Apple's iPhone 5s takes comparatively mild speed hit from iOS 11 upgrade

Posted:
in iPhone
While 2013's iPhone 5s is the oldest device to support iOS 11, the device takes a smaller performance hit with the new software than the iPhone 5 does running iOS 10, or the iPhone 4S running iOS 9, according to benchmarks shared on Tuesday.

Image Credit: Wylsacom on YouTube
Image Credit: Wylsacom on YouTube


Apps are only marginally slower to load under iOS 11 than iOS 10.3.3 in most cases, usually fractions of a second, ArsTechnica said. Indeed the Camera app is just as quick, although some apps -- namely Mail, Notes, and Maps -- are visibly slower, and cold boot times jump from 26.6 seconds to 38.6. The phone is also said to drag more when running background downloads and app installs.




App load times can be improved anywhere from 0.1 to 0.9 seconds by turning on "Reduce Motion" in iOS's Accessbility settings, which kills some animated transitions.

Safari benchmarks are slightly improved with iOS 11, even ifArs remarked that the phone's 1 gigabyte of RAM leads to tabs refreshing on a regular basis. Modern iPhones typically have 2 or 3 gigabytes.

The main things the iPhone 5s are missing are now largely hardware-limited, such as Apple Pay, 3D Touch, ARKit, and Siri upgrades such as proactive search. The device also won't work with LTE models of the Apple Watch Series 3.

iOS 11 is set to launch for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch later today, available via iTunes or as an over-the-air update.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 20
    Thank for writing this article! It is nice to know!
    irelandlolliverwatto_cobrashunting123
  • Reply 2 of 20
    Does GM have any instrumentation code or is it basically same as release?
    Guess it should be the same, but is it?
  • Reply 3 of 20
    Conversely, performance on an iPad Mini 2 with the same A7 processor is just awful. The overhead of iPad multitasking is too much.

    Normal browsing and booting stuff is mostly fine. But just viewing or replying to a Message while in another app (not even doing that "docked window" stuff) just grinds the CPU. 

    It goes without saying that A7 iPad users should plan on upgrading their hardware, but I'd also suggest that they not upgrade the OS before the inevitable hand-me-down, you don't want to set up your kids or your grandparents with this kind of chug.
    edited September 2017 irelandben20watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 20
    I’ve been beta testing 11 on a 6S, 6, 5S & iPad Air 2. 

    TBH the 6 and 6S units were more unstable prior to the Golden Master and the 5S ran perfectly with no noticeable change in performance. 

    Even now I have a bit of (non frustrating) animation stuttering (keyboard when typing) on the 6S that has not been present on the 5S. 

    I recommend all 5S users (as well as all other eligible units do the iOS 11 upgrade. There are also security fixes and a bunch of improvements in Control Center as well as a nice new document scanner & data table option built into notes). 
    edited September 2017 watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 20
    ben20ben20 Posts: 126member
    I am very careful with updates. My iPad mini is sluggish since the last one, so I will skip this one. Somehow this is starting to remind of Microsoft Windows, some apps will not work under IOS 11 and things get slower. Bad.
  • Reply 6 of 20
    BluntBlunt Posts: 224member
    Well it's pretty normal that some apps won't work and need an update when you install a new system. Never had any problem with an iOS update and i'm talking about lots of devices.
    edited September 2017 lolliverchiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 20
    My iPad mini ( retina) seems to run better under iOS11 than iOS10. No regrets.
    lolliverargonautwatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 20
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,523member
    I'm leaving our 1st gen iPad Air on iOS 10, it started feeling slow when we moved to iOS 10 but was good enough to use so I left it be, don't want to kill it by going up another cycle.
  • Reply 9 of 20
    sricesrice Posts: 120member
    I assume my phone will spend a few hours, perhaps a day, re-indexing stuffs after an update.  I wonder if people testing their speeds post update are aware their phone will be "hot" for a period after updating, and are they waiting until after all the post-upgrade processing is complete before they decide whether their phone/tablet is slower?

    lolliverchiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 20
    linkmanlinkman Posts: 1,035member
    I'm glad to see this because the last major point iOS upgrade on my 4S gave me significant performance degradation and it stayed that way until retirement.
  • Reply 11 of 20
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,925member
    I don't know how well iOS 10 ran on the 5s, but this doesn't sound too bad, especially given some past iOS updates that have all but bricked devices that only met the minimum requirements.  Does anyone know of any benchmarks for the 6 & 6s?
  • Reply 12 of 20
    Figures, as devices become faster, there'll be a smaller margin to lose in performance, likely speed will be all within fractions of a second(difference) outside of high performance apps.
  • Reply 13 of 20
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,861administrator
    ben20 said:
    I am very careful with updates. My iPad mini is sluggish since the last one, so I will skip this one. Somehow this is starting to remind of Microsoft Windows, some apps will not work under IOS 11 and things get slower. Bad.
    I lost more apps going from iOS 8 to 9 than I did from 10 to 11. YMMV.

    And, in every single case, a newer operating system is more resource intensive than the last. This is how it has been, and how it will always be. It is not exclusive to Microsoft, nor Apple, nor Google.
    lolliverwatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 20
    I was considering leaving my 5S running 10 after how slow the 4S got with the last two versions of iOS it supported so I'm very glad to hear this. I'm still going to wait for some youtube side-by-side comparisons before I decide to upgrade though!
  • Reply 15 of 20
    I knew this would be the last OS on my 5s, and a slowdown is not unexpected.
    Installing Leopard on my old G5 was pretty bad. Glad to see this is not that drastic. 
    argonautwatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 20
    srice said:
    I assume my phone will spend a few hours, perhaps a day, re-indexing stuffs after an update.  I wonder if people testing their speeds post update are aware their phone will be "hot" for a period after updating, and are they waiting until after all the post-upgrade processing is complete before they decide whether their phone/tablet is slower?

    Apps also get updated, things in the browser get redownloaded, some settings have been changed or reset which leads to more battery uses, etc. If you wait 2 days most of that is done and you know for sure if the update is for you.
    lolliverchiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 20
    oseame said:
    I was considering leaving my 5S running 10 after how slow the 4S got with the last two versions of iOS it supported so I'm very glad to hear this. I'm still going to wait for some youtube side-by-side comparisons before I decide to upgrade though!
    Don't wait too long though, in the first days, you got quite a bit of time to revert down, but if you wait 2-3 weeks you may not be able to do so (because they will stop signing the old version and you won't be able to revert).
    PickUrPoisonmuthuk_vanalingamchiaargonautwatto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 20
    AI wrote: The main things the iPhone 5s are missing are now largely hardware-limited, such as Apple Pay ....   Why is Apple Pay affected??
    linkman
  • Reply 19 of 20
    linkmanlinkman Posts: 1,035member
    ben20 said:
    I am very careful with updates. My iPad mini is sluggish since the last one, so I will skip this one. Somehow this is starting to remind of Microsoft Windows, some apps will not work under IOS 11 and things get slower. Bad.
    I lost more apps going from iOS 8 to 9 than I did from 10 to 11. YMMV.

    And, in every single case, a newer operating system is more resource intensive than the last. This is how it has been, and how it will always be. It is not exclusive to Microsoft, nor Apple, nor Google.
    Wait, are you implying that Android devices actually get updates? /s
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 20
    icoco3icoco3 Posts: 1,474member
    YvLy said:
    AI wrote: The main things the iPhone 5s are missing are now largely hardware-limited, such as Apple Pay ....   Why is Apple Pay affected??
    ApplePay is not available on the 5s...
    watto_cobra
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