How is iPad 2 performance using iOS 9.1?

I'd love to hear back from iPad 2 users on how 9.1 performs. I upgraded to 9, but I had a lot of problems with App crashing from Facebook to Safari to several different casual games that would crash after each level if not more often even after doing things like clearing cache, hard reset, and the whole reduce motion thing and such remaining off. I even deleted and reinstalled one of the apps to see if it would improve (it did not) so I downgraded back to 8.4.1. Since that's not an option anymore, I'm leery of getting stuck with 9.1 and crashing apps.

I'M very interested too. Since upgrading to 9 my wife's iPad 2 has become a real clunker. I've upgraded the patches each time thinking they would fix the performance issues and only got worse. Wishing I could go back to 8.

Try resetting All Settings found in the Settings App under General and in the right column under Reset.

Try resetting histories and deleting/resetting caches in all of the web browsers you use.

If you use Safari, these functions maybe l in the Settings App under Safari.

Other web browsers have their settings inside of the running app, itself.

Try turning on Reduced Motion.

This is found in the Settings App in the General tab the left panel.

In the right panel look under Accessibility, the look for Reduce Motion and turn this feature "On".

You should see an appreciable performance increase on all iPad 2, 3 and 4 models.

In the Settings App under the General Tab, in the right column, look for Background App Refresh and turn this setting to "off".

Try a hard reset of your iPad by holding down both the Home and sleep/wake buttons simultaneously until your iPad goes to black and restarts with Apple logo, then release the buttons.

Good Luck!

For those who already bit the bullet and got 9.0.x, going to 9.1 is definitely recommended since it eliminates many of the bugs and inefficiencies reported on the platform. It also appears to have a smaller footprint: on my iPad 4, I got more than 800MB back after the update.

Can't offer any recommendation for those who have older gear such as an iPad2 since I don't have one to test. It is a more complex system than 8 or 7 and under some configurations and workflows may prove to be a tad heavy for the hardware.

Well...my ipad2 seems to be on its last legs...at least I thought so after i upgraded to ISO 8 and then to IOS 9. But I just upgraded to IOS 9.1 and...we will see.

One issue that did get resolved was a back up to iCloud issue. When i upgraded to IOS 9.0.2, it would no longer back up iCloud. It seems to have solved the issue on iPhone 5S...waiting to see if it worked on the iPad2. So far no success...but will keep trying. It does seem that it needs to be connected to iTunes. Will update later. iPhone seems to be doing OK.

Do NOT update your devices to ios9, NEVER. Don't listen to anyone that says it's fast and smooth, that's just a lie. DO NOT UPDATE.

iPad is sluggish, unresponsive, animations are super slow and choppy.

DO NOT UPDATE, you've been warned.

Really???!!!....

Not every iPad 2 user in the world is having issues

Users of older iPads, who have upgraded to iOS 9 successfully, do not post to troubleshooting forums!

The amount of older iPad users having issues with the current iOS 9 upgrades/updates that DO post to these troubleshooting communities, represents a small percentage of the total iPad user base.

For iPad 2 users, that percentage is even small.

So far, in these forums, iPad 2 users reporting here with issues, maybe, less than 5000 postings and it maybe less than this as there are iPad 2 users with issues posting here more than once.

There are a lot more iPad 2 users than this worldwide!

All of the iPads I have updated, MINE included ARE running fine with nary an issue on iOS 9.1

I have upgraded/updated (2) iPad 2s ( my Wife's and my Mother's), my own iPad 3 and a close friend's iPad 4. All older iPad models.

They are all running iOS 9 without issues.

I wish I could figure out the commonality that is affecting iPad2 users reporting here with issues.

Many iPad users that have had major issues had done iOS 9 upgrades/updates over the air (OTA) using WiFi or Cell service.

I feel that this is an unreliable way to "properly" update/upgrade an iDevice and I much prefer the more reliable upgrading/updating with my iDevices connected to a computer synced to Apple iTunes and do all of my iDevice upgrades using that method, exclusively.

For some users that don't own a computer or don't have access to one, they may have no choice but to use the OTA method,

Transferring large amount of data, that some of these system upgrades/updates have, over WiFi can introduce data errors or corruption.

I trust Wifi for downloading apps and other daily mobile tasks, but NOT for upgrading mobile device OR computer operating systems.

Have you tried ANY or ALL of my suggested fixes?

Sure, following your lead we should all be happy using Windows '95! Why upgrade to Windows 10 at all?

I have been using both my iPhone 5S and iPad 2 and they are definitely doing MUCH better once i upgraded to IOS 9.1. I must admit I was not happy with 9.0.2 on my iPad2 but this latest update really helped.

if you are already on 9.0.2 go ahead to 9.1, way better

Great to learn!!!

🙂

In my experience I tried clearing the cache, resetting the settings and enabling motion limitation with some improvement, but still not where it was. Like it's running on 3 cylinders instead of 1.

So I'm still cautious about upgrading to 9.1 as ever since 8 came out every new update has promised lots but not delivered on the older systems. While the forums may not be full of iPad 2 complaints, there are enough of them for major sites like redmondpie and 9to5mac to report and address them. So I don't know where you're getting your figures from. Even if it were a relatively small percentage, such problems go against the typical Apple philosophy that software and hardware should "just work" together. The hardware should be standardized within generations, and if the software cripples that generation it shouldn't be released for it.

Unrealistic.

This is true for major OS X upgrades/updates, too! Not just on iOS and the mobile device community.

This happens EVERY SINGLE TIME A NEW OPERATING SYSYEM IS RELEASED!

Every single time...

Too many device models with a very large, diverse and individualistic user base with ALL sorts of software and apps installed on them.

Users have different apps and use their Apple devices and computers very differently.

Apple cannot account for every user contingency or configuration.

Apple is a brilliant company, but they simply cannot account for device configurations of tens of millions of users.

Plus, Apple doesn't make all of the apps that get installed on their devices that may or may not be causing some of these IOS issues on some iDevices.

AND, I am correct about these issues affecting a small minority of users.

The issues reported here ARE NOT RAMPANT across the entire worldwide iPad/iPod/iPhone user base.

Why do you think it is more??? It maybe more. I am making my evaluation of the issue from forum postings here, alone.

Even if it is more users having issues, affected users represent less than, say, 2-3% of the total currently installed user base.

Just because issues are happening to a small minority of users doesn't make this the fault of Apple or that Apple is forcing its older device user base to upgrade their devices and forcing users to spend their money on a new Apple device.

It is the way it is.

I also looked at several other Apple based forums. And I agree with you. It seems that some of the issues are not universal. Most people have good results. That said, the older devices do slow down and there were a couple of times that I thought my iPad2 was done for most tasks. But my general rule seems to be, in the case of major change (e.g, IOS 8 to 9) I wait until I have seen several articles saying it is OK. But in the end, I always update. Also, it seems that it takes the devices a day or so to "settle" and it makes a difference to update all apps as well.

As mentioned above, I am very happy to have moved to 9.1 from 9.0.2.

I know that Apple has it easier than google since they control both the hardware and software, which cuts down on the variety of devices that need to be worked with. I also know it's not realistic to expect to keep getting updates forever. I was actually surprised to see the iPad2 included in iOS9 - though honestly not sure that you really get to use the new features in iOS9 on one other than QuickType and improved battery life.

I just wish Apple would provide an option for users of the older hardware such as the iPad2 and iPhone 4S to downgrade back to 8.4.1 if things don't work out. While most folks probably don't have problems and just accept things like increased sluggishness as something that's going to happen over time to an old device, when I first upgrade to 9 I had a high degree of app crashing after trying the usual trouble shooting of clearing cache, reduced motion on (which it always has been on since it was introduced), hard reset, restore from backup and ensuring 20% free space (which seems pretty excessive on a 64GB device but I tried it). This was on apps that are theoretically optimized for iOS 9 (based on updates from the developer and given one of them was Safari). Granted one of the apps in question crashes 4-5 times on startup in 8.4.1 but it stable once it starts, but I had several others that seem to crash from low memory.

Just given what I've seen, I think it's safe to assume that, like my iPod touch 4th gen, the iPad 2 is now an unsupported legacy device, and I'm going to hope that I never have to do a factory restore which would force iOS 9 on me.