Will Apple ever fix the performance problems introduced in IOS 9? iOS 8 was much more responsive. IPAD gen 2 user. Else offer some significant buyback/upgrade deal.
I'm an iPad 2 owner and....well they are 5 year old devices. Even if they were a normal notebook or desktop computer a person would still be experiencing performance issues with 5 year old tech.
You will not get any kind of buyback or any other deal. The most Apple will do is offer to recycle your old iPad by giving you 10% of its value towards the purchase of a new one. your average electronics retailer will give better sales to be honest. Or you may get more simply selling your device and using the proceeds towards a newer one.
Yoou can send Apple feedback via the 'contact us' link on the lower right corner of this page, but honestly the most anyone may ever get is Apple choosing to make iOS updates optional for older devices. In their work flow people update and keep up to date. So that's how they set things up.
What exactly is slow about your iPad 2 on iOS 9?
How much free storage space is left on your iPad 2?
You should maintain a minimum of, at least 4 GBs of free storage space, or more.
Have you updated to the latest iOS 9.3.1?
My iPad 2 is running just fine on iOS 9.3.1
What are your issues?
Telling us your iPad is slow with no other details doesn't help us to help you.
A disclaimer.
I make no guarantees, expressed or implied, that any of my own procedures will return EVERY older iPad to a usable, running condition.
Try all of the following:
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 in the Settings App under Safari.
Other web browsers have their settings inside of the running app, itself.
If your iPad has been activated for iCloud, in the Settings App under iCloud, to the right, under iCloud Drive, tap iCloud Drive and make sure Safari is turned off for saving Safari data to iCloud Drive.
Also, under iCloud in the Settings App, in iCloud Drive, disable the saving feature for any other apps that you DO NOT want data being saved automatically to iCloud Drive.
OR turn off/disable iCloud and iCloud drive entirely if you do not use any iCloud functionality.
If using Safari is still causing issues,
Try changing/using another, different third party web browser.
I don't use iOS Safari too much any longer because I found it causing me some headaches on certain websites I, regularly, visit.
I commonly use another third party web browser, Perfect Web Browser (there are others that may suit your web browsing style better, so look at all of them first to see which third party browser may work better for you) and I never experience a lot of the issues that Safari was causing.
In Settings app, under the Safari settings panel, tap the panel and in the right hand window, turn off/disable Safari Suggestions.
In Settings App, under the General settings panel, tap the panel, in the right hand column, tap Spotlight, then turn off/disable Siri Suggestions.
In the Settings App under the General tab, to the right under Spotlight search, try disabling the search under apps that really do not need a search, like some games, remotes, apps that really do not need to be searched, etc., to reduce the list for Spotlight to search.
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".
Make sure you do not have a lot of apps running in the background in the iOS App Switcher.
Dbl click the Home button to check this.
If you have a lot of apps still active, tap and hold a finger on one of the apps and slide your finger up to quit the app.
If you can reach another app with another finger, you can quit more than one app simultaneously.
If you have the iOS Mail app set to automatically fetch mail at one of the default fetch time intervals, in the Settings App, under the Mail, Contacts, Calendar settings panel, tap this panel, in the righthand window, turn off/disable Push Mail and set fetching mail for either every hour or set for manual fetch only for all of your mail accounts.
If you are willing to do this (I, personally, wouldn't recommend this), some users have reported that turning off Find My Phone/iPad, in Settings App under iCloud, has improved iOS performance, although I don't how this feature could be causing such a performance slowdown, unless its a bug in iOS that is only affecting some iPad users.
Try another 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!
If not all of my suggested fixes or possible solutions have completely returned your iPad to acceptable, normal or improved performance,.
Here is my own modified backup/restore procedure that has already worked, successfully, for several iPad 2/3 users, so far!
I have done this and my iPad 2 and 3 are working like new, " out of the box" units!
THIS PROCEDURE DOES NOT RETURN YOUR iPAD TO ITS PREVIOUS iOS VERSION.
Also, as a disclaimer.
I make no guarantees, expressed or implied, that any of my own procedures will return EVERY older iPad to a usable, running condition.
First, connect your iPad to USB and sync and backup your iPad to iTunes (make sure,FIRST, your iTunes is up to the most latest version).
Then disconnect/eject your iPad from the computer.
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.
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.
iTunes should detect your iPad. If iTunes begins to try and sync, again, cancel the sync.
Select Restore from Backup instead and pick your last backup to restore back to your iPad.
Once the restore is complete, finish setting up the iPad and let it sync back to iTunes you can either cancel the sync, again or let it backup, again.
Then disconnect the iPad.
Do one 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.
Once your iPad is back to the Home screen,
In the Settings App under the General tab, to the right under Spotlight sesrch, try disabling the search under apps that really do not need a search, like some games, remotes, apps that really do not need to be searched, etc., to reduce the list for Spotlight to search.
In Settings app, under the Safari settings panel, tap the panel and in the right hand window, turn off/disable Safari Suggestions.
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.
If you have the iOS Mail app set to automatically fetch mail at one of the default fetch time intervals, in the Settings App, under the Mail, Contacts, Calendar settings panel, tap this panel, in the righthand window, turn off/disable Push Mail and set fetching mail for either every hour or set for manual fetch only for all of your mail accounts.
In the Settings App under the General Tab, in the right column, look for Background App Refresh and turn this setting to "off".
If you purchased any music from iTunes, you will need to redownload that content back to your iPad for playing directly from your iPad and not from Apple Music servers.
Also, if your iPad contained a lot of images in the Photos app, these will take time to regenerate the original AND thumbnail images themselves inside of the Photos app when you first launch it.
Good Luck!
I, too. have a very slow IPad 2! The issue started once I purchased my Mac (which I love) AND my IPhone. Love Apple so I am going to use your instructions in hopes that I will have the IPad back in faster mode. I have 46 GB of storage remaining so that can't be the issue. Thanks for your advice and I will let you know if and when I work on it.
Liz
Because Apple does not support downgrading, I expect workable performance on my ipad 2.
It's far from workable. I can't even browse the web with two tabs open without the safari browser dumping and reloading the page. This is happening since iOS 9 and I am talking about:
- a clean install (factory settings) Did it multiple times, OTA and itunes (Including ''weird'' workaround suggested on this forum by a multiple point user)
- 0 third party apps
- 0 files
- Every function turned off that could reduce performance.
And after all this the same result every time. And trying third party browsers like Dolphin show the same behavior. (webkit?)
Older netbooks with less ram and bloated windows, outperforms my ipad 2 by a big margin. I have tried it all. Please do not insult me by pretending the ipad 2 is as usable as it was on iOS 7. This is happening on all three ipad 2's in my house, and the ipad of my neighbor. It seems the ipad is a disposable device thus not very ''green''.
@MichelPM states >> My iPad 2 is running just fine on iOS 9.3.1
Your request for a detailed writeup of my specific performance issues is fair enough I suppose, but it has been a well known issue for quite some time that iOS 9 regressed performance for owners of older Apple devices. And even after applying all of the "N tips to improve performance after upgrating to iOS 9..." suggestions which are all over the internet, iOS 9 still performs like a pig on older devices, even with the latest patch release. I will go over your replies and suggestions in detail and see if they include anything new and untried and post a follow-up reply.
@Skydiver119, I don't think saying it is 5 year old tech so what do I expect is a strong argument. My car is 5 years old (actually 7) and it still performs wonderfully. The dealer or service stations did not apply some governing limit during any of my tune-ups or oil changes or any of my maintenance that suddently caused the car to perform slower. I get that some apps require updating and perhaps aren't as performant. But for the very apps that were running one night to suddenly all become sluggish the next day, after Apple's clever iOS update prompts, and overnight update with no road back, is inexcusable. It's as if they intentionally said "let's annoy the **** out of any customers owning old tech" and force them to buy new stuff. And it's not like I have just the one Apple device to which I'm clinging. We have more recent phones. But I don't expect or appreciate Apple trying to force my buying timeline. And I could cite televisions, stereo equipment, and all sorts of items that we still expect to last a while, even in this stupid disposable landfill ocean garbage world. It did not degrade over time. Apple intentionally decided to do this. And it *****.
Maciosinteller wrote:
Because Apple does not support downgrading, I expect workable performance on my ipad 2.
It's far from workable. I can't even browse the web with two tabs open without the safari browser dumping and reloading the page. This is happening since iOS 9 and I am talking about:
- a clean install (factory settings) Did it multiple times, OTA and itunes (Including ''weird'' workaround suggested on this forum by a multiple point user)
- 0 third party apps
- 0 files
- Every function turned off that could reduce performance.
And after all this the same result every time. And trying third party browsers like Dolphin show the same behavior. (webkit?)
Older netbooks with less ram and bloated windows, outperforms my ipad 2 by a big margin. I have tried it all. Please do not insult me by pretending the ipad 2 is as usable as it was on iOS 7. This is happening on all three ipad 2's in my house, and the ipad of my neighbor. It seems the ipad is a disposable device thus not very ''green''.
Really,
Well,
I can give you the opposite scenario, myself.
I have updated four of my families' iPad 2s, with my own iPad 2, also.
As well as as my wife's iPad 3 and my friend's iPad 4 and every sinlge one of them is running iOS 9.3.1 just fine with no real issues!
I run the iCab web browser on all my iPad models.
I have 4 or 5 tabs open in iCab when browsing and it crashes very rarely.
I supply some proof in the form of these YouTube video comparions.
http://youtu.be/J5LwMePMCIQ
http://youtu.be/bF3ORjPYCxE
My iPad 2 64 GB storage model is even running better than the one's in these videos becuase I have turned off my resource hogging proceeses like all of the motion graphics eye candy, I minimise Spotlight searches to apps that actually can be searched, turn background app updating and manually fetch my emails manually, etc.
How much free data space is left on these iPad 2s?
Do you have a lot of background apps running in the App Switcher?
Have you tried any or all of my above advice.
Have you, at least, tried turning off Safari suggestions?
My restore process is different from Apple's recommended restore procedures.
You could try running my restore procedures to see if it makes a difference in your iPad 2's performance or not.
Good Luck
Uh,
ALL and I MEAN all of the iPad 2 models I have personally upgraded/updated are all running very well on iOS 9!
See my above YouTube video links to the previous reply post.
My iPad 2 runs just fine and dandy on iOS 9 and runs even better than those in the YouTube video links I just posted for the reasons I just posted.
Not every single iPad 2 in the entire world is having issues with iOS 9.
It is probably, most likely, a small percentage, but still large enough amount of users having issues with their iPad 2 models, as well as, older iPad 3 and 4 users.
It is not every single iPad 2 in existence having grave performance issues running on iOS 9,
>>What exactly is slow about your iPad 2 on iOS 9?
Well everything. Fundamentally any OS action or transition between apps, such as multi-touch swipes, double-clicking the start button, swiping up, swiping down. I disabled all the new transparency transition features and still it is sluggish. Every app presents a white screen for many annoying seconds as it starts up (as if the OS is thinking about whether to let me proceed).
>>How much free storage space is left on your iPad 2?
>>You should maintain a minimum of, at least 4 GBs of free storage space, or more.
It is a 64GB model (MC775LL/A) with 17.6 GB available.
>>Have you updated to the latest iOS 9.3.1?
Yes
>> My iPad 2 is running just fine on iOS 9.3.1
“just fine” is in the eye of the beholder. I wish there were an unbiased third party usability test (like the interne speed tests) that we could run to just show how bad things changed with IOS9.
>>What are your issues? Telling us your iPad is slow with no other details doesn't help us to help you.
I described some symptoms above. I believe it to be OS level transitions that are significantly slower on the order of many seconds, vs unobservable milliseconds in IOS 8. If you Google “IOS 9 performance” you’ll get 42 million hits, the first one ironically being a class action lawsuit against Apple for doing this to us.
I’m going to go through your list of suggestions now, but figured it warranted another quick reply first since you are seem to be in denial of this issue. If you have actually solved it for the world, and it was just dumb user-error on our parts, I apologize, and will make sure I read one of the many news articles that must be out there (within the 42 million hits on this issue) praising you.
I am not going to start, YET, another 10-15 page post arguing about every single new update crippling older iPads, making them obsolete, Apple forcing users to buy new iPads/iDevices, etc.
These are circular arguments that seem to never convince those whose Apple devices have stop working or stop performing as they should be.
I am not going there for the fourth of fifth time here.
Many, MANY iPad 2 users have gotten back useable or better performance back to their iPad 2 models following my two procedures postings.
If you think Apple is '"out to get your money" by forcing you to upgrade 4-5 year old hardware, then just dump Apple and purchase some other maker's mobile tablet device and see if any of you fare any better or worse with some other device.
I am done with another whine, rant and complain post!
I am done trying to convince users with problems with their older iPads with newer OS versions is not a widespread issue or Apple "Conspiracy".
Get rid of ALL your Apple devices for all I care and try some other tablet and go complain on their forums when their tablet device and its OS fail to live up to your expectations!
Good luck with your next tablet purchases, peoples!
All of my older and newer iPads are just running fine and great with the current iOS update!
That's all I really care about!
I am done and OUT!
I am hesitant to try Reset All Settings until I research what exactly it does and the impact that will cause me in having to re-enter them all. I don’t necessarily want to reset and start over, but am seriously considering it, if I could read anywhere that it resolves the iOS 9 issue.
There were a few Spotlight Search apps enabled. I disabled them along with all the others, the majority of which were already disabled. There was no entry for Siri Suggestions there however, perhaps because it is an iPad 2.
Find my iPhone is enabled as it is an important use case for me for knowing where the family members are. I agree with you that it should not present an OS level performance problem, since it updates only when it is opened, and not continually in the background. In any case, after I use it, I remove it from the open apps.
The rest of your suggestions I already had in place, or part of my usual behavior (not too many apps open at once, etc).
Thanks for posting them. I'm moving on to your next post now...
@MichelPM, I'm sorry you've had to defend Apple so many times on this issue. This may be my first time here to these forums. So I'm not really that familiar with your past multi-page posts (perhaps I'll go read them). Of course my one experience with my iPad2/iOS9 does not represent everyone's experience, the same as your small amount of experiences with your family's iPad2 devices does not represent the many customers experiencing the problems. I read your further suggestions above and there was nothing you describe that I didn't already have set (from having already read many internet lists on the subject) or hadn't tried, with the exception of perhaps resetting the whole device, which based on others' replies and experiences, doesn't solve the sluggishness either. I viewed those youtube vids (your links did not work, but copy/paste did) and it seemed like one actually demonstrated some of the sluggishness problem. But again, I wouldn't make any generalizations based on one or two youtube vids. I'm sure there are others out there showing the exact opposite. Generalizations cannot be made by one or two experiences. Yet it is a story. My concern is that application of all of the remedies does not solve the issue for the majority of people, it only slightly lessens the new delays. I'm going to monitor my experiences for the next week and see if useability and my user experience is improved as a result of going over them again, and disabling those few spotlight search apps that were enabled (but they were for apps I have not recently used). I appreciate the effort and responses with advice you posted. I'm not sure if you are a moderator or something on this forum, so I don't know why you take umbrage from someone who just followed a link on the patch to try and find some detail, and landed here, and posted my questions. I feel they are legitimate. I am not accusing Apple of any conspiracy. I think they just made a business decision based on data provided by their own QA engineering. I doubt they released iOS9 without regression testing on supported platforms. I just wish I had been made aware of the regressions, and had a choice in staying on the previous code. I was happily led down the path of upgrades over the years with no such regression, and like many, was very very surprised to find out there is no easy way back. Not sure why you're taking it so personally and need to get all exasperated. If all that matters to you is yourself and your family's devices (and actually there's nothing wrong with that) and things are fine there, and you're out, so be it. But please don't try to speak for me or all the customers or try to browbeat us.
Will Apple ever fix the performance problems introduced in IOS 9? iOS 8 was much more responsive. IPAD gen 2 user. Else offer some significant buyback/upgrade deal.
