Users complaining that their iPhones have slowed down after updating to the
latest iOS 9 software may not be imagining it.
The new iOS 9 operating system works on models from 2011's iPhone 4s onwards,
with the company claiming that more than 50% of iOS users had already installed
the update within a week of its release.
However, some users of Apple's official discussion forums are already
criticising the impact on their older handsets.
directly comparing the latest iOS 9.0.1 software to iOS 8.4.1 running on an
iPhone 4S, 5 and 5S have also demonstrated a noticeable amount of slowdown with
the new update.
The smartphones take longer to start up, camera performance is slower, as is
launching apps and switching between them.
Some actions take a very similar amount of time, particularly on the newer
iPhones. The performance of Apple's virtual assistant Siri actually seems to be
slightly faster, although some users within Apple's forums have disabled Siri's
new app prediction features in an attempt to speed up the rest of the phone.
The issue of new software slowing down older phones is familiar to smartphone
owners. New features demand more resources from the device, and can therefore
slow down normal operations and affect battery life.
Some updates - Google's Android Lollipop in 2014 for example - focus on
performance and optimisation, and can actually improve the speed of the
smartphone or tablet they are installed on.
This does not appear to be the case with iOS 9, although in other ways, it has
been one of the smoothest annual updates for Apple's devices.
On its release in 2014, iOS 8 caused issues for people upgrading because it
demanded a 5GB of free space meaning many had to delete music, apps and photos
from their devices just to install the update.
Apple corrected the issue with iOS 9 requiring under 1.5GB of space, and
providing support for smaller applications, but its impact on the speed of
older devices is evident.
While some users will try and avoid updating to the latest version of iOS, it
could put them at risk of security vulnerabilities and will eventually stop
being supported by the latest apps, making an upgrade inevitable.
iOS 9 review: an upgrade to jump for, or skip?
Apple's latest iPhone and iPad software promises better battery life, real
multitasking, improved Siri and Google Now-like features
Apple's latest iPhone and iPad update adds a few features, but looks almost
exactly the same as last year's iOS 8.
But does it deliver and is it worth upgrading?
The first thing you notice when you fire up an iPhone or iPad after installing
iOS 9 is the lack of newness. It looks like iOS 8, it feels like iOS 8 and
behaves like iOS 8 - the changes are subtle.
For instance, I didn't notice until a week in that the type face had changed.
The whole operating system uses a new "San Francisco" typeface instead of the
traditional Helvetica.
First introduced with the Apple Watch, San Francisco promises to fit more
on-screen. It does precisely that but it's a blink-and-you-miss-it change, as
is the fact that Passbook is now called Wallet.
Notifications within the pull-down Notifications Centre are now in
chronological order too, which is much better, and can be cleared individually
or by the day, but there's still no "clear all" button.
Cards, public transport and a better keyboard
The running app cards are bigger, making it easier to see what's happening
before tapping into an app.
One of the bigger visual changes is within the recently used apps switcher.
Double pressing the home button brings up cards that are bigger, so you can
more easily see what's going on before tapping into an app, while
location-based apps or apps that have been triggered from a Mac or iPad using
"hand-off" are there too - an obvious improvement.
A couple of Apple's apps have been improved too. The Notes app now supports
drawing and photo insertion, though only if you use an iCloud account to sync
them.
Public transport within Apple Maps.
Apple Maps also has public-transport directions, but is still not as good as
rivals Google Maps or Citymapper. The phone app will try and identify unknown
callers from your email, or give a rough location based on the number, which it
did for me as it could never find the number in an email for anyone who wasn't
a contact.
Apple's News app will also launch with iOS 9 (but not in all markets), bringing
headlines and stories from a collection of news sources.
The Apple keyboard is also much easier to use now that the keys are not always
capped up. Pressing the shift key raises or lowers the case of the keys so that
it is much easier to see whether you're about to punch in a capital or
lowercase letter. Swiftkey and others have had this feature since iOS 8's
launch.
The keyboard will also display cut, paste and text formatting keys in some
apps, which are useful - although the iPhone often needs to be in landscape
orientation for them to show up.
Lowercase keys and keyboard shortcuts.
Two-finger cursor control is also available, which uses the keyboard as a giant
trackpad; I found it more trouble than it was worth.
Siri, Proactive and suggesting apps
The biggest feature addition for iOS 9 is Siri's new "Proactive", which is
essentially Apple's take on Google Now.
A pane accessible by swiping right on the homescreen, iOS 9 displays Siri's
suggestions of people you might want to contact and apps you might want to use
at that particular time or location.
Siri tracks your usage and learns when you might want an app or to contact a
particular person. Perhaps you call your mum every Sunday at 1600, or use
Google Maps on your commute home.
It should be able to scan your email and pull up flight details, warn of
traffic delays on a commute or show things from your calendar, but I haven't
flown anywhere recently so can't comment on whether it actually works.
In practice, I found Proactive to always suggest the Mail, Settings, Twitter
and App Store apps - obviously I use them a lot. Showing me the Music app when
I plug in a set of headphones was vaguely useful. It will likely get better the
longer you use it.
Privacy and Siri
Siri also suggests trending news you might want to read, but the headlines it
promotes are only pulled from a few sources and I didn't find them particularly
useful. Once Apple News launches in the UK, which it hasn't yet, it might
improve.
Compared to Google Now on an Android phone, Proactive isn't quite there. But it
is better than Google Now on the iPhone purely because it's baked in and isn't
restricted to being an app.
One thing to note is that Apple professes to do all this without sending your
data away - unless you use Siri to ask for something - where as Google Now and
Microsoft's Cortana are powered through the cloud, tracking your movements and
all the data privacy implications that may or may not have. This won't matter
much to most people, but for those it does, it'll matter a lot.
My interactions with Siri in general seemed improved. I still find it awkward,
as a Briton, talking to an inanimate object. Beyond setting alarms and trying
to get it to play music while in the car, you can at least instruct Siri to
"Google" things for you, or "Yahoo" if you prefer, which opens in Safari. The
default "search for" command uses Bing.
Spotlight can also search within apps, but requires the apps to support it,
which they don't have just yet. That will improve as apps get updated.
Real multitasking
Siri also suggests trending news you might want to read, but the headlines it
promotes are only pulled from a few sources and I didn't find them particularly
useful. Once Apple News launches in the UK, which it hasn't yet, it might
improve.
Compared to Google Now on an Android phone, Proactive isn't quite there. But it
is better than Google Now on the iPhone purely because it's baked in and isn't
restricted to being an app.
One thing to note is that Apple professes to do all this without sending your
data away - unless you use Siri to ask for something - where as Google Now and
Microsoft's Cortana are powered through the cloud, tracking your movements and
all the data privacy implications that may or may not have. This won't matter
much to most people, but for those it does, it'll matter a lot.
My interactions with Siri in general seemed improved. I still find it awkward,
as a Briton, talking to an inanimate object. Beyond setting alarms and trying
to get it to play music while in the car, you can at least instruct Siri to
"Google" things for you, or "Yahoo" if you prefer, which opens in Safari. The
default "search for" command uses Bing.
Spotlight can also search within apps, but requires the apps to support it,
which they don't have just yet. That will improve as apps get updated.
Real multitasking
The big change in iOS 9 for the iPad is the introduction of true multitasking.
All iPads from the iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 and up will get "Picture in
Picture", which displays video as an overlay. Handy, but common to TVs since
the 1990s.
Slide Over also allows quick access to another app such as Twitter while in
Safari, for instance. It slides over from the right and sits there until you're
done using it and go back to the app it is partially covering.
On the iPad Air 2, and the forthcoming iPad Mini 4 or iPad Pro only, Split View
places two active apps side-by-side on one screen. Each app can be given more
or less of the screen with a slider in the middle. It works precisely like
Windows 8's side-by-side app view or Samsung's multi-window - handy for when
you're trying to watch a live blog or stream and want to keep an eye on
Twitter, for instance.
Apple promised better battery life with iOS 9. I've barely noticed any change,
but at least it isn't worse. A low power mode is available, which claims to add
three hours to the battery life by shutting off push and email fetching,
automatic downloads and reducing the performance of the processor, but seemed
to do little when I activated it when low on battery. Your milage may vary.
Verdict
It's a free update, runs on any Apple iPhone or iPad currently running iOS 8
and legions of people are going to install it. Thankfully iOS 9 is as fast and
works as well on an iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2 as iOS 8. Whether that's the
case on an iPhone 4S or 5 remains to be seen.
Is it the best iOS yet? Yes. Could Apple have done more? Absolutely.
Notifications still aren't cleared from Notification Centre when they are
within apps and you still can't clear all notifications in one go; push
notifications still only deliver the alert and not always the actual message,
which is infuriating in signal-poor environments, and you're still forced into
the Settings app to change simple things too frequently.
Its new features have appeared elsewhere before - from Windows to Android - but
it is probably worth updating for the keyboard and multitasking alone, just
don't expect a revolution.
The iOS 9 update will be released on 16 September and while optional, will
start to be required by some apps in the near future.
