A few weeks ago we warned that iOS might be a little rough for iPhone 4S owners. Apple’s trailing edge iPhones always hobble a bit on the latest iOS release and test results on iOS 8 showed significant lag.
However, the video above sent in by a tipster shows that in everyday usage, the lag isn’t so bad when going from iOS 7.1.2 to 8.0.2 (most pronounced in App Store). Perhaps that point update released this week, besides fixing bugs, also included optimizations for the older phones.
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iPhone 4s are experiencing problems with the work still buggy but terribly slow on most
iPhone 4S is not compatible to iOS8. After updating my iPhone 4S’s iOS, my phone has started hanging and it has disabled my WiFi. No matter how many times I restart my phone, its WiFi touch button does not respond and has greyed out. Also whenever my WiFi chip is disabled, my phone’s battery drains faster. Even if I’m not using my phone, battery percentage just decreases even though there is no open apps. my I want to degrade my phone to lower iOS6 or iOS7 but, reset restores it back to iOS8. There is also a noticeable delay in touching an app or phone functions and its response. Does Apple allow degrading phone to lower iOS where its compatible and phone functions normally and there is no load on WiFi chip?
I believe you could have gone back to iOS 7 if you upgraded to iOS 8 when it first came out, but not this late in the game. You might try calling Apple to make sure though.
Another thing, the 4s is old and Li-Ion batteries have a finite life, maybe it’s time to replace it. Ifixit.com sells the battery, tools and has the instructions to make the change.
Just in case, you may want to try this: Turn off Location Services and Background App refresh and leave the phone on until it shuts itself down. Wait a few minutes and recharge the phone to 100%. Turn Location Services and Background App refresh back on. That might help. There are also innumerable articles on the Internet regarding extending the battery life of an iPhone so you may want to do some searching.
But my gut tells me that you’ve just got a worn out battery that needs to be replaced.
Does anyone else remember a time when a new OS update brought improvements in performance? Those were the days.
To be fair, they do, unfortunately Apple pushed the limits a little (again) and made it available for the 4S when they should have stuck with 5, 5C, 5S, 6 & 6+. On those phones you can notice the performance enhancements.
Just like how the iOS 7 should not have been made available on the 4, iOS 8 shouldn’t be made available on legacy phones like the 4S. Apple really thrives on high new iOS adoption and making it available on a legacy device allows that to happen.
That being said, you can notice a slight lag, I don’t think it’s enough to force everyone to upgrade their phones.
iOS 8 is a great option for 4S users. As shown in the video, it performs at a very similar level to iOS7. If Apple can reasonably make an OS for a device without over-compromising, they usually do.
I have to agree, typically for Apple it has been an N+2 iOS cycle, current plus the last two models, so really the 4S should have been cut, and I think the reason it made it (albeit pared down in features aka fragmentation) is because so many users still have 4S’s and don’t want to upsize. However they will sadly be left out next year with iOS9.
My 4S is a work phone too bad I got it back in February since the 5C is the free phone now and that would likely be the one my company provides, at least it would be a slightly larger screen and processor update.
i updated my girlfriends 4s to 8. not good. she started to complain about lockups and apps slow to open.
Been using ios 8 since it was released on my 4S and the lag is not too bad.. compared to iphone 4 owners using iOS 7.. plus the new camera extension features is a BIG reason for 4S owners to upgrade.. If Apple would have not released iOS 8 (which is sensibly iOS 7 with added tweaks and refinements) on the 4S, it would have been a low blow.. Kudos to apple for still supporting this great device..
7 was terrible until 7.1 came out but that was largely do to the terrible slow animations. I think 8.1 will improve the speed of launching a little. It’s funny because from 7.1 to 8 beta I thought my 4s was running better on iOS 8. Must have just been my perception.
“typically for Apple it has been an N+2 iOS cycle”. That’s only true for the iPhone 1 and iPhone 3G. It’s been N+3 since the iPhone 3GS. I have no idea if this will hold true in the future and I have a feeling the 5C will be left out of the cycle, but next year will be the first year that all iPhones will be 64-bit, and developers better get on the ball and start updating their apps. Three of the four models being sold now are 64 bit.
Apple’s official, published policy on iOS upgrades is that you get the OS that comes with the product, all the point upgrades, the next OS released, and all the point upgrades for that. Beyond that, the device *may* support another OS, but if it doesn’t then it doesn’t.
Anyone with a 4s therefore, could only rightfully expect to run iOS 5 through iOS 6. The fact that it even runs iOS 7 is a bonus, and the fact that it runs iOS 8 at all, a miracle.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and read the fine print before you buy. ;-)
iPhone 3GS shipped with iOS 3.0.. it was still supported on iOS 6.1.. goes to show that Apple have a great history of supporting their devices (Big reason why I stick with iDevices instead of Android).. Personally, I feel that if you want to get longer support, purchase the ‘S’ version of iPhone and you’re in for a longer support life…
Yep, and Apple at this very second is selling an iPad Mini with an A5 processor in it. The same processor that is found in the 4S. So, they are selling a new product that is struggling to run the current OS.
The real problem here is that Apple held onto the A5 processor for too long. I knew when they came out with the 5c, and it was basically a repackaged 5, and did away with the A6 powered 5 instead of the A5 powered 4S that is would come back to haunt them.
Well, they should be feeling it now. And since they made the original iPad Mini with the older A5 and are still selling it the same thing will happen next year too.
Either that or Apple is going to tick off a lot of customers by dropping support for a device less than a year after it was purchased. I don’t know what was going on with the A5 processor that they kept it around for so long, but it was a mistake. That processor should have been obsoleted over a year ago.
Fortunately, Apple doesn’t show any signs of repeating that mistake.
@ Mike Knopp: Re: iPad mini having the same processor as the 4s …
The devices are substantially different despite having the same CPU. You’d have to point to some actual, real-world example of horrific slowness compounded with a long list of people who are hot under the collar about it before you’d have a real point.
You can’t just say “Despite the evidence here that it hardly affects it at all, I am certain that it’s actually horrible, and given the iPad mini has the same processor, this is a HUGE problem!!!!”
(I mean, paraphrased, that’s pretty much what you said).
Let’s wait for actual evidence of a problem, before we start railing against it.
I updated my iPhone 4S straight away with iOS 8 (no 8.0.1 or 8.0.2 yet) and I haven’t noticed a single problem.
This video indicated in the last few seconds that the tested phone was freshly restored & not affected by tons of message, full camera roll… Thus the actual performance in daily usage will be worse
I’ve never noticed photos or messages affect the performance of any iPhone. Storage space (NVRAM) is not runtime memory (DRAM).
Also, a freshly cleared device is building a cache from nothing, and therefore is considerably slower. Caching improves performance with time. Its a pretty basic concept for those that know about the technology of computers.
Something like the App store? It gets all its content over the network. The first time into it requires streaming quite a bit of data, and that performance is strictly centered around network performance as it opens several sockets simultaneously to fetch catalog metadata. Subsequent use will always be substantially faster as it only needs to fetch a small subset of the catalog (changes).
What about virtual memory?
The performance attributes related to a virtual memory subsystem is deeply technical, but I will simplify for your consumption:
A virtual memory swap file located on flash storage is constant in terms of performance regardless of the sector layout or storage utilization, because the sector layout on flash is completely virtual. In contrast, spinning disk storage is highly variable in terms of performance due to sector-seeking. Storage layout doesn’t make any important difference in a flash storage environment.
Regardless, iOS does not actively use virtual memory in the same way as a desktop operating system due to the way resources are managed.
Thanks. Then why will the device become slower & slower after using for some time?
It shouldn’t unless you have a bad application thats sucking down a lot more than it deserves. There are a few lousy apps out there, particularly old apps that haven’t been updated in years. Also, spotty wifi or cellular coverage can also unknowingly lead to slow apps – many apps talk over the internet, but not all apps do this talking in a separate thread that runs in the background. So everything slows down. Because some developers are idiots that don’t care.
– The new “Battery Usage” feature in Settings can help identify bad apps.
– Make sure your apps are up-to-date
lol the whole point of iPhones is that they don’t become slower, unlike android.
How about Twitter? Can’t use Twitter app anymore since installing 8 on 4s….
Twitter works fine
Great adventure come from small causes.)))
I think it is better not to update until Apple 4s fix glitches in the future…))))
I have a 4S. I upgraded mine on day one because iOS 7 was way too buggy for me. Camera app and Safari just kept crashing, and the phone just constantly restarting itself on a weekly basis. Those problems are all gone in iOS 8, and my 3-year old phone also got some new features. Awesome :)
Now, I do feel that some apps open slower, but it’s way better than crashing. The biggest issue I have is the battery life. iOS 8 totally murdered my 4S’s battery. The battery life is even worse than iOS 7. It drains at least one time faster for me.
In conclusion, if you don’t mind charging your phone twice or thrice a day, go ahead and upgrade your 4S to iOS 8. You will very likely love it. Trust me, iOS 8 is so much more stable and mature than iOS 7.
Same here. I turned background refreshes off though, all notifications for the Facebook app and tinkered a bit with location services. Made a huge difference, I recommend you try that! Also, check the usage stats/app, it will help you a lot too :)
I will certainly try it! Thanks for the tips :)
Same here, tweaked a few background tasks and it’s back to normal.
Your iOS7 crashes are very weird. I had a 4S with iOS 7 and don’t remember the device crashing ever. And I used it a lot.
There are crash logs inside Settings- it may have been worthwhile look to see what’s going on. Given that your iPhone no longer crashes after you updated to iOS 8, I assume that the problem was a bad app that was chewing up resources and over-taxing your battery and crashing the phone.
You might want to check which apps are permitted to run in the background. With iOS 8, you can easily see which apps are gobbling down the battery. Consider prohibiting bad apps from running in the background.
Given the old age and heavy use of your 4S, you may also want to invest in a new battery. They are under $20, and assuming you are non-technical it is easily replaced by a mom-and-pop shop in under 5 minutes.
My friend’s 4S also had the same problem. I did check the crash log before, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. That, or I had completely no idea what I was looking at :p I’m probably getting an iPhone 6 this year since I’m a very heavy iPhone user. I pretty much pushed my iPhone to the limit.
I did think about replacing the battery since I would like to give this 4S to my mom once I get the 6. Do you know any good place to do the battery replacement? I could use some suggestion. Thanks for the advice :)
@weakdude: you can get cheap batteries on amazon (<$10), but be careful because a lot of sellers are selling used batteries as new. Check the reviews and you should be fine.
@weakguy, iFixit.com sells the battery for $25 and has complete instructions how to do the transplant. You’ll probably have to get the pentalobe screwdriver to open it up, but many people have been very successful performing this surgery.
iOS 7 was rock solid on my 4S. Too late now, but I would have suggested a complete wipe and restore.
iOS 8 doesn’t seem quite so bad on the 4s. Ars has a good article on the topic: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/ios-8-on-the-iphone-4s-performance-isnt-the-only-problem/ complete with a chart of timed operations and the video wouldn’t scare me off.
At least we have good sources of information to help us decide whether we should update or not. It’s nice to know we can if we decide that it’s a good idea. If Apple took the same road as Samsung did with the galaxy SII, the iPhone 4S would still be stuck on iOS 6.
As for deteriorating battery life, I’ve seen many articles on the Internet and a lot of different hints mostly dealing with location services and background app refresh. I even saw a significant battery hit on my 5S and a little bit of tweaking put everything back to normal. Also, you have to realize the iPhone 4S is getting up there in years. It might not be the worst idea to have the battery replaced if you plan to keep using it for a while.
People saying they haven’t noticed lag of iOS 8 (any version) on iPhone 4S are obviously trying not to see it or are extremely lag-tolerant. I own iPhone 4S my self and the truth is, iOS 8 lags on it. Launches are slower, FPS are lower. I feel like 8.0.2 helped a little, but it’s still significantly laggier and less stable than iOS 7. I have no doubts it’s done on purpose to make us buy new phones. The best evidence was iOS 7 – less complicatated UI compared to iOS 6 made iPhone 4 lag much more. Those UI operations are not getting that heavier to produce any lag. Have you guys noticed how every new iPhone (since 3GS) is advertised as fast?Better CPU, RAM etc. And they really are quite fast at the moment of being released. Then, every iOS update makes them comparatively slower and slower. Then we forget our phone was ever fast, we need a new one. I believe it won’t change with iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. They are said to be so fast… let’s just wait for iOS 10 or so. Apple will take care to make it slow for us.
In an industry as young as the smartphone industry, each generation of device has more power and complexity, each iteration of the operating system adds new APIs that make use of the newly available power which allow developers to make more complex and powerful applications, so naturally older hardware will seem slower. When it comes to cutting edge technology, there’s no conspiracy of planned obsolescence. It’s just the way it goes.
Over the past 30+ years of personal computing many people have complained about this and have been told exactly the same thing, “If you don’t understand that the new computer you just bought is obsolete before you walk out of the store, you shouldn’t be buying computers.”
Is it just me or did that not look bad at all? When Seth said “serious lag” I was expecting something really bad. I’m actually surprised at how quick that was.
5s on a single glitch, all stably and smoothly. With communication no problems have watched like everything is OK.
I also thought that iOS 8 looked decent.
* I was also thinking that the Home screen animations were slowing the phone down.
A user could turn off these zoom animations when launching from the Home screen.
This can be done by going to;
Settings > General > Accessibility. Turn on Reduce Motion, and Home screen transitions will fade instead of zoom.
NO because you should update your phone. Why are you still holding onto a 4S? HEHEHE
Because the design of 4/4S is an iconic and classic beauty.
So is the Model T from Ford…but I dont see those on the freeway.
it is. it is so nice. When I do get a new phone I’m going to hold onto the 4s just because I like it so much as an artifact of good design.
Not too practical having both front and back made out of glass, at least not for people who prefer naked phones, but I had a good case and it survived many drops. I would’ve liked to have kept it but alas, I had to sell it to pay for my 5S. It was in pristine condition though, so I got 70% of what I paid for it after two years of use. It was one of their most memorable designs.
I’m not surprised, the device quite small and I have the same 4S too. I’m going to update the iPhone, rather then complain about the slow modern iOS.
Updated to iOS 8 since the first day it released and now on 8.0.2. So far so good, that lag of speed was acceptable for me.
I actually thought it would be worse than that. Unless you hold two phones side by side like the video no one is going to notice a difference in real-world use.
These tests are useless !! Daily workflow counts, 4S with 8.0.2 is ok.
I especially like the “calender” app.
“Why would Apple cut off x phone from an update?! They’re just doing it to make you pay more money for the next one!”
“Why does Apple include x phone in the update?! It runs slow now!!”
No phone ever stopped working just because the operating system was no longer being updated, you just get stuck at that final update. Since the phone isn’t being updated anymore it’s not going to get any slower. Except now that some carriers are phasing out 2G, the original iPhone may stop working in certain areas, but that has nothing to do with Apple.
8.0.0 is choppy on a 4S. I wouldn’t have installed it except that I have a 6+ on the way.
Still usable, but it reminds you that your phone is old. I would have preferred it if Apple used the early OS X strategy of enabling less intensive effects for older GPUs. OTOH, I can see why they want everyone on 8 to make it easier for developers.
We have two of these in the household, both running 8.0.2 just fine. The only issue is the battery usage. We have done everything to minimize battery usage but it still drains too much, even overnight when not in use with just about nothing on the lock screen. I wish Apple would also make an iPhone that is the same size as 4s.
Rechargeable batteries don’t last forever. IFixit.com has the batteries for $25 and the instructions on how to change them. Although you will probably have to buy the pentalobe screwdriver needed.
This is why ios 8 doesn’t support iPhone 4
iphone 4 is single core. 4s is dual core. HUGE difference.
Did not know that…
Mactracker has loads of information on a huge number of Apple products and the number of cores of each iPhone is a small detail they have available. Google and download it. It’s free and perfect for the hard core Apple history nut.
What a joke.
Oh, pulleaze stop the misrepresentations. The video does NOT show what iPhone 4s owners will experience with iOS 8.0. The phones are both devoid of user data. Load them up with some documents and a few thousand photos. Then show us how they perform.
I have a friend with a 4s LOADED with pictures, texts, videos and other user data and the speed is near to what’s shown in the video. Battery life took a hit but we reset a few setting and it’s not exactly back to normal, but not too far off. People need to remember that rechargeable batteries don’t last forever.
Our mum has a 4S and I upgraded it to 8.0.2 and don’t notice any change really.
After upgrading to iOS 8 it’s a very good idea to run through your settings and switch back anything that the upgrade may have changed. It might even be a better idea to take screenshots of all your settings pages prior to doing the update.
Worst test video I’ve ever seen. If you watch closely, every single icon press is fraction behind on the iOS 8 device, whether accidentally or intentionally, always creating perceived lag in Apps where there was none.
Certain NETWORK related Apps loaded different between the two, but I can reproduce that all day going back and forth between different devices sat next to other on the same wifi network.
Other stupid inconsistencies like the iOS 7 camera had HDR turned off, iOS 8 had it turned on. Which only slowed down the iOS 8 camera by a half an eye blink.
New OS slowness is almost always placebo.
I ordered the iPhone 6. I have the 4s, but have not updated to iOS 8. Do I need to do that? Or can I just activate the iPhone 6 and do a restore from a backup of my 4s?
4 years support for a 4s is not good soz but it sucks badly. 1 phone call 1 text and it goes from 100% to 30% in about 5 hours is not what id call good support, and the battery is new, it actually increased my battery life till os8. After all the years abuse I hear windows get for xp support (that’s only just been unsupported), I find it amazing that apple fanes here are not complaining more. I mean you but the top flagship phone for the top flagship price of all phones and itll be made unusable due to terrible battery life isn’t something I wouldn’t complain about lol. And yeh all my services pushing fetching was turned off this includes diagnosis and locations, so no reason it would such so badly. Looks like Apple miss Steve Jobs cause he wouldn’t let this happen so badly.
Well im now moved to windows 8.1 and im released, first its half the price for their flagship. It does everything my iPhone did, Cortina is a improvement on siri which I loved. But more importantly battery lasts 2 days on low usage and 8-12 hours on heave usage for me.