Apple started pushing out the newest version of its mobile operating system earlier this week, and as usual, there have been some growing pains as iPhone and iPad users update their devices. Although it’s only been a few days, we’re hearing that iOS 11 slows down iPhone models from past years. So if it seems to you that iOS 11 slows down your iPhone, you’re probably right because lots of other users are reporting the same thing.
iOS 11 slows down iPhone
One thing that’s important to note here is that there are many factors that can affect a phone’s performance. As far as problems with iOS go, performance is one of the most basic issues, as is battery life; one can pretty much expect that one or both of these issues could occur when updating the OS.
The good news is that sometimes if iOS 11 slows down iPhone, it may seem as if the phone fixed itself. This happens because it will take a day or two for the iPhone to re-index its files after updating to the new OS, explains BGR. In a way, you could think of this as the phone reorganizing itself after a storm blew all of its files around the room. When iOS 11 slows down iPhone just because of this, you don’t need to worry about doing anything.
However, if you updated your iPhone to iOS 11 on the first day Apple started pushing it out and are still having problems, then this is a good time to be investigating by reading up on the topic. There are a few things to try to put an end to this problem.
The first thing to do if iOS 11 slows down iPhone is to clear some space on your device by going to Settings – > General – > iPhone Storage – > Manage Storage. You’ll see various options to delete some files, which include deleting big Messages attachments. You’ll also be able to see which apps are hogging all the space and delete the ones you don’t use. You might want to consider using a cloud storage service if space is often an issue for you.
Another thing to check if iOS slows down iPhone is reducing the number of apps that run in the background and continually refresh. Just go to Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh. However, this might not help overall performance much if all of your individual apps are working the way they’re supposed to.
The YouTube channel EverythingApplePro compared the speed of iOS 11 to that of iOS 10.3.3. on a number of iPhone models and performed benchmarking tests through Geekbench, and he didn’t find anything suggesting that iOS 11 lags or causes major performance issues while using various functions. Despite that, many iPhone users are complaining online that this is happening to them, so if this is happening to you, again, we assure you that you’re not alone.
One thing EverythingApplePro did note was that booting iPhones up cold takes a little longer on iOS 11 than on iOS 10.3.3, but it’s probably just because iOS 11 is much larger because of how much more it includes. ARKit alone is a huge difference between the two. We’ve embedded the video below if you’re interested in seeing the comparison. You can also check out a comparison of the two versions’ features here.
Unfortunately, if you still have an older model, about the only thing you can do if iOS 11 slows down iPhone is to buy a newer one. This doesn’t mean that in order to get better performance, you’ll have to buy the current newest models, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, but it’s a simple fact that augmented reality and other workings of iOS 11 were just a thought when some of the older iPhones were released. If you’re thinking about upgrading your iPhone but don’t want to shell out $1,000 or nearly that, you might be able to find a used iPhone that’s one or two model years newer than your current one.
