iOS5 & iPad 1 - BIG Decrease in performance

Hi,

I also have an iPad one experienced the same performance problems as you.

I've followed all the suggestions in this forum. From all the things I've done to try to recover the device performance, I believe that a complete restore was the one with most noticeable effect. Still it was a slower than with ios 4.

Now ios 5.0.1 is out and I've installed it. I believe they have solved the performance issues. Try it and tell me what you think. (I'm not sure if it is really solved or I just can't remember anymore how good it was)

I also tried everything and it's true that hard reset or complete reinstall will help a bit but the fundamental issue isn't solved. I still get lags when I open my emails and when I try to type things on simple apps like contacts or note. May be this is a hardware issue since the original iPad only has 256 MB of RAM compared to 512MB of iPad 2, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s.

But considering that ios5 bring features that are not that significant compared to ios 4, I don't understand such huge performance downfall.

I don't know what apps you are having trouble with but I know I am still getting upgrades for IOS5 for a number of my apps (which sort of surprises me as I thought most developers had already done that) and then "tweaks" for the already installed apps with IOS5 support so it could also be the apps themselves. Just a thought. I've found correspondence with many developers to be very good so it might be worthwhile to report issues of particular apps to developers or if they are Apple issues to report them to Apple on appropriate place.

I have been pleased that 5.0.1 actually restored my iPAD 1 to ALMOST the pre-iOS 5 performance. I still have almost all notifications turned off, not using iCloud, etc (per recommendations from others on this thread). I also note that I RARELY crash now - since installing 5.0.1 only 5 crash dumps sent to Apple instead of 50 per day.

All of your realizations are painfully true. Here is the gimmick which most tech sites and apple afficionados refuse to realize or publicize or even admit: apple products are underpowered. They do a great job in the presentation, the design, and in the software realm. IOS is secure, fast, simple, elegant, but IOS runs on underpowered devices which last a year - maybe two.

Apple's hardware choices are made with profit maximization in mind. There is a reason why the ipad 2, iphone 4, and now the latest iphone 4S only come with 512mb of ram - to force users to upgrade. They're not only going to deny previous buyers improvements - siri, airplay, video recording, etc - but they're also going to slow the performance of previous instalments. This is purposeful in the sense of pre-planned hardware limitations. In our case, the ipad 1 came out with 256 mb of ram which in any tech junkie will tell you is unacceptable for a $499, $599, $699 device. But for grandma, what difference does it make?

I couldn't get my ipad to perform - music app crashed every other track, safari wouldn't open more than three tabs or stay open for more than 10 minutes, and the system was simply so laggy, I couldn't stand appreciating the $650+ wasted on a metal brick. So after much restoring, and being unable to revert to a workable 4.0.X firmware, I sold the ipad 32GB for a mere $300.

I regret the decision now since the latest jailbreaking tool is out, and they're probably going to find a way to turn off all the features in IOS 5 which are slowing it down on the original ipad, but since this is the last year of support updates for the ipad 1, I don't regret it that much - Not as much as spending the money in the first place.

I've become repulsed with the business practices at play here. And here I am complaining about it at an apple forum - so I'm hoping they'll read it. I'm done buying IOS devices for the foreseable future. I'm done with the "non-expandable," no memory-card slot to increase storage. I'm done with paying $200 more just to get from 16GB to 64GB when we all know a microSD card for 32Gb costs simply $30. I'm done with the lack of choice and customization, I'm done with owning devices which I do not actually own since I can't add any software which is not "approved" by apple, and I'm done with lack of support - and that's somehting I never thought I'd say about apple.

Sure, I walked into an apple store with my ipad, and they restored it for me, and handed it back to me clean and "light," only for safari to crash in front of an apple employee - his response? "I'm sorry, they're fixing all the bugs." Meanwhile I'm 5 months in without being able to use the device, and without being able to revert to the previous firmware.

Thank you, apple.

I'm done.

Hi there,

Same issue here, iPad nearly unusable in my side(64g). The only thing I notice that might relate with this issue is the available RAM turn half after upgrade to iOS 5. After a fresh reboot, all apps closed, available ram is only 30MB, while 78MB in iOS 4.

Are there any solution for this serious preference issue? All the games I like could not run and crush every time launch them. I have to say it's really unpleasant experience...

mine is ok, 64gb, 3g

try a few reboots and kill anything you are not using

Same issue here on iPad 1, 16GB Wi-Fi. Very slow and laggy. I have killed apps I'm not using and it has no effect -- still very slow.

Biggest issues:

Lag time when typing (esp. in Safari).

Mail -- slow to launch. Often the mail app will just hang when starting. It will be a plain blank white screen for 30 seconds+ before anything appears on the screen.

I guess we'll have to wait for patches from apple to fix things...

I updated my ipad to ios 5.0.1 and I can report that it has had a good increase in performance, but it's nothing like what it used to be. Music application still crashes everytime. Playing music and using other apps has a signifcant impact on other functions. Still taking ages to load webpages; flipboard - app I use the most - is very slow and laggy. Sometimes even swiping between home screens doesn' work, and when switching apps i must give the device 2 seconds to catch up so that I can tap on something in the screen.

My best friend owns an ipad 1 jailbroken with ios 4.3.. (I'm not sure what's the right firmware), and I can definitely see a HUGE difference. His jailbroken device has no multitsking - he removed it somehow, but it has the ability to background any application he so wishes by holding the home button for a few seconds. There are no freezes, no slow downs, pages load quickly and he has access to all of the features we have with ios 5 and MORE.

So I'm done using my ipad and will not update unless there are reports of a return to the original performance. I'm going to wait for a method to return it to 4.3 and jailbreak the **** thing. I've put it for sale on craigslist for $300 on a 32GB device, but now that more tablet options are available, not many people fall for an expensive device that works better as a brick than an internet access device. It's truly disappointing that I spent $650 on this.

Since upgrading tot iOS5 my iPad1 (32 GB / 3G) is noticably slower; Switching between app's is slow, to slow. E-mail is taking more time to check mail-boxes, etc. In my case (business-use) user-experience has dropped seriously, despite some nice new functions. Shortage on memory of the iPad1? Waiting for a 'bug'-fix! Apple, do something, because user-experience is invented by Apple! (a serious discount on buying an iPad2 is an option...)

I too have very slow response on 64 gig ipad 1 since updating -- particularly noticeable in newspaper apps like WSJ and also in Music App. Generally seems very slow and balky. Makes you wonder if you really need the fast chip to power this software and whether they are effectively trying to force you to upgrade to ipad 2.

And if this doesn't stop, that's exactly what I will do, even though I don't need an ipad 2.

Same thing here, my ipad1 is now slow doing simple standard tasks, switch icon pages, opening keyboard, or any other normal tasks.

I'm happy to find that some of you may have spot the problem, with the new notification system.

My iphone4 is also a little bit slower, but it's nothing compared to the ipad1.

I hope they will release an updated IOS soon to solve that issue.

I have a 64gb iPad 1 with only 32gb on it. Since I updated to iOS 5, the iPad is very unstable. Typing is slow in Safari and Safari crashes almost every time you type anything. Other apps seem less stable but Safari is my big problem--and I find it unusable right now.