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Comment by ClassyJacket | Hacker News Reader

iOS 11 was enough to get me to move off Apple products altogether. It turned my iPhone 7 into one of the slowest, most buggy devices I've had. Everything is slow, audio constantly cuts out and stutters (even when predownloaded), there's lag switching between apps, apps reload constantly, it disconnects from Bluetooth devices at the drop of a hat, my keyboard disappears or fails to appear, and battery life is garbage - I'm charging twice a day minimum. And it looks like they removed the download button from Podcasts or moved it where I can't find it. It's not in the menu.

Granted 11.1 fixes some of these issues, but I don't appreciate having my thousand dollar phone gimped for two months, and it's still worse than it was before.

I'm getting a different phone, watch, and TV device. But hey, the industry still has me by the balls as long as I'm buying something every year, right?

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It's maddening to read that iOS upgrades are still causing this kind of problem. I had a couple of iOS devices rendered near-useless due to OS upgrades around 2014 and decided to give each device a max of one major OS version upgrade in the future. I use Android more now, really like it overall, and am considering getting an Android tablet instead of my next iPad. Sorry about the trouble with your phone.

I use iOS 6.1.3 on an iPhone 4S, jailbroken and running offline apps, syncing with iTunes 10.6.3 over USB, no iCloud.

It worked great 6 years ago, and it still works now. I'm not persuaded by the "updates" Apple keep trying to tell me to run; I think I'll lose more features and stability and battery life and USB sync, and not gain anything of any practical purpose to me.

If Android had USB sync, I'd consider converting. But swapping one cloud ecosystem for another just doesn't work for me, I want to keep my data offline.

Aren’t you missing a lot of security updates, though? Or does Apple backport these to previous iOS versions?

E.g. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/broad...

You do miss the security updates. The trade-off is you have a device that isn’t dog slow.

Today I tried using an an old iPad 2 that was upgraded to iOS 7. It was literally unusable.

> If Android had USB sync, I'd consider converting. But swapping one cloud ecosystem for another just doesn't work for me, I want to keep my data offline.

Uuuh,it does last time I checked. You can even create backups with debug enabled. Nobody uses it though because plugging the phone to the PC is annoying.

You are also not required to use the Google drive services for file syncing. Setting up an owncloud server gives you pretty much the same benefits and interactions that gdrive provides

Andorid phones (the modern ones anyway) do support the MTP protocol... but it's horrid if you're trying to do something like transfer large files for storage of any type; it's like it was written with the old 4GB file limits in mind.

Iirc «adb backup» is a command these days and it doesn’t rely on MTP.

Google has an adb-sync script that works really well.

If you really need to transfer files to-from your phone just install an ftp server or something on it and remote into it. I do it all the time and it's great.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapp...

https://syncthing.net/

I never think about it. If it's on my phone, it's on my PC.

What do you use to manage your music library? I don't just need a backup option, I need apps that can manage my music/contacts/calendar databases.

OwnCloud / NextCloud includes native support for CalDAV and CardDAV (using SabreDAV internally). You can synchronize your music library too.

> If Android had USB sync

It has, but last time I tried it (on Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.x), it was completely unusable. Transfers freezed and crashed all the time. I was unable to upload a single music album even after few tries.

I have an up to date 4s, but that means iOS 9.3.5. It works great, only problem is web browsing. Most sites load too much junk and can crash the phone. Brave is the only browser I can use, and it works pretty good for most sites.

On another practical point: isn't your battery completely shot by now?

I've never seen a phone where it isn't obviously somewhat impaired after 2 years, so what is it like on something that's 3 to 6 years old? Or do you get it replaced often?

I tried to buy a replacement battery, but that expanded dangerously until I noticed marks coming from behind the screen, so I popped open the case to have a look and promptly removed it.

I use a Third Rail case, so I can recharge easily. I don't use 3G, and all my apps work offline.

https://www.amazon.com/Third-Rail-Protective-Compatible-Rech...

One of the reasons I still like my phone is because of that case. I wish there was something similar for another phone. The external batteries also have microUSB in and out, so I can charge friends' phones too.

I had a Nexus 4 from 2013-2016 (so three years) and now have a OnePlus One (for 1.5 years now), and I didn't observe any loss of battery capacity on either.

I would assume replaced often.

But replacing, not getting it replaced. At least on my 5 it is a few screws worth of work to swap.

I use a 4S with 7, but decided not to upgrade further. There was a performance decrease from 6 to 7, but it's still very usable.

I was using 4S with 6.x until a year ago too.

Apple completely ruined Podcasts. It wasn’t great in iOS 10, but its terrible in 11. For example, they removed play the next episode automatically. Now it just stops. WTF. Why wouldn’t i want to continue playing the next episode???

Use Overcast.

in the same boat here, iOS 11 update for my older ipad has made it slow/buggy and significantly worse for my use case (browsing the web and watching netflix)

For example in IOS 10 to enable night mode was -> "Swipe up, tap" done. In iOS 11 it now requires 2 swipes, a long press then a tap. Also minimizes the app in focus requiring another tap to get back to it. Why?

>> For example in IOS 10 to enable night mode was -> "Swipe up, tap" done. In iOS 11 it now requires 2 swipes, a long press then a tap.

I'm currently on iOS 11 and the flow is still the same for me as before: "Swipe up, tap" done

I'm not seeing this "2 swipes, a long press then a tap"?

On an ipad or iphone?

Actually had to look up how to do it which lead me to http://osxdaily.com/2017/10/01/access-night-shift-control-ce...

To save an episode click the episode, then click the circle with 3 periods inside. In the menu look for it, its named “Save Episode “

Take two steps left, one step right, incant the cthonic rite, twist dial 11-b to optimal firing position, and that’s it, you’ve followed the simple and obvious steps to save an episode.

Honestly the steps posted seem pretty obvious. You open the thing, use the pretty common identifier for a menu button and save is in the menu.

Fine for you and me, maybe, but a decade ago I acquired iPads for my mother and grandfather, as the constant windows support calls were maddening.

Over the last six weeks it’s felt like 2008 again - “no, I don’t know why they did that. Yes, it’s different. No, no reason”.

I’m not averse to change, but they’ve shifted bits of UI that habitual users relied upon, and done things are really inobvious to a neophyte - try getting your non-tech relative to save a pdf from safari on iOS - and as a corollary - power touch has given rise to a slew of blind mystery interaction. It’s just not as thoughtful as it was.

I don't begrudge occasional UI tidy ups, since cruft accumulates (eg Office 2000 menus!) but this seems like a perfect opportunity for adding help to Siri or Google Assistant (plus they've got a head start given their contextual knowledge).

Then it's a matter of encouraging grannies and other tech illiterates to ask the obvious questions to the tool in front of them: "Where did the button to save episodes go?"

You cite Office 2000 as an example of bad UI but honestly it's far easier to find stuff in menus if you're not sure where it is the having to hunt through the Ribbon bar for an icon that looks vaguely right to what you want. And sometimes the Ribbon bar just hides stuff completely if the Window isn't wide enough.

The thing with menu driven interfaces is while they're ugly, they do make functions discoverable. You don't need to remember what icon you want nor where it is, you just need to remember it is in the menu.

From a personal perspective, I still find myself hunting for common functions in Office even after years of using the Ribbon bar. I've found that to be the single handed biggest productivity killer to Office

Apple's claim to fame was always that "grannies and other tech illiterates" could use their stuff without having to go to any help resource. Apple has lost its advantage there. Good luck getting many of them to talk to their phones.

For example, my wife, my daughter, and my sister are all really smart but not tech savvy. They love Apple, but the "upgrade" to iOS 11 is bothering them quite a bit. (Too bad Android isn't any better.)

My mom is still on Windows. She hates Windows 10 and really misses XP, but she can get by OK without too much help. She's 84. I'm thankful she never went to Apple, frankly. She would never talk to a computer. That is in the ridiculous range for her.

yup, 11 is the thing of nightmares

I had to do an internet search to find out that the Airplay selection on my phone was now the two squiggles on the upper right of the music icon on the control panel. Not too obvious when you’re trying to redirect YouTube.

If it helps you, I’ve felt similarly bitten by the Podcasts UI changes and have found solace in Overcast as a great replacement; free with a paid option.

Overcast is a great app. Smart Speed is awesome, syncing between devices works perfectly - something Apple hasn't gotten right in 6 years -, playlists are logical, and it works better with the Bluetooth controls in my car.

I when with Pocketcasts. For one thing, they haven’t explicitly said they don’t want my money, like Marco Arment has said. For another thing, i like the interface better.

3 periods are not intuitive as "menu"

and pray to chtulu

I've somehow managed to avoid most of those issues on a iPhone 7 and iPad Mini 4. However, I am having issues with audio playback and with Bluetooth, as well as WiFi "forgetting" passwords (I get "password incorrect" prompt, re-enter password, it is rejected, Settings -> General -> Reset -> Network Reset, reboot, and it's back to normal for a few days).

With audio, it will occasionally hiccup or skip. With video (especially Netflix), it will skip or become choppy for a few seconds. With Bluetooth, my car stereo will switch from another source to Bluetooth Input whenever I receive a text, then it will not revert to the original source input (CD, terrestrial radio, etc). All of this only started happening after the iOS 11 update, and all of the above issues persist across both devices, so it's not a hardware thing.

iOS 11 works with no noticeable degradation on my 6S Plus, which is a surprise to me given my crappy iOS 7 and up experience with my 4S. Maybe you had one of the cruft accumulation/wipe-mandating situations.

11.0 sucked on an iPad Mini 2 but was OK on my wife's 6S Plus. 11.1 is smooth on all devices.

iOS 11 on my iPhone6 has completely slowed it down. Apps take forever to open. The camera too. When this phone came out, it was lightning fast. The way they keep bloating the incremental iOS updates is infuriating.

You might want to try some things.

First, make sure you’ve got at least 1GB free space on the device. iOS starts thrashing when free space is low.

Second, tap Settings > Battery to see if any apps are excessively burning the battery (and by extension, the CPU)

Third: Settings > Privacy > Location Services and make sure every app is set to Never, unless giving that app location services has some benefit to you.

Fourth: Settings > Background Refresh. Turn off everything except apps you want to refresh. For example, apps that sync data via iCloud.

Last suggestion: back up via iTunes, restore to factory settings, restore from backup. In my experience, this is iOS’ dirty little secret, sometimes it gets into a state that can only be resolved with a wipe.

Oddly enough, iOS (even 11) has worked better for me than any Android version back when I was on Android. My Nexus 5 used to have a Google process spin out of control and kill the battery. An OS update rendered my Nexus 7 and Nexus 5 basically unusable because of performance (which I hear was eventually fixed). When the iPhone 6 came out, I said enough and went back Apple. I'm sure Android has improved since then, but so has iOS.

My point is that in the mobile landscape iOS and associated hardware, at least for me, work better than anything else out there.

I think the answer is to delay upgrading till you have to. I'm on iOS 10.3 on the phone, Mavericks on the Macbook, both gadgets >3 yrs old and have almost no issues. I may have to upgrade Mavericks in a bit as things are starting to become incompatible but will prob go to 10.11 or 10.12, not 10.13.

(edit - I'm on iPhone 5 which doesn't get iOS 11 which may have saved me)

Two reasons why this is a colossally bad idea:

- Mavericks is old enough that it hasn’t received any security updates in over a year

- You’re falling way behind on emoji support (but maybe you haven’t noticed if you spend all your time on Hacker News, since apparently emojis get stripped out of posts here)

The fact that we have come to a time where anyone would consider it a "colossally bad idea" not to upgrade an OS because of substandard emoji support makes me weep for the future.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and proffer that maybe the comment you've replied to was tongue-in-cheek.

Give the app overcast a shot if your sick of the stock podcasts app:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast/id888422857?mt=8

So Apple is the new Nokia now? Who is the new Apple then?

Xiaomi, possibly...

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