Ipad 1 slows down after installing IOS 5

Thank you!

I will google it.

Once Again Thank You!

This is excellent. I believe Apple is still signing 4.1 shsh blobs (at least for my 3GS). I have tested this on my 3GS, and it works perfectly. I would assume it should work for iPad as well. Seeing as this requires no shsh blobs, this means it requires no jailbreak, which means that this shouldn't violate any of these "policies" we see here.

However, Apple is known for having a very tight signing window. As Apple seems to be signining the firmware, seize your chance to downgrade NOW. Legally.

You shouldn't have to go all the way back to 4.1 try 4.3.5 -- 4.3.4 --4.3.3 -- all the way down to 4.3 until you find one that works for you.

Right now I have 4.2.1 on my iPad 1, and it works beautifully. I never upgraded to 4.3. Now I do not want to upgrade to 5 after reading about all the probelms.

However a lot of apps now require 4.3. Is there any way at this point to upgrade from 4.2.1 to 4.3 and leave it at that?

Yeah, I would definitely not upgrade to v5+ as it is sooo slow on the ipad 1, it's horrendous. Apple s-u-c-k-s in that respect. that's their way of pushing you to get a new one. Things like that make me wish I had an android.

Anyhow, so in terms of speed all 4.x versions are about the same. Now in order to updrade to 4.x.x you will have to follow the procedure that people use to downgrade to iOS versions without shsh blobs. Just look a couple of posts before this one and I've posted a youtube link to get you to the right direction. Make sure you save your shsh blob with tinyumbrella before upgrading.

I have had no perfomance problems with iOS 5.1 (or 5.0.1) on my iPad 1 and I'm using iCloud.

All the speculation about Apple pushing to make you update is just bunk. If you are having a performance problem it is related in some way to your unique environment. Most iPad 1 users have not had performance problems with iOS 5.

@JimHdk Yeah sure... everyone else is just crazy.

There's no environment whatsover.. even on a blank fully restored ipad with ios v.5.1 the difference in ibooks, safary and all the stock apps is huge.

"Yeah sure... everyone else is just crazy".

You have to realize that just because you and some others posting here are having performance problems does not mean that everyone is having problems. I and most other iPad 1 users have had none. Because of this there must be something unique to your iPad, the Apps you are using, or the environment you are running (WiFi network, ISP, etc.)

I know you are saying you are not suffering from such issues. However, I don't see how that justifies the fact that "most other iPad 1 users have had none [problems]". With nearly 132,000 views, and 300 + replies, this is a widely viewed issue on the Apple forums. If you do a simple google search, you will see many other forums reporting similar issues, such as Macrumors, Sinful iPhone, etc.

Understand that just because you don't have issues, doesn't mean that the rest of the population doesn't. This works vice versa as well, in all fairness.

As a developer, my personal testing reveals that iOS 5 yields a much heavier RAM footprint than previous OS's. With merely 256 mb of ram, the iPad at times is only left with about 60-70mb of RAM for multitasking. For many users, this is not enough, which will make the iPad prone to slowdowns. However, the "casual" user might not face such issues, as he/she might not multitask as much as the "power" user.

Apple sells products to a wide variety of consumers, who all have different needs. Therefore, a variety of consumer-specific issues will arrise as well. And we must all be ready to accomodate these problems, and try as much as possible to help.

Thanks

tpulak

@tpulak Great post, and what you say is very very true. However, since the slowdown is just a FACT and not speculation, I refuse to believe that there are users that don't experience the slow down like @JimHdk says. What I do believe, is that there are users that they don't notice or don't care for the difference. The reason, as I said even with a factory reset, empty ipad with iOS 5+ the difference in safari is huge!! Just try to open safari, type a few things in the address, browse a little bit and do the same with an ipad with version >5. The difference is tremendous!! The onscreen keyboard lags on iOS 5, the apps don't come back on instantly and there are noticable slow-downs that don't depent on multitasking, or "certain" peculiar apps. So I am not even going there!

Now if I do talk about apps, the whole thing gets even worse. For example I don't know if anyone is familiar with the app The Early Edition v2. That app clearly is designed for ipad v2 and higher. It takes AGES to start and if even with one or two apps in the background, animations stutter and it's just unusable. Anyhow, I don't want to get into specific app details because I want to make an argument that the slow down is prominent and something general and not related to specific apps.

I thought that all the crashing of apps on my 1st gen 5.0.1 iPad was purely a memory problem, but it seems like it a problem with some apps..such as Facebook. I picked up a 3rd gen iPad and it crashes on that too. 😟

I'm actually learning to live with the problems my 1st gen iPad has running iOS 5.0.1, but it's difficult giving it to people and telling them they have to be careful about how many pages they open or it will crash.

"it's difficult giving it to people and telling them they have to be careful about how many pages they open or it will crash." exactly!
That's why I downgraded my mum's ipad to v4.3 and put my mind at easy. No need crashes whatsoever!

Well, keep in mind, the facebook app is notorious for crashes, and it a buggy app. It crashes and lags real badly on my iPhone 4! And this is a device with 512 mb of ram 🙂

The iPad 1 is more memory contrained, just like the 3GS and the iPod Touch 4th gen are. They all have 256 mb of ram. 3GS fares well in this scenario, because it renders a fraction of the pixels either of the other 2 devices have to render, relating to less RAM usage. In my tests, the 3GS has about 140 mb of RAM on bootup. However, a 3GS running on iOS 4.1 has nearly 175 mb of RAM on bootup. Looking at this alone, iOS 5 takes at least 35-40 mb of RAM more than iOS 4.

Since iPad 1 running iOS 4 had about 100 mb of RAM free, iOS 5 gave it even less breathing space to about 60-70 mb as I stated previously. iPod Touch 4th gen owners are also facing similar RAM issues.

I am really seeing here that Apple needs to work on optimizing the OS for these RAM contrained devices, particularly iPad 1, and iPod Touch 4th gen. But, for those who are more patient, for the most part in my experience, clearing out the app switcher by double clicking the home button is the most effective way to keep RAM as free as possible, to avoid slowdowns when RAM reaches a real low point.

I still have apple care for my iPad 1 and I am currently on my third iPad 64GB wifi. Every time I take it into the Genius Bar they take it to the back to see OZ then they bring me a new one with the same song and dance each time. "Sir it seems you had some bad memory so here is a new one" to which I respond "see you in two weeks". Tired of wasting gas I am now in talks with the engineering department at Apple and I am waiting there response to all my crash reports and diagnostics. I will keep you all posted on there great answer to the problem.

I upgraded to 5.1 IOS on my iPad 1 and it is running better. System speeds up.