Why Owners Of Apple’s iPhone 5s Should Upgrade To iOS 12

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People with older iPhones always face a big question whenever a new version of iOS is launched: should they update to the new version? A valid reason that discourages such users is that the old hardware may not offer the power needed by the new features, and thus, it could slow down. However, one user of Apple’s iPhone 5s is very confident iOS 12 will not cause this problem.

Why Apple’s iPhone 5s needs iOS 12

Apple released iOS 12 with a promise that this latest version would deliver improved performance on older iPhones as well. Although there have been several speed tests to prove this, one iPhone 5s owner realized it through some personal experience and real-world tests.

CNET’s Patrick Holland suggests one can feel the magic of iOS 12 even while updating to it. We have often seen in the past that upgrading to the latest version of the OS may slow down the performance of or cause bugs on older iPhones. However, there seem to be no such issues with iOS 12.

“Instead, it does a lot of behind-the-scene housekeeping that actually makes the iPhone 5S faster,” Holland said.

Apple’s iPhone 5s was launched in 2013 with the A7 chip, which was the first 64-bit processor in a smartphone. Even though it’s a five-year-old phone, it sees no significant degradation in performance when upgraded to iOS 12. Holland notes that though there is “little to no” improvement in the speed of some major apps, Apple’s iPhone 5s “never felt bogged down” while running on iOS 12.

Holland also shared a chart showing the speed improvements for some major apps on iOS 12 compared to how they run on iOS 11. The chart shows that Instagram opens half a second faster on iOS 12 than on iOS 11. Mail opens a quarter of a second faster, while Safari opens 3.5 seconds faster. Siri completes a request half a second faster, the keyboard pop-up in Messages is one second faster, and opening the camera by sliding from the lock screen is half a second faster.

Features older iPhones get with iOS 12

Holland also listed the new features Apple’s iPhone 5s gets after updating to iOS 12. Some of the most interesting ones are the new Don’t Disturb options, Notification grouping and the Screen Time feature. Screen Time allows a user to keep track of their usage of the phone and individual apps.

With iOS 12, older iPhones also get Siri Shortcuts, a smart way to get a complex task done through Siri with just a single command. The feature even allows users to create their own Siri Shortcuts, like automating Siri to switch on the lights and play music when they get home.

Another useful feature one gets with iOS 12 is Group FaceTime Calls. The feature supports Group FaceTime calls with up to 32 people. However, the iPhone 5s only supports audio Group FaceTime calls with iOS 12. The ability to customize the Control Center Panel also comes with iOS 12.

One iOS 12 feature that is more important for older iPhones than for new ones is the new battery graph. The feature gives users information on the performance of their iPhone’s battery.

Things to remember

It must be noted that older iPhones don’t get all the features iOS 12 adds to newer iPhones. Due to hardware limitations, older iPhones won’t get Message photo filters, Animoji, Memoji or AR app support. Even though these features are missing, the performance improvements and other new features iOS 12 offers are a good enough reason to install it.

So if you have an iPhone 5s. there’s no need to be confused about whether or not to upgrade to iOS 12. However, before installing, do check if your iPhone has enough room for the latest version of the OS, which needs about 2 GB of space.

It’s also a good idea to back up your data before installing it, just in case anything goes wrong. Moreover, updating to iOS 12 takes some time, so Holland recommends “starting the process before you go to bed, or while you’re doing something else like laundry or cleaning the house.” To speed up things a bit, you can load it onto your iPhone via iTunes.

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