iOS 8

Posted by Jim Jagielski on Monday, September 22. 2014 in Technology

With all the buzz around iOS 8, I decided to take the plunge. I went ahead and upgraded an iPad2, iPad Mini and iPad Retina. I didn't upgrade any iPhones.

Why?

I'm not crazy! I need my iPhone to work! 

Anyway, so after several days of using iOS 8 on these devices, I can come up with a singular conclusion: It Is Dog Slow.

I mean really, frustratingly slow. Like I could use a stop-watch to time how long it takes apps to open (even those specifically upgraded for "iOS 8 compatibility" or to get back to the home screen when the Home button is pressed. Once in the apps, things are better, but no app at all feels peppier under iOS 8, except for maybe Safari.

Plus, a lot of apps, like Scribd, don't even open up and just die. 

It's getting harder and harder for me to defend Apple at times. Now it's true that Apple is active in the Open Source ecosystem, and that large chunks of OSX are Open Source and that Apple contributes a lot to Open Source. And I have been using Macs (and Apple devices) for a LONG time (my 1st "claim to internet fame" was as the de-facto Apple A/UX expert and editor of the A/UX FAQ), and have been happy. And so even though you are in something of a gilded cage when using OSX or iOS, it "only" matters when the parts you want/need to fix and patch aren't available to do so. The problem is that it's getting more and more common as time goes on that the "gilded" parts of the cage are the parts which are broken. Heck, when you can't even downgrade from iOS 8 back to IOS 7.1.2 because Apple stops "authorizing" old versions, you know it's getting out of control.

Anyway, unless you have an iPhone 6, I can't see any real compelling reason to upgrade yet. 


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