safari iOS 8.1 freeze and slow

Apple have released an upgrade that has messed up my enjoyment of the ipad...it is slow, unresponsive, it take ages to respond. I am very unimpressed with Apple.....they have launched this delayed response via this upgrade. Not very professional. Upgrades are meant to enhance, not delay.

Just some final thoughts from my side on this and a troubleshooting approach, albeit without any guarantee that it might work for everyone:

The initial upgrade of my iPad 3 Cellular/WiFi was to iOS 8.0.2 - after that it had turned into an unusable piece of junk. iOS 8.1 improved things a little bit, but just very little. Issues with Safari, content not syncing between iTunes on my laptop and movies not playing back on the iPad. All these iOS updates had been done without iTunes directly through WiFi. I even reset the device to its factory settings (on the iPad itself) but not seeing any noticeable improvements I restored from an iTunes backup, which BTW didn't solve any of the issues. I was extremely ****** to the point tossing my iPad into the trashbin as one of its primary functions as my entertainment device when traveling was seriously crippled by the movie playback bug.

Then when trying to sync some movies from my laptop I noticed the restore button of iTunes and decided to have a go on it one more time. Interestingly enough iTunes downloaded the entire iOS 8.1 installation file again despite 8.1 already being installed on the iPad. Now that brought a real improvement. I carefully added app after app manually trying to determine whether there was a rotten app(le) among them causing compatibility or memory issues under iOS 8. No such thing; everything did at least work acceptably even though it couldn't hold a candle to the past glory of iOS 7.

Now the update to iOS 8.1.1 (directly on the iPad again) has partially broken things again. Safari is slow, unresponsive, crashes on multiple websites, arbitrarily reloads pages, copy and paste is clumsy and awkward. Overall the iPads performance is hampered by annoying micro-stutters. Did a few hard reboots to no avail but after multiple resets to factory settings I'm currently not in the mood to do that again already. The iPad is relegated to minor duties such as reading, watching (online) movies et al.

From this experience my advice would be the following for anyone still having issues under iOS 8.1.1:

1. Wipe the iPad to factory defaults using iTunes on a computer. It should bring the best performance possible. If it's still insufficient then I'm afraid there isn't much left that can be done. Apart from returning it if it should still be covered by warranty...

2. Carefully reinstall your apps one by one and verify that performance doesn't suffer. Uninstall any troublemakers.

3. Immediately back up your best working configuration to the iTunes host computer. It may be the quickest way to get back to a working device if things should go awry again (which I personally pretty much expect after having seen Apple's unbelievable bumbling and fumbling around iOS 8 and the latest iDevices).

4. Do not ever touch the "Software Update" of the iPad itself. Considering the various arbitrary and vastly different experiences of so many users of the same hardware this function seems to be seriously flawed under iOS 8 so far.

Some day I'll follow this approach and reset my iPad to whatever version of iOS available then and leave it as it is afterwards. I can live with the little notification bubble on my "Settings" icon like on my iPhone 4S (iOS 7.1.2 forever). But I doubt that the iPad's eventual successor will be adorned with the Apple logo...

Robert Martin 1 wrote:

Facebook is the problem. Delete it. Reboot. run it for a few minutes. Things get better. Repeat. Facebook is the culprit. Use Facebook on Safari until they get it fixed - if they do...

Bob

There has been a couple of other threads where the WSJ app was causing severe problems like this, too, and users here found out that deleting the app made their iPads run normally again! I don't know if the WSJ app has been fixed now or not ... but apps which are not designed well enough and/or have severe problems in their programming CAN very well cause problems for everything else on the iPad!

All that doesn't change the fact that Apple screwed up badly on the delivery of iOS 8 - a solidly programmed software update should at least yield comparable results; regardless of the way it has been installed. A certain small margin of errors and failures is to be expected but not to the extent as it has apparently happened with iOS 8. The inconsistent performance of older - and also some newer iDevices such as the iPad Air 2 - under iOS 8 indicates serious quality assurance issues. I'm through several major and minor iOS updates by now, but never had to restore my devices completely as with iOS 8; fifth factory reset and counting on the iPad 3 currently. This iOS 8 disaster is yet unparalleled and has utterly destroyed my confidence in Apple's iOS software engineers.

If Apple should ever look into a similar product as Microsoft's Surface 3 - i.e. a tablet running full-fledged OS X - I may consider buying this one. But other than that I had it with iDevices. As I'm using Windows machines at work I'm still proficient in that OS and toying around with a Surface Pro 3 just recently left me, well, pretty impressed. A tablet with a serious OS. Could be my next tablet...

Tomskyair wrote:

... a tablet running full-fledged OS X - I may consider buying this one.

You won't be getting the iPad to run the desktop system, OS X. You're talking ... here ... about segmented product lines and touch screens versus track pad and mouse. You've got your desktops, your laptops and then your iPads. They are segmented product lines, that Apple is not going to "confuse" by having one product line slide over into the other product line's territory. The iPad is just a completely different animal than the desktop/laptop lines.

Apple invented this present iOS touch interface system for these iPhones, iPods and iPads. It's a completely different market.

NOW ... if you want something very close to what you're saying and light and small, with a flash drive ... AND ... the OS X too (with full-fledged application software) ... I would say the MacBook Air would do it!

If your attitude regarding the "different product lines" should represent a larger part of Apple's thinking as you describe it I see trouble ahead for the former innovator. I had a MacBook Air and eventually dumped it for my current MB 13 Retina for the display of the latter. The Air was a great machine in its own right but nowhere a tablet replacement. And if Microsoft can make their Windows run a tablet with touchscreen, digitizer, optional mouse and keyboard alike I don't see why Apple couldn't do an OS X powered tablet unless they absolutely don't want to. I for my part would happily pay 1000 $ for an OS X tablet because it could run my photography software, connect to cameras and external storage devices, give me direct HDMI out and so on (and I think there would be many more but just me). All these things on the iPad/iOS are just unusable crap and make it look like a puny toy.

Despite the rough start Microsoft had with Windows 8 I currently see them on a better way unifying their OS for all kind of devices (apart from phones) rather than trying to forcibly merge two vastly different OS into an unhappy marriage like Apple does: OS X getting dumbed down - aka "iOSed" - more and more while trying to tie iOS ever more exclusively to OS X. Apple has already lost a significant market share to the competition and I fail to see how this approach may turn the tide. Seasoned OS X users are increasingly apalled by the "pseudo-iOS" OS X started to turn into and potential phone buyers without a Mac at home might shun Apple's tablets and phones when discovering that most of the "cool features" don't work with their Windows machines.

I never really liked iOS's "walled garden" philosophy too much but accepted its limitations in return for its easy maintenance and upkeep. iOS 8 has changed that thoroughly. No more reason to pay premium when performance has gone down the drain completely. Sorry Apple, seems like you are stuck in the past way too much. Time to wake up and start innovating again. And by that I don't mean buying even more electronic lifestyle gadget makers.

I believe that it is third party apps. I KNOW Facebook is problematic. It causes the copy and paste problems in low memory machines. It exacrebates performance issues. I don't think it manages memory properly or legally. It's been proven to cause these issues. And almost everyone has the app.

My Mini 1st gen is actually doing very well after a complete scrub and cloud restore, running without Facebook, and installing the 8.1.1 update - doing the system updates through iTunes and the data restore from the Cloud. I still have a few Safari page crashes - some right here in the Apple Jive forums, in fact. But nowhere near as bad as it was.

SO, sure, iOS 8.1.1 (or any variations) shows up the problems with poor code in third party apps, but right now, if you are running a clean, new system without any of the offending apps, it seems that things re working well for most. Double check to make sure you are, if you are interested in an iPad that runs fairly fast and smooth.

at least, that has been my unilateral personal experience.

Bob

But still one would think that Apple's software engineers should have been able to determine the Facebook app's rogue behavior during evaluation. Some obscure app with close to no distribution - OK, but Facebook?! C'mon, not seriously. My confidence in Apple's competence keeps waning at a rapid pace...

BTW: I never had Facebook but serious issues anyway.

I understand what you are saying about Facebook app and its popularity. But in all fairness, SHOULD the onus be on Apple to make sure that everyone who develops apps is doing it 100% properly? Perhaps, as they offer them from the app store exclusively it's up to them to 100% vet them? I dunno. I guess I should read the entire 1.2 million page user agreement. It's probably in there somewhere... ;-)

All I am saying is that unless you have a hardware issue, I believe that if you go back to clean install - ie: setting your Pad up from scratch with 8.1.1 and no third party apps, it will be very close to iOS 7 in its operation. That has been my experience on several machines from this vintage.

Adding the apps back in can tell you when you experience system degradation.

Apple is not purposely trying to retire anything. When they don't want to support old product anymore, they simply don't support them. My iPod has not had an OS update since OS2 or whatever the last OS is that supported iPods. It was before iPhone, I know that.

So, end of life is not what is happening here. I really believe it is third party apps causing the problems. That is why the reactions to the upgrade are so drastically different. Indeed, they were drastically different on my very own iPad Mini. Once I found the Facebook App problem, things got better immediately.

For folks having issues, I suggest you go through the slog of reinstalling your system from scratch, through iTunes, setting your iPad up as a new device. Before you do that, back up to the cloud. Once you have it running as a new device, put it through its paces before you restore your data. See if it isn't working better. My experience says it will. Then restore your data, or add your apps one at a time from the app store to be REALLY safe. I am willing to bet you find it's a much better world on the other side. If not, you've lost an hour of your life or so - much less than the cumulative, frustrating time you'll spend trying to use it while it is crippled.

And again, sorry for sounding like a broken record. I write all this because I DID escalate it in The Lounge (where you have direct access to experts and posts get read by the hosts of this fine forum, but can't get there until you are level 6 at 8,000 points). It seems those with continued problems are definitely FAR in the minority. So, I am just trying to help. If you'd prefer I don't, just tell me and I'll shut up.

Thanks,
Bob

I Still have problems on all my 8.1.1 devices after multiple factory resets. Clumsy, clunky, laggy, freezing, buttons unrespponsive etc etc. i dont use facebook bbut any os that allows an app to cripple the entire device has a basic design flaw.

Robert, while iOS8.1.1 has indeed brought my iPhone 6 back to near normal, almost bug-free operation, and (finally, a month later after iOS8) brought my iPad 2 back to "usable, but nothing to brag about") I'm still steamed about this entire experience and particularly Apple's stonewalling of the situation. VERY unprofessional. Totally indefensible, though you and others have tried mightily.

The fact is that if Microsoft Windows 8 had forced its users to go through the same set of convoluted remedial instructions(Reset, Restore, add back all your apps one by one, reload missing files and photos from backups, etc., etc.) every one of you defenders of Apple would be scoffing and LOL-ing at how dumb Microsoft was and what an evil empire it is. But you know what?...I installed both Windows 8 and 8.1 without having to do ANY of the things I had to do with iOS 8 thru 8.1.1...and ALL of my apps run just fine...AND they run at least as fast and smooth, if not better.

And while my iPad 2 is now usable, when it comes time to replace it, I'm going to take a serious look at Surface Pro 3...because I know that "it just works."

Sturges, so just to get things straight, your problems are directly traceable to a WiFi or service provider issue? When you are not connected, or connected to another provider, your pad runs fine? Mine had not thing to do with WiFi, so I am trying to get a bead on the scope and number of issues all being lumped into one category here.

Thanks,

Bob

This is the kind of silly response I used to associate with MSFT in the bad old days. It is not how Apple built its successful brand. This is a big problem getting bigger for Apple and it cries out for fast, top of the pyramid response. Jobs would have slit throats over something like this.

Sturges: "Our iPad is now virtually useless. It crashes, freezes, fails to recognize its password and (when running) runs slowly. On other wifi connections it functions perfectly (Centurylink for example)."

Sorry, I am not sure what was silly about my response based on what you typed. I, like you, am trying to solve a problem. I don't work for Apple, but do own some of their stock as well as an ad agency that's had hundreds of Apple products over the years. So - I have a vested interest in this. Calling it a silly response when I am simply asking about something you typed is a tad rude.

So, is what you typed above accurate or not? If not, what were you getting at?

Thanks,

Bob