4 ms·

This is true, however, their software is slowing down the phone. I recently compared the iPhone 7 with iOS10 vs iPhone 7 with iOS13: the camera app got slower a

This is true, however, their software is slowing down the phone. I recently compared the iPhone 7 with iOS10 vs iPhone 7 with iOS13: the camera app got slower and is shooting blurry pictures often, the gallery app is slower and less responsive, the keyboard takes a significant time to open now vs. always instantly available. The phones do "get slower" - and this is annoying af.

vbezhenar 7y ago
The problem is only partly with slow OS. For me the real culprit is inability to downgrade OS and apps. I have iPhone 4S. It was amazing phone when it was running iOS 6. Now it's slow as molasses. May be it should not be one-click, as it causes security issues and user must understand the implications. But there must be a way for official downgrade.
- chipotle_coyote 7y ago
  > Now it's slow as molasses Given that the iPhone 4s can't run iOS versions past 2015's iOS 9, "now" would seem to be fairly relative. Also, I'm not sure I'd describe iOS upgrades as "one-click"; IIRC, you need to click through at least one screen telling you about the new OS and enter your passcode before the install. A lot of people probably do breeze through that without really understanding they're going through a major OS upgrade, but that's awfully hard to address. (People tend to just breeze past any boilerplate-text dialog unless it looks threatening and dire.) I agree that Apple should make it much easier to downgrade the OS, though. (I'm not 100% sure it's even possible, although I think you may be able to do a clean install of an earlier version from iTunes if you've archived a backup.)
  - varenc 7y ago
    You can downgrade an iPhone's firmware IFF Apple is still signing that firmware version for your phone model. They don't make it easy to figure this out...but this site shows you what iOS versions are still being signed: https://ipsw.me/ https://ipsw.me/ You can see Apple is only signing iOS 7.1.2 for the iPhone 4. For the iPhone X (iPhone10,3) they're signing 13.3.1 and one version below it, iOS 13.3. So you could still downgrade to that. In practice, if you're currently on the latest version and you update to a new version as soon as it comes out, you can almost always downgrade back to what you just had. But of course, if you wait too long without downgrading and Apple stops signing the old version you want, you'll be stuck with what you got.
  - selectodude 7y ago
    It isn't possible. The OS can't install without an Apple-provided key generated from a random nonce created by the phone. Once they stop providing those keys, even if you could restore the OS onto the phone, it won't boot without the ticket.
  - flatiron 7y ago
    No way they could do this securely. They would have to patch old OSes for flaws and such.
    - varenc 7y ago
      For devices that don't support more recent versions of iOS, Apple does make minor updates to old major versions. For example 6 months ago Apple released iOS 9.3.6, fixing some issues for the iPhone 4S which is forever stuck on iOS 9.
      - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
        Yeah, that's the way I would think they could do it if they chose -- sign all of the releases of the current major version and the last release of each previous major version, going back, say, five years. I don't really see a compelling business case for not doing that, unless the worry is that they'd be on the hook for security flaws in old, no longer maintained releases -- which I imagine could be legally covered by a prominent disclaimer, e.g., "Releases older than [X] are no longer supported and audited for security fixes and you assume all responsibility for installing them."
robocat 7y ago
Did you compare on the same device, or a device with very similar storage usage and both with new batteries? The batteries issue is obvious (as per this thread). The Flash memory slows down over time with usage. For example the Nexus 7 slowed to a crawl because the flash in that device was especially prone to slowing down. It happens eventually to all flash (although I presume that Apple uses high quality flash that stays fast for longer). > shooting blurry pictures That's a very strange symptom.

vbezhenar 7y ago

The problem is only partly with slow OS. For me the real culprit is inability to downgrade OS and apps. I have iPhone 4S. It was amazing phone when it was running iOS 6. Now it's slow as molasses. May be it should not be one-click, as it causes security issues and user must understand the implications. But there must be a way for official downgrade.

chipotle_coyote 7y ago
> Now it's slow as molasses Given that the iPhone 4s can't run iOS versions past 2015's iOS 9, "now" would seem to be fairly relative. Also, I'm not sure I'd describe iOS upgrades as "one-click"; IIRC, you need to click through at least one screen telling you about the new OS and enter your passcode before the install. A lot of people probably do breeze through that without really understanding they're going through a major OS upgrade, but that's awfully hard to address. (People tend to just breeze past any boilerplate-text dialog unless it looks threatening and dire.) I agree that Apple should make it much easier to downgrade the OS, though. (I'm not 100% sure it's even possible, although I think you may be able to do a clean install of an earlier version from iTunes if you've archived a backup.)
- varenc 7y ago
  You can downgrade an iPhone's firmware IFF Apple is still signing that firmware version for your phone model. They don't make it easy to figure this out...but this site shows you what iOS versions are still being signed: https://ipsw.me/ https://ipsw.me/ You can see Apple is only signing iOS 7.1.2 for the iPhone 4. For the iPhone X (iPhone10,3) they're signing 13.3.1 and one version below it, iOS 13.3. So you could still downgrade to that. In practice, if you're currently on the latest version and you update to a new version as soon as it comes out, you can almost always downgrade back to what you just had. But of course, if you wait too long without downgrading and Apple stops signing the old version you want, you'll be stuck with what you got.
- selectodude 7y ago
  It isn't possible. The OS can't install without an Apple-provided key generated from a random nonce created by the phone. Once they stop providing those keys, even if you could restore the OS onto the phone, it won't boot without the ticket.
- flatiron 7y ago
  No way they could do this securely. They would have to patch old OSes for flaws and such.
  - varenc 7y ago
    For devices that don't support more recent versions of iOS, Apple does make minor updates to old major versions. For example 6 months ago Apple released iOS 9.3.6, fixing some issues for the iPhone 4S which is forever stuck on iOS 9.
    - chipotle_coyote 7y ago
      Yeah, that's the way I would think they could do it if they chose -- sign all of the releases of the current major version and the last release of each previous major version, going back, say, five years. I don't really see a compelling business case for not doing that, unless the worry is that they'd be on the hook for security flaws in old, no longer maintained releases -- which I imagine could be legally covered by a prominent disclaimer, e.g., "Releases older than [X] are no longer supported and audited for security fixes and you assume all responsibility for installing them."

robocat 7y ago

Did you compare on the same device, or a device with very similar storage usage and both with new batteries? The batteries issue is obvious (as per this thread). The Flash memory slows down over time with usage. For example the Nexus 7 slowed to a crawl because the flash in that device was especially prone to slowing down. It happens eventually to all flash (although I presume that Apple uses high quality flash that stays fast for longer). > shooting blurry pictures That's a very strange symptom.