I have mentioned before that poor Mrs SR inherited my old iPad 2. She doesn’t use it for much except browsing; she has downloaded no additional apps whatsoever, and the device contains no photos or anything.

In light of this, why is it behaving so painfully slowly when in Safari?

She has a hard time even scrolling without it freezing, or going blank and saying that ‘the page is unavailable’.

I have asked before if it was time for a new one, and some of you on here suggested that, considering how little it is used, it should still be fine.

So any suggestions?

IOS updates will gradually kill older devices. They do it on purpose… Makes you buy a shiny new one….

I stop the updates if I have a device more than a year old.

As above the updates nail them, Apple nerds will deny this but I’ve stopped updating my devices.

Is this a problem on android as whilst I like Apple software I’m not a fanboi.

I’ve just updated my Samsung S7 and it’s now going faster lol

Is this a problem on android as whilst I like Apple software I’m not a fanboi.

This isn’t a yes / no answer due to the heterogeneous nature of Android devices. It can often be an improvement, but I’ve had at least one device rendered useless with an OS update too (2012 Nexus 7). It depends on the individual device and OS version, though many devices can live on through custom ROMs from the likes of Cyanogen.

I have just given up on my iPad 2 for that reason…
An now has the latest basic one … which is miles quicker …

IOS updates will gradually kill older devices. They do it on purpose… Makes you buy a shiny new one….

I stop the updates if I have a device more than a year old.

What he said,

I did a reinstall of Snow Leopard on a 2008 Mac Book and it runs faster than much newer Macbook air struggling to cope with Mavericks.

I hate Apple with a passion, but I’m so entrenched in using them for the last 30 years I can’t think of using anything else :-/

Yep, my 2 has done this. Its now relegated to 2 tasks, YouTube vids and occasions note taking in meetings. It’s still dog slow but for those tasks I don’t care.

Is there anyway to go back to an earlier ios update?.

Is there anyway to go back to an earlier ios update?.

Not in a ‘legit’ sense no there isn’t.

And in non legit?

You have to to locate a Firmware update SHSH file that creates a manual time signature for your phone that sort of suggests it’s older than it is if that makes sense then you can use a backup locally to say IOS 7

IOS updates will gradually kill older devices. They do it on purpose… Makes you buy a shiny new one….

I stop the updates if I have a device more than a year old.
Bollocks. OS updates are designed to work with improvements in hardware performance, the processor and increased memory, this is true of all computing devices, and sooner or later the lack of RAM and the slower processor performance will be unable to cope with the demands placed on them by the needs of the OS; common sense ought to tell you this.
My iPad 3 is struggling with this site at times, but the bloody thing is now five years old! I’ve had to throw away computer monitors that cost £2500 because the manufacturer couldn’t support any product older than five years, the iPad 2 is six years old, anyone who imagines that a six year old computing device can be expected to still perform like new when the OS is designed to run on devices with probably three times the RAM is living in a fantasy world!
The 2 has 512Mb of RAM, for heaven’s sake, and a 1 GHz processor, my 3 has a 1 GHz processor and a Gb of RAM, and it can barely cope with the demands of web pages and the amount of video content they have now.
There are plenty of Android devices around that are less than two years old that can’t be updated to the next generation OS, but I don’t see people whining about that.
My Mac Mini is now seven years old, and working fine; place I worked at until a year ago used to throw out WinTel PC’s that were only two or three years old, HDD’s were taken out and the rest junked, I saw at least a dozen at a time sitting in the warehouse waiting to be scrapped, while the studio is still using at least one Mac built in 2003 as a server, and iMacs that are seven or eight years old for actual production work.

I’ve had to throw away computer monitors that cost £2500 because the manufacturer couldn’t support any product older than five years,

Tell me more I’ve got popcorn 🙂

one Mac built in 2003 as a server

Jesus I’ve got a Quicksilver I could use a server!

Yes there is no denying that spend £1k on a Mac and it will last 10 years and £300 on a PC and it will last 3 years, but you simply cannot deny that Apple updates bloat and slow capacity, ever seen that little iTunes bar at the bottom of inexplicable usage?

Oh dear, bless him….

I too have an old ipad 2. The only way I have found of speeding it up, is to go into settings-safari-advanced-turn off JavaScript.
This makes it much faster and more useable for most things BUT, some sites won’t work properly. Chainreaction, for example, will show nicely, but when you try to select which options you want, the ‘button’ won’t work. But much quicker for general forum browsing.

I stop the updates if I have a device more than a year old.

Emphatically recommend that you don’t do this. You won’t get any security updates. When vulnerabilities are discovered, Apple generally only patch them in the latest iOS:

Apple does not release “Security Updates” for previous versions of iOS after the next major version has been released, unless it is an extremely major vulnerability. Simply put, you are required to upgrade to the newest version if you want all security fixes.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/223173

There are plenty of Android devices around that are less than two years old that can’t be updated to the next generation OS, but I don’t see people whining about that.

Google are providing security updates back to 4.4 KitKat so your device is able to have security updates added. No need to push a newer OS onto the device – probably why people are not as bothered.

Emphatically recommend that you don’t do this. You won’t get any security updates. When vulnerabilities are discovered, Apple generally only patch them in the latest iOS:

Seems like they want you to update until it doesn’t work then…

and sooner or later the lack of RAM and the slower processor performance will be unable to cope with the demands placed on them by the needs of the OS; common sense ought to tell you this.

Except where it doesn’t… Windows 10 for instance, or performance increases between android versions by making things lighter weight and quicker to run.

Factory reset and clean it all out or buy something new for the OP.

but you simply cannot deny that Apple updates bloat and slow capacity, ever seen that little iTunes bar at the bottom of inexplicable usage?

Bad quoting on his part, he doesn’t take issue with that at all, it was the “they do it on purpose to make you buy a new one” bit he appears to be arguing with.

The slowing down is a by product of an OS designed around newer, faster hardware, which isn’t unreasonable. I’m inclined to agree frankly. I’d rather have a more powerful OS which exploits the maximum performance of the newest hardware, and accept that after a few years performance will suffer. Not just iOS either – Android, Windows; it seems a reasonable way of working.

Not sure which iPad mine is, first one with a Lightning connector, 3? That still works fine for browsing And what not, and still gets all the updates.

For simple browsing, turn JavaScript off. It’s not needed for everything and you don’t get as many targeted adverts either.

Fat websites are the problem. Bloaty, bloaty, bloaty.

Try a different browser? Opera seems to work well on my iPhone.

CountZero – Member
Bollocks. OS updates are designed to work with improvements in hardware performance, the processor and increased memory, this is true of all computing devices, and sooner or later the lack of RAM and the slower processor performance will be unable to cope with the demands placed on them by the needs of the OS; common sense ought to tell you this.

My 7 year old (or thereabouts) laptop runs great with Win10.
My 3 (or maybe 4) year old LG GPad runs fine.
My 4 year and a half year old Xperia T has just been retired. It ran Android fine but battery life was starting to become an issue and memory allocation for apps meant that newer apps (i.e. mainly larger apps) were hogging all the device storage.

I would have thought it would be in the realms of software engineers to make OS updates that ‘trim’ themselves down to run better on older devices, while running in ‘full fat’ mode for newer whizzy bits of kit.
But then people would hang onto older devices rather than buying shiny and new…

My 7 year old (or thereabouts) laptop runs great with Win10.

My nine year old (originally Vista) laptop is running just fine with Windows 10 also.

I think perhaps the handheld market isn’t so much planned obsolescence, so much as people tend to upgrade more regularly so there’s little reason for mobile OSes to concern themselves too much with optimisations for older hardware. Mobile phones especially – it’s almost expected that when your contract is paid off you don’t stop paying, you go “yay, new phone time!” and your £600 fondle-slab goes to recycling / your kids / in the cupboard with all your other old gadgets. I’ll wager there’s considerably more people using a 3-year old computer than there is using a 3-year old phone.

xpected that when your contract is paid off you don’t stop paying, you go “yay, new phone time!” and your £600 fondle-slab goes to recycling / your kids / in the cupboard with all your other old gadgets. I’ll wager there’s considerably more people using a 3-year old computer than there is using a 3-year old phone.

and you buy a new one, said the people selling the most expensive fondle slabs going and telling everyone how good the residuals are….

I wiped and resintalled my iPad 2 and it works fine now. Even after restoring most of the apps.

Used the instructions here. But don’t try to restore back to old firmware version, it doesn’t work (none of the old versions are “signed”) – find your iPad version using the serial no. Then download the newest firmware in the list and follow the instructions restoring to that vers.