My iPhone 6+ used to work great. Now it’s laggy and crashes a lot. Often, it even has a hard time scrolling in safari. I hooked it up to the computer and did a complete reset/restore, and it didn’t help. I chatted with Apple. They told me it’s hardware related and to buy a new phone without giving any explanation of what is going on. Geekbench says my battery is just fine. Is the phone just self destructing?
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iPhone 6(S)/Plus Why does my iPhone barely work now?
- Thread starter Qwerty11
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Electronic devices don’t last forever. If you don’t have any specific faults then it could just be newer OS making the device slower.
Restore the device and set it up as new and only install the few apps you really use and monitor if that makes any difference.
Restore the device and set it up as new and only install the few apps you really use and monitor if that makes any difference.
Have you tried setting up as new rather than restoring? Just curious if that would help, doesn't sound like it would though. Keep in mind that the 6 plus only has 1GB of RAM which definitely hurts especially if you're running the latest version of iOS. I believe the 7 plus, 8 plus and X all have 3GB.
You might have a buggy backup you restored from. I agree with the others. Set up as new and install a few basic apps for the first few days and see how the phone does. If all goes well, try a few more apps. If you start to have problems at that point, you may be able to narrow down the cause.
Have you updated each and every time Apple has released an update for iOS?
If so then as mentioned, it's probably iOS and the fact that the 6+ only has 1GB of ram to deal with newer and more complicated versions of iOS.
I realize Apple always pushes updates for security and resolution of bugs, but there is something to be said of not always being on the bleeding edge of updates.
If you did not always update or are running an earlier version of iOS then it's probably a hardware fault or an issue in your backup. Someone has already suggested trying to restore as new.
There's no reason the device has to be any worse than it was.
Things like the Music app, typing, Messages, etc, shouldn't be any slower. The programming is either way more sloppy without really changing anything in terms of features, or it's deliberate.
Computers don't naturally slow down in 2-3 years. If we could go back to iOS 9, the iPhone 6/6+ would run like new again.
As new features get added to the OS it will require faster/better hardware. The device still has to run the OS plus the apps you are running. In a perfect world they would optimize the OS/apps better but they can just throw new hardware at it instead.
They’re not similar type of devices. Also different platforms and different OS architectures make a huge difference, albeit they’re running on the same kernel.
It’s more like trying to run Windows 10 on a 486 system.
Also from a business perspective, traditional laptops and computers have way longer lifecycle than smartphones. It doesn’t make sense to invest so much time and money behind optimisation for older devices when most customers upgrade every year or max a couple years.
The hardware does last forever. It's a software thing in that the software upgrades slows down your device down over time. A common remedy which Apple recommends is to buy a newer spanky phone. But there must be alternatives to this.
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Much to Apple's annoyance, I'm sure.
This is not true, there won’t be hardware repair/ replacement requirements at all in that case.
You replied to Altis "Have you not been using computers in the last few years?" when he said computers don't naturally slow down in 2-3 years.
Maybe you didn't mean what you said
Yep, they all work perfectly well on the software of their time. Even my Q6600 desktop from 2007 runs Windows 10 like an absolute beaute with an SSD.
My iPhone 4S also runs like new on iOS 6. The only thing slowing these devices down is software.
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I don't think enough has changed to warrant endless slowdowns in every aspect of using the device.
My iPhone 6 should not, in any circumstances, be slower at doing things that previous iPhones could do (such as typing, selecting music, etc).
Apple and other tech companies love that people mindlessly assume that devices must simply need replacement after 2-3 years because of software advancements, but that hasn't been true in years. What's changed so drastically from iOS 10 to 11 that causes iPhone 6/6+/6S/6S+ to slow to a crawl doing the most mundane things, like navigating the OS?
I remember the 4S was touted as 1.1 seconds from lock to first photo. Now my 6, which is several times faster in every way, can barely do it in 3 seconds.
1gb of RAM just isn’t enough anymore. I would say that there’s not much you could do to speed it up.
My wife has the same phone, and I’ve tried restoring as new, battery replacement, and shutting down things like transparency/animations. Nothing really helped. Screen still looks fantastic. Sadly, it’s become a chore to use for her. Still, it gets the job done.
My wife has the same phone, and I’ve tried restoring as new, battery replacement, and shutting down things like transparency/animations. Nothing really helped. Screen still looks fantastic. Sadly, it’s become a chore to use for her. Still, it gets the job done.
My 19 year old PowerMac G3 doesn't seem to run any slower than it used to.
My 14 year old 17" PowerBook G4 doesn't seem to run any slower than it used to.
My 13 year old PowerMac G5s (three of them, including the Quad I am typing this on) don't seem to run any slower than they used to.
My 12 year old 17" MacBook Pro doesn't seem to run any slower than it used to.
But the internet has changed. And apps have changed. And the OS has changed. And the things that each of those require has in many cases exceeded their capabilities.
Sorry but he's right. Never change a running system.
Keeping the iPhone on its original OS is the best way to future proof it.
Sadly as Apple does not offer any other options which doesn't slow down older devices.
You mentioned it yourself - they all work perfectly on the software of their time - is your iPhone 6 running the version of iOS it was released with?
I’m not too sure how technically knowledgeable you are in terms of these things but when you say - what has changed?! - I’d recommend you read the developer documentation on the Apple’s developer site.
I agree that basic functionality such as slow typing and scrolling makes you feel like that’s the only thing the device is doing but over 80% of OS changes are behind the scene mostly. Consumers don’t see these things. Even a basic change of indexing algorithm might have an impact on these things.
From a pure business perspective it just doesn’t make sense for Apple to spend a lot of time and energy behind optimising the OS for older devices simply because most consumers upgrade their devices either yearly or in a couple of years max.
Having said that Apple is the only company in the consumer electronics market sector, specifically with smartphones and computers that support devices that are 5 years old at least. That’s a long time in tech industry. Very long time.!
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Of course it should be just like the day it was bought even if the software has been updated.
What a compelling argument.
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Not saying it should, but it certainly isn't proportional. There's no reason Apple can't make devices run better for longer, or at the very least let people revert back if their device gets completely ruined by an "update" that was nearly forced upon them and they had no idea how badly it would affect their device.
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I wish! For some reason, Apple goes to great lengths to make sure I can't get the device back to a version that ran beautifully on it.
I did manage to go straight back from 11 to 10 on it, at least.If all the under-the-hood changes result in a device that's 500% slower in every way, are they good changes for that device?
I mean, what's changed in the camera app to make it take 5x longer to open than my 4S does it, which is like 1/8 as powerful? Or about 5x longer to open the Music app and interact with it?
If the phone is 8 times more powerful and takes 5 times longer, that's saying the software demand is 40 times greater... and I don't consider that a reasonable increase in software demand for such similar tasks. That's really the point I'm trying to drive home here.
Maybe people wouldn't upgrade if the software still worked properly. The hardware is barely changing these days, compared with the early iPhones. My iPhone 6 still has the same overall form factor as the 8, even.
If the 6 still ran beautifully, why would people go spend $800 to replace it just to do exactly the same thing almost exactly as well as the device it replaced?
It's one thing to support devices a long time, it's another to nearly (and sometimes actually) force devices onto software that renders them garbage. I'd rather they just not bother and let the device age out of date than to crush it.
Keep in mind this doesn't always have to be the case. My 2010 17" MBP is still "supported" by macOS, but Sierra and High Sierra run terribly on it. El Capitan is adequate but not great, but security updates are ended. However, Windows 7 and 10 both run absolutely great on it and are supported for years to come.
The idea that software must slow down even quite new devices really is based on a time when computing advancements were far more steep. Now that the devices are matured and changes are more and more fine, it's possible to produce software that's even more refined and efficient than ever.
Of course, 1GB RAM limitations on my iPhone 6 is very obviously a problem -- I knew that shortly after I got it, no matter how many Apple fanatics insisted that Apple's magical memory management couldn't possibly need more than 1 GB.