9 (because ios8 ran so poorly) seem to say otherwise.
I turn animations off...hate anything that slows down my machine, whether they are iDevices or Windows. Just eye candy.
oldmacs
macrumors 603
Apple said they optimised iOS 9, but I'm yet to see any comparison which showed iOS 9 to be quicker in app opening or smoother in animation.... most show the opposite. I hate updating iPads at work to iOS 9 from 8 as you can feel the slow down.
gobikerider
Suspended
With any big upgrade you need to be restoring as new. If you just click update your going to have issues
That's what I believe as well.
But I would like to know if others in my family have done that or simply upgraded.
Your statement should read: if you simply upgrade, you are more prone to possible issues.
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Maybe then I should tell my sister to stay on ios8 on her iPad 3?!
I've told her ios9 can't run any slower (than 8).
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oldmacs
macrumors 603
My testing from 2015 was that app opening speeds for everything on the iPad 2 was slower on iOS 9 than 10, and the iPad 3 is relatively similar. iOS 9 I think did optimise safari performance, but at the same time, I find it reloads a lot more in Safari.
zachlegomaniac
macrumors 6502a
Yeah. Apple told me to update to 9 since it was nearly unusable on 8. It helped, but not a ton. I wiped it and threw a few apps on for my son who uses it now, but apps still crash occasionally.
I was really disappointed with the very short amount of time I got out of the original mini, which must have been 1.5 years max until I upgraded to iOS 8. Like I said, though, I will be super cautious the next time I own an iPad before installing a new iOS update. I think the mini was exceptional in that it came out a while after the iPad 2, but with the same internals.
Looking forward to the next cycle. May buy a new iPad then.
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When I complained about getting far less than 3 years with my original iPad mini (after iOS 8 update - my bad due to ignorance at the time) in a thread a user here told me my expectations to have an ipad last over 3 years was ridiculous. Agreed on 4+ if we'll cared for.
oldmacs
macrumors 603
And what you think I haven't tried clean installs?
The fact you cna'5 just do an in place restore and expect good performance is laughable anyway, especially with how poor apple's backup system is.
gobikerider
Suspended
rui no onna
Contributor
Probably has to do with 512MB RAM. It's not the first post I've seen saying iOS 9 didn't improve performance over iOS 8 on iPad 2 and iPad mini. More likely than not, Apple should've cut off 512MB devices and required 1GB minimum for iOS 9 but then there may be an issue with education customers.
Agree on turning off animations improving performance significantly. That's the first thing I do when I get an iDevice. Maybe that's why I find the iPad Air acceptable on iOS 9?
oldmacs
macrumors 603
The issues exist either way, with clean installs and backup restores. I'Ve tested.
How exactly do you expect people to keep data if they can't restore from backups? Apple should get its act together and fix it's backup and restore system.
iOS must be very poorly deisgned if restoring from a backup causes animations to stutter.
rui no onna
Contributor
I reckon this is an unrealistic expectation for older iPad generations. It wasn't until the A8 that raw processing performance could match up to a lowly x86 Atom. Android and iOS may be more efficient compared to desktop OSes but when you start adding desktop-like features such as background multitasking, etc, then something's got to give. Only way you'll get 5 years use out of older iPads is if you never update the firmware or at least limit them. Mind, I have two iPad 4's still running iOS 6 and they're just as fast and smooth as when I first bought them. 😀
While x86 performance has mostly plateaud, ARM is still benefitting from Moore's Law. New features introduced with major firmware updates optimized for new hardware are bound to take a toll on performance, particularly on older hardware with just 25-50% the processing power of the latest model.
AnandTech - iPad Pro 9.7 vs iPad Air
I've owned iPhones since the original and useful life pre-A6 was just 1-2 years (at least if you want decent performance on latest firmware) and they're even pricier than iPads (just masked by subsidies during the early days). Personally, I limited major firmware updates on my iPhones to just one (next version). The iPod Touch with limited RAM (typically half the iPhone's), I kept on launch firmware (with updates to minor point releases).
I know the iPad 2 has often been touted as the longevity model but in reality, you wouldn't want to use it past iOS 7. That's just what, 3 years (2011-2014) of service life?
The iPad 4, I found, worked perfectly adequately up to at least iOS 9 so that's at least 4 years (2012-2016) service life. I already gave away the iPad 4 I kept updated and plan on keeping the ones I still have on iOS 6 so I haven't tested iOS 10 performance on the iPad 4.
The iPad Air, aside from more frequent tab refreshes, handled iOS 9 even better than the iPad 4 so that's at least 3 years (2013-2016) service life. I'm still undecided whether to update to iOS 10. I reckon the Air will probably handle it well enough. It's just additional restrictions on iOS 10 (e.g. no screenshots on Netflix) that has kept me from updating.
It all boils down to what 'support' means for you.
I don't mean it to be iPads should get software updates for 5 yrs. Nice dream but not how things generally work anymore, I'm afraid.
Yes, the ipad2 did get 5 yrs of actual updates but I have already discussed why that was.
Alhough it was real nice when on Thursday, I fired up QVC and a window appeared saying an app update was needed and my ipad2 on ios7 was able to get that update and ran flawlessly with the app afterwards. HSN and evine work too, btw.
If you haven't guessed, I'm also very selective on upgrading my apps. I control everything on my iDevices.
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rui no onna
Contributor
Honestly, I don't much care about Apple's firmware update support. I see firmware updates as optional. For the most part, I care whether tech can do what I want/need it to do at a performance I find acceptable at time of purchase. And yep, I tend to be a control freak when it comes to updates, too. I've got automatic app updates disabled and I do wish Apple would stop nagging about firmware updates.
Mind, barring huge changes to iOS, I do think the Air 2 and onwards stand a good chance of coping well with 5 years worth of firmware updates.
FeliApple
macrumors 601
My two experiences with Apple updates were awful. (You can blame that on my half-a-MB Wi-Fi speed maybe...) but my iPod Touch 4 worked flawlessly with iOS 4. I updated it to 5 and it lagged quite a lot. I updated my iPad 4 to iOS 7 from the flawless and utterly fast iOS 6 and it was a lagfest, full of bugs as well. I now have an 9.7 iPad Pro on iOS 9.3.4 (the one it came with) and it is working as my iPad 4 did on iOS 6. Therefore, I do not trust my Wi-Fi anymore and if I now update any of my devices it will be on a fast and secure Wi-Fi.
Also, battery life suffered on the iPad. I was easily getting 16-18 hours with light use, all on-screen time, and that dropped to 13-14 on iOS 7. iPad Pro has the same battery life as 4 on iOS 7 but I blame that on Apple's obsession with thinness (40% smaller battery on the Pro).
TBH, if Apple maintained app support for older iOS versions I think I'd never update anything. I understand that they cannot require iOS 1 forever, but for example I think they required for example no more than iOS 9 until iOS 12, then on iOS 12 require up to iOS 10 an so on, it would be better.
Or, the other option, make updates work as they should, and stop reducing performance and crippling anything less than latest devices on every update.
Apologies for the long post.
Also, battery life suffered on the iPad. I was easily getting 16-18 hours with light use, all on-screen time, and that dropped to 13-14 on iOS 7. iPad Pro has the same battery life as 4 on iOS 7 but I blame that on Apple's obsession with thinness (40% smaller battery on the Pro).
TBH, if Apple maintained app support for older iOS versions I think I'd never update anything. I understand that they cannot require iOS 1 forever, but for example I think they required for example no more than iOS 9 until iOS 12, then on iOS 12 require up to iOS 10 an so on, it would be better.
Or, the other option, make updates work as they should, and stop reducing performance and crippling anything less than latest devices on every update.
Apologies for the long post.
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rui no onna
Contributor
Unfortunately, launch iOS 7 release was pretty bad. iOS 7 stuttered even on my brand new iPhone 5s and iPad Air. The 7.0.3 update and ability to disable animations improved things significantly. Even the GPU (A7) on devices that launched with iOS 7 just wasn't sufficient to drive all that eye candy.
Honestly, even A9/A9X + iOS 9 still doesn't match the silky smooth UI of A6/A6X (iPhone 5, iPad 4) + iOS 6. That said, from performance of the iPhone 7 (A10) with iOS 10, I'm hopeful the next iPad would finally be back to the silky smooth UI I enjoyed with the iPad 4 + iOS 6.
FeliApple
macrumors 601
This also corresponds with the discussion on the will you buy an iPad Pro 2 thread:
Apple can do whatever they want with downgrades (I'd like them to allow that, but it won't happen). The mistake, though, is shattering the performance with every single iOS update of non-latest devices. Even on one major version. iOS 9 is bad on iPod Touch 5G, iOS 7 is better but heaps worse than iOS 6. Same applies for iPad 4, for iPhones, for everything.
So you either allow downgrading or test the heck out of older devices and guarantee trouble-free performance. But the first update cannot shatter performance as it is currently doing. I shouldn't fear updating because I don't know if my devices will be a lagfest if I actually update. If Apple allows updating, then it should work flawlessly. Maybe my expectations are too high, but that's how I think it should be...