Q: Ipad really slow after update to iOS 9

My ipad2 has been struggling since iOS 8. iOS 9 did not came with performance improvements for me at all, in fact it came with stability issues. iOS 9.1 is little better but the amount of crashes is still a lot.

Responding to this tread is just barely possible on the ipad2. If I open another tab or accidentally hit the home button? It's over. Time to start again. I did restarts and restores via iTunes, I have the reduced motion on for quite some time now and disabled background refresh. Same with spotlight. I even changed the background lol.

It's still slow and unstable and I only use my iPad 2 for the most basis tasks, witch apparently it can't even do that anymore.

And yes I know.. whining and complaining does not do anything but it used to be such a nice device to use. Same story with my fathers iPad but he does not know this forum. I am going to wait for yet another update, but I am doing that since the introduction of iOS 8.

If you use iTunes, at least, try my restore procedure.

At the very least, you will see some improvement and you will gain some free storage space back.

Good Luck!

Thank you for trying to help me.

A few questions to be sure:

''First, connect your iPad to USB and sync and backup your iPad to iTunes (make sure your iTunes is up to date).

Then disconnect/eject your iPad from the computer.''

Is it useful to backup my iPad? I only got one app (dolphin browser) and no other files like photo's. There is nothing to lose for me. however I am going to make the backup as you suggested.

''From just the iPad, in the Settings App under the General setting, look in the right column for Reset option, then erase and reset your iPad to completely erase your iPad and then, again, from the iPad, set it up as a new iPad setup to factory "out of the box" operation.''

So set up the iPad as a new device like one would without a computer? (In my previous post I said restore, but I meant set up as a new device.)

''Then reconnect your iPad to the computer and make sure to cancel the syncing, by tapping the small X to the left in the top  center iTunes display box.''

So I reconnect my iPad again before configuring it right? In iTunes you can prevent to atomaticly sync devices in the settings btw . So now I restore my backup, and finish the configuration. After that I am going to reset my iPad and perform the usual tricks again (turning on Reduced Motion etc)

I honesty don't see the point in all this because I did similar things before, but I am going to give this one last try, because this is now becoming much more work than the old windows days.

I really don't know why I continue to post on apple forums at all but here I go:

To make it clear: IOS8 and IOS9 are both noticeable slower than IOS7. Following MichelPM advices to disable any unnecessary services and visual effects helps making the ipad a bit quicker again. Howevever, performance won't be near IOS7 or IOS6 level.

Right now there is no way going back from 9.1 to any older Version of IOS. However, there is a method to go back from 9.0x to IOS6 for ipad 2 and some other old devices (not mini as far as I know) under certain circumstances.

When I was using IOS7 I already had everything setup as MichelPM suggests and I can say that IOS9 is terrible. It feels like my ipad mini has lost 30-50% of its original performance running IOS7. And after using IOS9 for a couple of days so far I can also state that safari crashes way more often than before the update to IOS9. Only battery live seems the same. Overall updating to IOS9 was a decision I deeply regret and I would go back to IOS7 immediately if I could.

Since Apple wants you to buy new ipads I strongly doubt any future update will change those performance issues. Maybe the keyboard lag, at least I hope so.

Apple and some other people may argue that since the ipad 2 and mini are such old devices they naturally get slower with new updates. But considering what little benefits IOS8 and IOS9 bring to those devices, there is no excuse for the loss of perfomance in the wake of updates. That is why many people and I feel cheated by Apple. Of course security updates are important and it's nice getting updates at all but they should not slow down your device.

I confirm and stand by that which was said.

Alrighty then...

I am replying to report, yet, ANOTHER family member's successful iPad 2 upgrade from iOS 8 to iOS 9.1.

The two other iPad 2s I upgraded were previously running iOS 7.1.2.

This makes three iPad 2 models, my own iPad 3 and a close friend's iPad 4.

ALL are running very well with iOS 9.1 folks.

This makes my success rate 5 for 5 everyone!

ALL upgraded, initially, through the computer and iTunes. NO Over The Air WiFi downloads and upgrading/updating.

I do not know how everyone posting here did their initial Pad 2 upgrades/updates, but clearly I am doing something properly that no one else is doing.

Apple is not forcing me or my family and family members or my friends to chuck their iPad 2, 3 or 4  models for a new iPad purchase!

Every one I helped or actually did the iOS 9 upgrade for has had NO major performance issues and these older iPads ARE running almost like they were new right "out of the Apple iPad box"!

They are working real well.

I took over my wife's iPad 2 ( I am a proud owner of a new iPad Pro, but still want to use our older iPads to travel with) and it's running very well and my Wife has taken over my iPad 3 and it's running better than when I had it and she hasn't complained once about issues with iOS 9!

I am at a total loss to explain all of these iPad 2 issues,when I have NOT had any issues worth noting or posting here.

I really think it's the upgrading over Wifi that is THE REAL cause of all the iPad 2,3 and 4 major performance issues.

This is not a case of Apple releasing an iOS upgrade designed to purposely cripple older iPad models and get older customers to purchase new or "newer" hardware.

That is, definitely, not my experiences to date!

First of all, please do not compare ipad 2/mini with ipad 3 or even ipad 4. The latter sport double the amount of memory and different cpus than ipad 2/mini. I really don't know how you can be content with the performance of your ipad 2 on Ios9 but consider yourself lucky that you are.

In my experience installing the update through Itunes does not help performance at all.

Everyone has to decide for himself whether he wants to update or not. You can either listen to all the people who report about performance issues of ios9 in this forum (and all over the internet) or listen to one single guy who claims that there is no difference in performance between ios7 and ios9 on ipad 2. ;^)

edit: The only reason I can imagine why you might think that ios9 is as fast as IOS7 is that you had all those unnecessary services and visual effects enabled on IOS7. Whereas on IOS9 you disabled them which might make IOS9 as fast as IOS7 but only because you stripped IOS9 down a lot more than IOS7.

If you had used IOS7 with all your advices you could never argue in favour of IOS9.

Just spent some time today trying MichelPM suggestions. The first hour it seemed normal but then the browser crashed again. Everything is choppy again. It's borked for older devices I guess. (Apple is not doing this on purpose I am sure but they really need to step up their quality for old devices)

I am seeing the same reports on many english forums, dutch forums youtube comments and here so I am not alone. Maybe 9.2 will be beter but probably will break another thing.

Something to keep in mind if you buy a new iPad. Someday it will be old, and if the performance is bad apple wil not let you downgrade.

No.

SInce iOS 7, I had to turn down or off all of the motion graphics.

Neither the iPad 2, iPad 3 and iPad 4 models have powerful enough CPU or graphics power to handle those effects from the moment those effects were introduced.

I have even turned these effects off on my iPad Pro to keep it ss speedy as possible, but left the background app refresh active.

I am used to not having to deal with all of the fancy eye candy on my iPads.

I want optimal performance out of my iDevices, NOT cool and neat animated graphics that suck up CPU, graphics and RAM resources.

No.

SInce iOS 7, I had to turn down or off all of the motion graphics.

Neither the iPad 2, iPad 3 and iPad 4 models have powerful enough CPU or graphics power to handle those effects from the moment those effects were introduced.

I have even turned these effects off on my iPad Pro to keep it ss speedy as possible, but left the background app refresh active.

I am used to not having to deal with all of the fancy eye candy on my iPads.

I want optimal performance out of my iDevices, NOT cool and neat animated graphics that suck up CPU, graphics and RAM resources.

My iPad 2 and 3 ARE working much, MUCH better after I did the restore procedure I use.

i am NOT an exception to the cases posted here.

I am not upgrading "magic" iPad 2 models here in western, MA.

One iPad 2 was a 16 GB model. The other rwo were 64 GB models.

There is something, other the just iOS 9 itself, going on that is causing many to report serious issues to their iPad 2 models.

My postive experiences with older iPads and iOS 9 I am sure are NOT unique.

I have help many users reporting in here to get their iPad 2s back to near previous performance levels or, at the very least, back to a usuable and acceptable performance levels.

Many users have already thanked me (and I have NOT recieved any extra points, so,far) for returning their iPad 2s to their near former performance.

I am done with this, now.

I volunteer my valuable time tin these Apple Support forums to help troubleshoot and come up with solutions to help other Apple users get their Apple product issues straightened out and all through this process with this issue,  alll I get from many here is arguing, ridicule, insults, ranting and raving.

I have stayed persistent in my suggestions and assertions in that my list of possible fixes WILL help some iPad 2,3 or 4 users get their iPads back to good working order.

I haven't kept up these thread replies to argue and fight with users.

If nothing I have posted didn't work for some users, this DOES NOT mean it won't work for other iPad 2 users.

I don't have any other solutions, so I guess I will let what I have here stand and just wish everyone good luck!

Good Bye...

I really appreciate your help Michel, and I am not attacking you. And the ranting is not towards you, it's in general.

But no performance improvements on my, or my fathers iPad 2. It's insane that I have to, or should jump trough hoops just to achieve acceptable performance on a idevice. What if my computer breaks down? I am disappointed in my iPad. I know it's older but I only ask for decent operation.

Still happy with my old iMac tough.

Hi there. I've had the same problem with my iPad 2 - it was very sluggish and safari kept crashing. Turns out that it was the JavaScript that was causing the problem. I switched it off through Safari settings and it's now running perfect. However, you would not be able to watch videos such as YouTube but if you download its app the video works fine. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestion,

I Turned off javascript, but safari is still reloading tabs on me. It's still not possible to dissable javascript for 3d part browser. However, Safari did not crash yet.

I Have encountered the same issues. Even after a factory reset it was sluggish... But after running a few tests i noticed only Safari was slow,  so I downloaded Chrome and PROBLEM SOLVED! I can once again type fast and pages open/ close rapidly and it is once again fun to use my iPad mini.

cheers!

Here's another suggestion that will save you: Download a PC application that is called "PhoneClean". Note the basic version is free and you need a PC with iTunes, linked to your iOS device to use it. This application runs on your PC. It will go through a lot of junk that has accumulated in your iOS device, and delete anything that's safe to delete, especially old cache, failed downloads etc. Depending on how old your device is and how you have used it in the past, it may reclaim up to 5 GB of storage. Now the important part, is that by freeing this junk, you allow iOS 9.x to re-index contents on your device on a clean cache, rather than trying to do this in a space that had already been filled and cluttered by previous iOS versions. Once this is over you will see significant improvement in performance. I'm not aware of any other software that can do this, but if there exists one, please share.