Zeyphersan
Banned
Thats a ridiculous rule, even if you buy into this planned obsolescence stuff. I will astoundingly shocked if my iPad Pro cant handle iOS 12 or 13 properly, this thing is a beast.
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FutureMark: Benchmarks show Apple doesn't deliberately slows down older iPhones
- Thread starter wachie
- Start date
Thats a ridiculous rule, even if you buy into this planned obsolescence stuff. I will astoundingly shocked if my iPad Pro cant handle iOS 12 or 13 properly, this thing is a beast.
All I know is that my iPad 2 would run like shit under whatever the last supported version of iOS is on that device.
Excuse me while I rant for a bit.
Ideally, I'd have stuck with iOS 6. That was the last version where the keyboard didn't randomly freeze or close itself, where I could keep two or more tabs open in a browser and even switch out to another app without the need for a page reload, where double tapping the home button instantly and fluidly took me into the task manager. Where animations played out like they ought, mostly fluidly, instead of awkwardly lurching about. I have a task manager like app (lol) that reports available memory and CPU usage, and I have observed a degradation in readily available system resources after most updates. Nothing you can't reclaim, but by default the system becomes increasingly busy with every update and only frees resources on request, which leads to hitching and jerking and rarely even app crashes. Those are things I could verify, no need for synthetic benchmarks.
So yeah, future builds definitely do slow down the older devices.
Also: I know battery life will tank with time. I know Flash memory speeds and capacity/reliability will degrade, especially the crappy flash chips apple used in this early version of their tablets. I know more OS features need more resources. You can't magically squeeze more performance out of existing hardware, and software tweaks only can take you so far. It's natural that an OS and supporting applications/APIs will not run as well on older hardware than the one it is targeted at (i.e. the new hotness that sells for big bucks) solely because it's obvious more man hours will go into optimisation and bug hunting efforts on the new product.
None of that is Apple intentionally slowing down older devices. Or google, while we're at it (Android 4.3/4.4 on my Samsung Galaxy S3 is spectacularly dreadful). Sure, they could waste money on better optimisation and bug hunting on older devices, but modern consumers are way too trigger happy on new purchases and completely disregard repairability or long term viability of product, to put it diplomatically. There's a reason why we have long term branches for operating systems on servers and to a degree even PCs, but not on "disposable" tech like tablets and mobile phones. People are sheep. They pay for the privilege to be fleeced. Welcome to capitalism.
...I mean, I wouldn't mind if they dug out iOS 6, UI and all, and established that as iOS LTB, to be forcibly installed on all Apple hardware older than 3 years or a rebranded iPhone&iPad LE, only supplied with security fixes until the hardware or company melts down. No multitasking. Exceedingly limited cloud stuff. Restricted access to the App Store.
Just a decade of boring never changing stability and security updates, ideally transparently in the background. For me, that'd be heaven. For the modern consumer, it would be an affront to their sensibilities, a return to Nokia and feature phone madness. It's clear we always need to progress and be at the bleeding edge of science in all aspects of life.
*old man yells at cloud.gif*
...or is that HEIC/HEIF nowadays? Pshaw, humbug. Why, back in my days, image and movie file formats kept themselves pure, none of that multimedia shit where every format is basically capable of everything. Cough, wheeze, and no always open mic constantly spying on you on behalf of them newfangled machine overlords. Bought me my stuff at a real shop, talking to a live human being, not like some caveman on their amazons and facebooks and whatnot.
Excuse me while I rant for a bit.
Ideally, I'd have stuck with iOS 6. That was the last version where the keyboard didn't randomly freeze or close itself, where I could keep two or more tabs open in a browser and even switch out to another app without the need for a page reload, where double tapping the home button instantly and fluidly took me into the task manager. Where animations played out like they ought, mostly fluidly, instead of awkwardly lurching about. I have a task manager like app (lol) that reports available memory and CPU usage, and I have observed a degradation in readily available system resources after most updates. Nothing you can't reclaim, but by default the system becomes increasingly busy with every update and only frees resources on request, which leads to hitching and jerking and rarely even app crashes. Those are things I could verify, no need for synthetic benchmarks.
So yeah, future builds definitely do slow down the older devices.
Also: I know battery life will tank with time. I know Flash memory speeds and capacity/reliability will degrade, especially the crappy flash chips apple used in this early version of their tablets. I know more OS features need more resources. You can't magically squeeze more performance out of existing hardware, and software tweaks only can take you so far. It's natural that an OS and supporting applications/APIs will not run as well on older hardware than the one it is targeted at (i.e. the new hotness that sells for big bucks) solely because it's obvious more man hours will go into optimisation and bug hunting efforts on the new product.
None of that is Apple intentionally slowing down older devices. Or google, while we're at it (Android 4.3/4.4 on my Samsung Galaxy S3 is spectacularly dreadful). Sure, they could waste money on better optimisation and bug hunting on older devices, but modern consumers are way too trigger happy on new purchases and completely disregard repairability or long term viability of product, to put it diplomatically. There's a reason why we have long term branches for operating systems on servers and to a degree even PCs, but not on "disposable" tech like tablets and mobile phones. People are sheep. They pay for the privilege to be fleeced. Welcome to capitalism.
...I mean, I wouldn't mind if they dug out iOS 6, UI and all, and established that as iOS LTB, to be forcibly installed on all Apple hardware older than 3 years or a rebranded iPhone&iPad LE, only supplied with security fixes until the hardware or company melts down. No multitasking. Exceedingly limited cloud stuff. Restricted access to the App Store.
Just a decade of boring never changing stability and security updates, ideally transparently in the background. For me, that'd be heaven. For the modern consumer, it would be an affront to their sensibilities, a return to Nokia and feature phone madness. It's clear we always need to progress and be at the bleeding edge of science in all aspects of life.
*old man yells at cloud.gif*
...or is that HEIC/HEIF nowadays? Pshaw, humbug. Why, back in my days, image and movie file formats kept themselves pure, none of that multimedia shit where every format is basically capable of everything. Cough, wheeze, and no always open mic constantly spying on you on behalf of them newfangled machine overlords. Bought me my stuff at a real shop, talking to a live human being, not like some caveman on their amazons and facebooks and whatnot.
MarkMclovin
Member
Yeah, no.
runs so bad and battery life is a joke now.Mathiassen
Member
Think people forget the major leaps in compute power between the generations. Apps get more power to play with so they'll add more and more features.
Take Snapchat for example. Back in 2014 it ran just fine on my iPhone 6, but today, it's slow as all hell.
Take Snapchat for example. Back in 2014 it ran just fine on my iPhone 6, but today, it's slow as all hell.
nature boy
Member
Well that's pretty reassuring for those upgrading to ios 11 /s
It's deliberate in the sense they know these new features will downgrade the performance of older phones and do not disable or alter them for the sake of good user experience.
It's deliberate in the sense they know these new features will downgrade the performance of older phones and do not disable or alter them for the sake of good user experience.
Nikodemos
Member
They don't crash, they simply run out of memory and force close. iOS is very aggressive with app memory allocation.
For all their talk about memory allocation efficiency, Apple deliberately gimped their devices by putting that little RAM in them. Apps nowadays need a lot of memory for their swap files and resources (especially textures, animations etc. in games). OS is less important for memory use, especially in Apple products. It's the apps which eat it up and go for seconds.
This is why I'd never get an iPhone 6, no matter how good a deal it would be (even for free). 1 GB of RAM is a ridiculously low amount of memory for today's apps. And it shows that Apple, despite their steadfast unwillingness, have started putting more RAM in their phones (albeit in their "fuck you, plebs" fashion of only doing that in the upscale model of the series). Also, it bears reminding that they 'cheat' when it comes to memory use, by putting what's basically a 720p display inside the base model. More pixels = larger memory buffer needed to display images.
Sure, but WHY does each version of iOS require so much more? There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the last few versions. If this is so demanding, and drains the batteries on older devices so much, why implement it?
This works for big headline features, but not for the hundreds of smaller tweaks to key OS components that really lead to the bulk of the slowdown. Your proposal, while noble, is untenable.
Let's say you can bend that rule a bit for the now very powerful iPad Pro devices and upgrade to at least 1-2 iOS versions further.
Nikodemos
Member
"Legacy support" =/= "maintaining performance".
entremet
Member
I'm on an iPad Mini 2. The first Retina one and it runs iOS11 extremely well. No hitches or slowness at all. It only has a 1GB of ram.
Yeah for real. There's also just the fact that the new os just starts requiring more out of the phone when it probably doesn't need to.
My iPad mini 4 is struggling with iOS 11. Safari is struggling with any dense webpages, that were fine before the update. Better be teething problems because there's no reason whatsoever that the mini 4 shouldn't be able to work Safari competently for years to come.
I await an update.
I await an update.
I mean, yeah, they're not literally clamping the power on older devices. But that doesn't mean they're not still disincentivizing their use by making the software pointlessly bloated and demanding. I don't need fancy transitional graphics and dynamic color palettes to browse shit like my music library.
To me those graphs confirm the slowdown. You can pretty much ignore the GPU numbers because that would only matter for running games, not useful to judge the responsiveness of the phone and apps.
Also for a graph without any real scale the CPU numbers are compressed to the bottom of the chart for no other reason than to make the diminished CPU performance less apparent.
The CPU numbers are clearly decreased and as the OS updates it has gotten more complex meaning more CPU cycles are needed to do the same thing. So yes for example loading Twitter on your iPhone6 will take longer on the current OS than it did when release. That is the type of slowdown people are talking about.
Also for a graph without any real scale the CPU numbers are compressed to the bottom of the chart for no other reason than to make the diminished CPU performance less apparent.
The CPU numbers are clearly decreased and as the OS updates it has gotten more complex meaning more CPU cycles are needed to do the same thing. So yes for example loading Twitter on your iPhone6 will take longer on the current OS than it did when release. That is the type of slowdown people are talking about.
Nikodemos
Member
Have you tried a factory reset?
Ever since iOS 9 Apple devices have started behaving like Android ones, requiring factory resets after OS updates, along with the occasional one when the device starts becoming sluggish.
MercuryLS3
Junior Member
Heavier, more feature rich OS updates slow down on older devices. News at 11.
I always thought this conspiracy theory was bullshit. Old devices are going to be hobbled by new software eventually. Hopefully with how powerful new-ish phones are now, this happens less and less. There's a lot of processing power in these things.
I always thought this conspiracy theory was bullshit. Old devices are going to be hobbled by new software eventually. Hopefully with how powerful new-ish phones are now, this happens less and less. There's a lot of processing power in these things.
You know that each bar corresponds to months, right?
Their purpose isn't relevant because they're being used to debunk a premise that never actually existed. Nobody doubted the hardware. It was always the software (unoptimized for older devices) that people knew was the cause of decreased performance. The charts actually prove what people thought was true with cpu performance dropping on newer versions of iOS. I suspect the discrepancy would be even larger had they tested the 6 with its original OS instead of stopping at 9. This article misses the point.
I thought it was for each point release...
To be honest that makes it even worse! The iPhone 7 CPU performance has dropped ~15% in 13 months. The 6 and 6S will have even greater drops from release.
This data to me clearly shows a performance decay rather than refuting it.
The purpose of the article was to disprove intentional merging of hardware through software. It does that very clearly.
No it doesn't. Comparing raw CPU performance numbers ignores the case that it takes more CPU operations to do something on the updated OS.
It disproves any conspiracy theorists who would believe Apple underclock older CPUs when they update iOS, which is not what people complained about. It does nothing to disspell the notion that new versions of iOS are not built with a view to optimising user experience on older devices, making them slower with each subsequent release of iOS.
That IS what it's disproving. There absolutely are people who believe Apple messes with the hardware clocks to force people into new devices. This is what the article explicitly states it is checking!
PodcastFips
Member
I'm seeing a ~17% drop in CPU performance for my phone, the 6. Not sure how that confirms it doesn't slow down devices?
It should be the other way round. Increase the performance by optimizing the firmware over the course of years and leave out "features" that slow down the device.
It should be the other way round. Increase the performance by optimizing the firmware over the course of years and leave out "features" that slow down the device.
Well those people are idiots and it is something that doesn't need refuting.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Batteries not lasting as long...? I mean...we didnt have these sorts of insane displays back in in my day...
Baron Doggystyle von Woof
Member
Can't believe people fell for this conspiracy. My sister has my old iphone 5 and it still runs alright.
Maybe so but I personally rather not get features and retain performance.
Downgrading would be nice. Personally I wish I could turn off the update notice. Also won't because of security concerns.
Using an iPhone 5 to play extra accounts when I don't want to swap game center accounts. Nothing installed but the two games. Battery is so bad it pretty much needs to be used plugged in at all times. Stop asking me to update every day
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
iPad mini 2 surely runs ios11, but if that runs 'extremely well', then what would you say about ios9 and ios10, as those did perform better.
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
I have an iPhone 5S still and I've noticed it can get slow.
Widdle Puppy
Banned
I'd say this is probably the most logical posotion and really all that needs to be said
They aren't intentionally slowing them down but I doubt they are going the extra mile to tailor every update for their older models.
Still for a phone that costs hundreds of bucks that shit better run smoothly for many years.
Nikodemos
Member
The people running the site are Apple fans. I mean, the site's name is "Mac Rumors". THe bias is basically baked-in.
Technosteve
Banned
i want to see android phone with multiple OS upgrades
iOS 11 enables background app refresh for everything. Be sure to review those settings and turn some off. Could help with battery life.
the complaint has always been that apple releases OS on devices that shouldn't receive it and that newer OS versions focus exclusively on the new(er) models, leading to worsening performance on older models.
which is exactly what their charts show, so not sure exactly what they think they disproved.
which is exactly what their charts show, so not sure exactly what they think they disproved.
Also, looks quite different if we remove most minor version plot points, since the lack of numbers and the small size made it rather hard to gauge the change.
Looks like the s version fares quite a bit better, which makes sense.
(I kept the first/last data plot for all major versions)
Looks like the s version fares quite a bit better, which makes sense.
(I kept the first/last data plot for all major versions)
Pretty much. I remember I had an iPad 3 which shipped with iOS 5, but iOS 6 was released shortly after and everything was peachy. Then iOS 7 dropped and tanked UI responsiveness: there was a very noticeable pause when bringing up the keyboard for the first time on each app, several animations that were silky smooth in iOS6, like rotating the home screen, became janky/stuttery and the task switcher, oh God! The task switcher caused the whole system to hang for a short moment before showing up and ran worse than the Saturn port of Daytona USA. Made me nearly stop using the iPad for most things I used it for.
The backslash was fierce so Apple eventually patched it up several point updates afterwards so the slow downs (but not all) were greatly reduced, but by then my iPad was no longer part of my routine.
I'm pretty certain a synthetic CPU and GPU benchmark would also run almost the same on the iPad 3 on iOS6 versus iOS7. Things have to go horribly wrong for an OS update to negatively affect the speed at which the CPU can crunch numbers and how many pixels the GPU can push. That has absolutely nothing to do with Apple rewriting their animation code so it runs like utter crap on it, deliberately or not, and knowingly letting the update be irreversibly applied to devices they know can't handle it acceptably (the alternative being nobody at Apple tested it on such devices).