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I see, it don't affect me cuz I buy every year haha

Then you're safe I suppose :)

I bought my 5S with the intention of keeping it for at least three years even though I'm only on a two year contract now. I made it from the iPhone 4 until the 5S came out so with the considerably more powerful hardware I expect it shouldn't be a problem to last that long, assuming the limited RAM doesn't drag the device down in the meantime. I fear that when 64-bit apps become more standard they'll hog RAM like nobody's business, not to mention iOS updates that get more and more demanding. I'm confident I'll get lots of good use out of this phone (which I love) but I know it could have been better.
 
Then you're safe I suppose :)

I bought my 5S with the intention of keeping it for at least three years even though I'm only on a two year contract now. I made it from the iPhone 4 until the 5S came out so with the considerably more powerful hardware I expect it shouldn't be a problem to last that long, assuming the limited RAM doesn't drag the device down in the meantime. I fear that when 64-bit apps become more standard they'll hog RAM like nobody's business, not to mention iOS updates that get more and more demanding. I'm confident I'll get lots of good use out of this phone (which I love) but I know it could have been better.

I love the 5s man. By far the best S series performance and function inside and out.
 
The 5S will be perfectly capable on iOS 8. The 5 is hit-or-miss. It could be okay, and could be slow. Have to wait and see. The 4S on iOS 8 is a risky upgrade that I don't think I would personally pursue.

Likewise, I'd expect the iPad 4, iPad Air and iPad mini retina to be fast on iOS 8, but the iPad 2, 3, and mini I would probably stick with iOS 7.

As always, if there's some feature from the new iOS you simply must have, that's reason enough to upgrade right there. I don't see anything in iOS 8 that's so groundbreaking it'd be worth significantly slowing down my phone.

This isn't based on crystal ball reading, just how things have been in the past with iOS upgrades. No reason to expect things to deviate from that, in my opinion.
 
Anandtech claims the hardware in 5s is so powerful, there is nothing currently out that stresses it. So I wonder if it'll be as smooth as it is now with iOS 8.

Nothing stresses the CPU, within battery limitations.

Mobile hardware and software is a delicate balancing act.
 
I absolutely believe it to be true, the RAM on the 5 and 5S is an issue now - let alone in a couple of years time. Intentionally crippled and Apple will make sure that future releases of iOS are RAM-hungry, just to expose it.

Why would Apple even offer upgraded iOS versions to older devices if they were really trying to sell more devices? Why does OS X Yosemite run on hardware from 2007 when Apple could easily make an arbitrary decision to cut off a couple years of older hardware with little to no backlash?

Most importantly, if you really believe what you're saying, why would you ever buy another Apple product again? I know I sure wouldn't.
 
Why would Apple even offer upgraded iOS versions to older devices if they were really trying to sell more devices? Why does OS X Yosemite run on hardware from 2007 when Apple could easily make an arbitrary decision to cut off a couple years of older hardware with little to no backlash?



Most importantly, if you really believe what you're saying, why would you ever buy another Apple product again? I know I sure wouldn't.


They know once you download and install the latest iOS on your older device that it will not run as good and you will have to upgrade. My wife thinks I need to keep my phone for a long time but I told her you can only update the iOS 2 or 3 times until it won't run anymore. I might sell my iPhone 5s to get a 6s just to get rid of my edge payment.
 
The way does iOS updates. If you buy the top of the line product, you are essentially guaranteed at least one iOS update with all the bells and whistles.

Starting with the second iOS update, Apple starts leaving out stuff (like turn by turn maps on iPhone 4 with iOS 6 in 2012). The 4S got all the bells and whistles as the iPhone 5 (including panorama pictures).

I highly doubt performance will slow down with iOS8 with iPhone 5S. The 3GS worked awesome with iOS4. The iphone 4 worked perfect with iOS5. The iPhone 4S worked perfect with iOS6. And the iPhone 5 works perfectly with iOS7.

If you compare just basic day to day activity with iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s with iOS7. The common person can't really tell a significantly difference. Unless they start using some graphic intensive game.
 
It's called planned obsolescence. They've been doing it for years. They have some of the world's best software engineers, and they could probably make all of the phones run excellent. But, they don't because they want you to upgrade every 2 years.

However, the 5/5c appears to be just as fast as the 5s because the 5c was released in 2013. I guarantee you if Apple didn't release the 5c, the A6-based devices would run slower than they currently do on iOS 7.1.1.
 
As a selling point?

Well, yes... but every feature Apple decides to include can be considered a selling point.

They know once you download and install the latest iOS on your older device that it will not run as good and you will have to upgrade. My wife thinks I need to keep my phone for a long time but I told her you can only update the iOS 2 or 3 times until it won't run anymore. I might sell my iPhone 5s to get a 6s just to get rid of my edge payment.

Except you don't have to upgrade just because of a new OS. You can upgrade whenever you feel your device no longer meets your needs. Maybe it is indeed related to the installation of a newer version of iOS, but maybe you're just tired of your phone. After all, newer iPhones and iPads tend to run pretty well for about two years after they are released.

It's called planned obsolescence. They've been doing it for years. They have some of the world's best software engineers, and they could probably make all of the phones run excellent. But, they don't because they want you to upgrade every 2 years.

However, the 5/5c appears to be just as fast as the 5s because the 5c was released in 2013. I guarantee you if Apple didn't release the 5c, the A6-based devices would run slower than they currently do on iOS 7.1.1.

Yes, Apple could indeed make all of the phones run "excellent". The amount of features that would have to be recoded or dropped altogether along with the extra time, money, and resources that would have to be spent on it would end up being detrimental to iOS in the long run. Mobile technology is progressing very rapidly, and Apple has to have an OS to match the hardware. I'd much rather Apple spend their efforts making iOS more advanced than to bend over backwards to make something like the iPhone 4 usable. After a couple more years, things should level off and phones will be effectively usable for a longer period of time.

On that note, the reason why iOS 7 runs fine on the 5/5c is because the iPhone 5 hardware (specifically the A6 that it shares with the 5c) is plenty powerful to begin with. iOS 6 didn't even come close to pushing the iPhone 5, just like iOS 7 doesn't come close to pushing the 5s. iOS 8 is significantly more advanced that iOS 7, however, and that may lead to slight performance issues on A6-based devices. Again, that's the tradeoff between complexity and speed.
 
The iPhone 5S is not even pushed to its hardware potential yet so I'll be curious how this plays out.

My guess is it'll work just as good and the next iPhone will be more different in the design department rather than processor
 
I suspect features like extensibility may cause the 5 and 5s to run a little more slowly, with ram being the bottleneck when trying to run extensions which would use up more ram. This will mean the 4s, with 512 my of ram, may not even support such features properly.
 
Well, yes... but every feature Apple decides to include can be considered a selling point.



Except you don't have to upgrade just because of a new OS. You can upgrade whenever you feel your device no longer meets your needs. Maybe it is indeed related to the installation of a newer version of iOS, but maybe you're just tired of your phone. After all, newer iPhones and iPads tend to run pretty well for about two years after they are released.

Yes, technically you don't have to upgrade and you can upgrade whenever you feel like. But as soon as a new OS is released, it will automatically download itself when the device is on WiFi and plugged in, and take over several GB of storage with no way for users to reclaim that space. So, on a 16GB device, it's either upgrade or instantly lose ~10 - 25% of your storage.

I know you can get around by diligently charging off Wifi, or cramming the device full to prevent auto download, bit that's not a true "choice".
 
I don't want to throw in any conspiracy theories, but every time a new iPhone comes out, the previous one becomes slower with the updated OS.

4S is slower with iOS 7, even thought it's a very capable hardware.

Anandtech claims the hardware in 5s is so powerful, there is nothing currently out that stresses it. So I wonder if it'll be as smooth as it is now with iOS 8.

From experience I'll guess it will.
There have been some IOS updates that actually pared some things up such as shutter response, but all in all an update usually slows down a phone as the newer software is based on newer more advanced technology.
It's too early for te 5S to be effected significantly by the new IOS as there's no new device out so I assume they developed it around the specs of the 5S...
 
Yes, technically you don't have to upgrade and you can upgrade whenever you feel like. But as soon as a new OS is released, it will automatically download itself when the device is on WiFi and plugged in, and take over several GB of storage with no way for users to reclaim that space. So, on a 16GB device, it's either upgrade or instantly lose ~10 - 25% of your storage.



I know you can get around by diligently charging off Wifi, or cramming the device full to prevent auto download, bit that's not a true "choice".


I was talking about upgrading in terms of getting a new device, but I'm pretty sure that iOS 7.1 allows you to delete downloaded update files.
 
The 4s runs iOS 7 pretty quickly and smoothly, I do see animations stutter once in a while on it though. The iPhone 5 runs iOS 8 better than the 4s runs 7 though, so it seems that as they put more processing power in the devices it will take longer for them to slow down. Who knows? Some may even never have a noticeable slow down in the future.

This could be why Apple may start doing 5 iOS versions instead of 4.
 
Praying the 4S can run iOS 8 just fine.

Used an iphone 3G on iOS 4 until February of this year when I got my 4S.

Love the iphone but upgrading every 3 years is ridiculous. I don't have a problem dropping 2K on a laptop that will last 5-6 years, but $600-800 on a phone that will be outdated in 3-4 is ridiculous.

Bought my 3G for $40 in 2011 and my 4S for $80 this year. Plan on continuing to buy used...
 
Praying the 4S can run iOS 8 just fine.

Used an iphone 3G on iOS 4 until February of this year when I got my 4S.

Love the iphone but upgrading every 3 years is ridiculous. I don't have a problem dropping 2K on a laptop that will last 5-6 years, but $600-800 on a phone that will be outdated in 3-4 is ridiculous.

Bought my 3G for $40 in 2011 and my 4S for $80 this year. Plan on continuing to buy used...

It is slower on 8 but hopefully they will speed it up by the final version. I find the 4s almost like a 5 on iOS 7. But if you can get through the iPhone 3G, then you can handle anything.
 
The iPhone 5S is not even pushed to its hardware potential yet so I'll be curious how this plays out.

My guess is it'll work just as good and the next iPhone will be more different in the design department rather than processor

Well considering the limiting factor on all iOS devices is RAM i expect that to get an upgrade along with everything else since the 6 is expected to push an additional 50% pixels as well.
 
Praying the 4S can run iOS 8 just fine.

Used an iphone 3G on iOS 4 until February of this year when I got my 4S.

Love the iphone but upgrading every 3 years is ridiculous. I don't have a problem dropping 2K on a laptop that will last 5-6 years, but $600-800 on a phone that will be outdated in 3-4 is ridiculous.

Bought my 3G for $40 in 2011 and my 4S for $80 this year. Plan on continuing to buy used...

They aren't just phones though are they? More like mini computers with a camera and phone attached. Tech gets dated pretty quickly, but every top smartphone is good for at least a couple of years.
 
If it was going to be a problem they would make it so that you couldn't download the update to the device.

For example I cant update my older iPod touch with iOS 7 because it says its not supported by the hardware.
 
If it was going to be a problem they would make it so that you couldn't download the update to the device.

For example I cant update my older iPod touch with iOS 7 because it says its not supported by the hardware.

Erm, iOS7 on the iPhone 4 anyone?
 
Erm, iOS7 on the iPhone 4 anyone?

Yeah, had three now two. The two have no issues. What are you referring to?

----------

They aren't just phones though are they? More like mini computers with a camera and phone attached. Tech gets dated pretty quickly, but every top smartphone is good for at least a couple of years.

Tech doesn't get as dated now as it used to. For example, I have the same desktop I built in 2008. It's still able to run a heavy mix of cpu intensive applications like video editing, large database jobs and the like. I'm thinking next year I'll update it, maybe.

The 5S, should be good to go for at least 4 years.
 
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