3 ms·

I really don't care at all about phone models, I just want software to launch quickly. Waiting 15 seconds for a simple app is just infuriating in this day and

I really don't care at all about phone models, I just want software to launch quickly. Waiting 15 seconds for a simple app is just infuriating in this day and age. This is mostly on crappy app developers, but a lot of that falls on Apple for not having a rating system that encourages basic good app behavior. Every bad app that I encounter, which sends advertising notifications, takes a long time to launch, etc. is dominated by 5 star reviews, somehow. The whole ecosystem feels broken. (And I'm also really offended by how ugly, unpolished, and broken the Tahoe visual style is on iPhone. The whole thing feels like a buggy beta, something completely unworthy of Apple of the past. That it's still not fixed is an indication of the Apple of the future, unfortunately...)

throw1234567891 23d ago
Maybe you need a new phone. Or a faster internet connection?
- epistasis 23d ago
  No I need better phone app developers. The fastest phone has the same issues. New phones are just as sluggish. And, it's a phone, there's not going to be fast networks everywhere, and a whole generation of poor developers was raised to believe that the network was always present and always fast. And on the iOS side, Tahoe inserts all sorts of overdone, ridiculous animations that slow down phone interaction, but delaying presentation of
  - crtified 23d ago
    We are up to the iphone 18 now. The iphone is said to be about 50% of Apple's revenue since 2012. Regardless of app developer quality, it is quite literally Apple's now-well-honed job to ensure that enough people want to buy next year's model, by various types of forced obsolescence. Indirectly, this means that the durably snappy and non-sluggish experience you're forever wanting can never actually happen. 'Forever wanting it' is an essential part of the business design here! In this system. Of 'smartphones', where a small handful of corporate masters - who also happen to (now!) be a big share of the world's largest and most profitable corporations - now own over half of the computing world that we love, following their whirlwind 20-year takeover of it. "No I need better phone app developers." - Hmmm. Commiserations. The trend of developer quality (and/or it's inverse - e.g. system complexity and overheads) has been fairly constant since the term 'developer' became mainstream parlance, and you won't need me to point out what effect AI coding agents have had upon the doorway-to-entry.
  - devilsdata 23d ago
    Not that you aren't correct, but Tahoe is a MacOS release, not iOS. I assume you mean iOS 18 (the version before iOS 26)?
    - MYEUHD 23d ago
      Tahoe is macOS 26. The corresponding iOS version is iOS 26 iOS 18 corresponds to macOS 15 (Sequoia)
      - ksncksndsh 22d ago
        iOS and macOS don’t “correspond” in any way, shape, or form. Completely different releases. Their release windows tend to be close (by design) but there ‘s no “correspondence” here.
        throw1234567891 22d ago
        Yeah, they do: go and fucking educate yourself. You're one google search from the result: https://support.apple.com/en-us/123075 https://support.apple.com/en-us/123075. Fuck... They both by design follow the same numbering scheme. By design. It's like you missed the whole point of Liquid Glass.
        xu_ituairo 22d ago
        I agree that the releases to correspond, but the way you’ve said this is probably making someone’s day worse
        devilsdata 18d ago
        Agreed. I've had a lot of this kind of attitude lately on this community. Might dip.
  - hobo123 23d ago
    Indeed, on modern laptops and phones every UI interaction should be instant (check out BeOS in 1995 for comparison). For background stuff, add some progress indicator. Can't believe the crap OSes and frameworks add these days in terms of performance cost (and sadly, Apple doesn't exactly shine in that regard)
- asdff 23d ago
  The bigger question is what are these apps doing that they aren't doing 10 years ago that they now need all this extra compute for to serve the same basic functionality? It always amazes me how stuff like instagram just tanks my battery life. It is instagram its basically wgetting image urls same as its always done but it is taking over system resources for reasons...
  - redundantly 22d ago
    Because the app tracks every movement, every scroll and tap, how long you look at things, and reports back with data on all of your activity.
    - asdff 22d ago
      You'd think this would only amount to what a couple dozen lines of text log per session showing the clicks and look times on different frames.
- ChrisRR 23d ago
  Nah. Software took 15-20 seconds when we were back on spinning discs. Now that we have solid state supercomputers in our pockets, even the most simple app should launch in milliseconds
JK-Swizzle 23d ago
I just tested a number of apps on my 15pm connected to WiFi and could not find anything that took longer than 5 seconds. That includes some small developers and bad developers. Not quite sure where you are seeing this. Maybe games?
asdff 23d ago
I try and pick apps based on package size the rare time I look for some app. There are still apps out there made like they were 10 years ago (that probably haven't been updated in 10 years) where the package size is sub 10mb, sometimes sub 1mb. You get an app like that it is performant and will fly on any iphone really, and barely impact battery life in all likelihood.
- fhub 23d ago
  Package size has very low correlation to launch time. The binary and assets are separate. Additionally some slow app launches are simply waiting for a network request or chain before the view controller renders.
  - Marsymars 23d ago
    In theory, sure, but in practice devs who care about package size correlate to those who care about launch times.
  - asdff 23d ago
    Situational. But often these apps are doing something just using that standard ios ux library from the really old days, and they open almost instantly as a result as it was designed to work on an iphone 3gs.

throw1234567891 23d ago

Maybe you need a new phone. Or a faster internet connection?

epistasis 23d ago
No I need better phone app developers. The fastest phone has the same issues. New phones are just as sluggish. And, it's a phone, there's not going to be fast networks everywhere, and a whole generation of poor developers was raised to believe that the network was always present and always fast. And on the iOS side, Tahoe inserts all sorts of overdone, ridiculous animations that slow down phone interaction, but delaying presentation of
- crtified 23d ago
  We are up to the iphone 18 now. The iphone is said to be about 50% of Apple's revenue since 2012. Regardless of app developer quality, it is quite literally Apple's now-well-honed job to ensure that enough people want to buy next year's model, by various types of forced obsolescence. Indirectly, this means that the durably snappy and non-sluggish experience you're forever wanting can never actually happen. 'Forever wanting it' is an essential part of the business design here! In this system. Of 'smartphones', where a small handful of corporate masters - who also happen to (now!) be a big share of the world's largest and most profitable corporations - now own over half of the computing world that we love, following their whirlwind 20-year takeover of it. "No I need better phone app developers." - Hmmm. Commiserations. The trend of developer quality (and/or it's inverse - e.g. system complexity and overheads) has been fairly constant since the term 'developer' became mainstream parlance, and you won't need me to point out what effect AI coding agents have had upon the doorway-to-entry.
- devilsdata 23d ago
  Not that you aren't correct, but Tahoe is a MacOS release, not iOS. I assume you mean iOS 18 (the version before iOS 26)?
  - MYEUHD 23d ago
    Tahoe is macOS 26. The corresponding iOS version is iOS 26 iOS 18 corresponds to macOS 15 (Sequoia)
    - ksncksndsh 22d ago
      iOS and macOS don’t “correspond” in any way, shape, or form. Completely different releases. Their release windows tend to be close (by design) but there ‘s no “correspondence” here.
      - throw1234567891 22d ago
        Yeah, they do: go and fucking educate yourself. You're one google search from the result: https://support.apple.com/en-us/123075 https://support.apple.com/en-us/123075. Fuck... They both by design follow the same numbering scheme. By design. It's like you missed the whole point of Liquid Glass.
        xu_ituairo 22d ago
        I agree that the releases to correspond, but the way you’ve said this is probably making someone’s day worse
        devilsdata 18d ago
        Agreed. I've had a lot of this kind of attitude lately on this community. Might dip.
- hobo123 23d ago
  Indeed, on modern laptops and phones every UI interaction should be instant (check out BeOS in 1995 for comparison). For background stuff, add some progress indicator. Can't believe the crap OSes and frameworks add these days in terms of performance cost (and sadly, Apple doesn't exactly shine in that regard)
asdff 23d ago
The bigger question is what are these apps doing that they aren't doing 10 years ago that they now need all this extra compute for to serve the same basic functionality? It always amazes me how stuff like instagram just tanks my battery life. It is instagram its basically wgetting image urls same as its always done but it is taking over system resources for reasons...
- redundantly 22d ago
  Because the app tracks every movement, every scroll and tap, how long you look at things, and reports back with data on all of your activity.
  - asdff 22d ago
    You'd think this would only amount to what a couple dozen lines of text log per session showing the clicks and look times on different frames.
ChrisRR 23d ago
Nah. Software took 15-20 seconds when we were back on spinning discs. Now that we have solid state supercomputers in our pockets, even the most simple app should launch in milliseconds

JK-Swizzle 23d ago

I just tested a number of apps on my 15pm connected to WiFi and could not find anything that took longer than 5 seconds. That includes some small developers and bad developers. Not quite sure where you are seeing this. Maybe games?

asdff 23d ago

I try and pick apps based on package size the rare time I look for some app. There are still apps out there made like they were 10 years ago (that probably haven't been updated in 10 years) where the package size is sub 10mb, sometimes sub 1mb. You get an app like that it is performant and will fly on any iphone really, and barely impact battery life in all likelihood.

fhub 23d ago
Package size has very low correlation to launch time. The binary and assets are separate. Additionally some slow app launches are simply waiting for a network request or chain before the view controller renders.
- Marsymars 23d ago
  In theory, sure, but in practice devs who care about package size correlate to those who care about launch times.
- asdff 23d ago
  Situational. But often these apps are doing something just using that standard ios ux library from the really old days, and they open almost instantly as a result as it was designed to work on an iphone 3gs.