iOS 10 Delivering Smooth Performance Even on Older Devices

Updating a current device to a new version of iOS has traditionally often resulted in a slight deterioration of speed and performance. However, the press have good things to say about how iOS 10 shapes up even on particularly old supported devices like 2012โ€™s iPhone 5.

Ars Technicaโ€™s Andrew Cunningham notes that, while the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, both released in 2011, โ€œreally struggledโ€ with iOS 9, the new version of iOS โ€œmoves the baseline performance level way upโ€ โ€“ with the result that, from his own experience of testing, โ€œon something like a dozen different iPhones and iPads, โ€ฆ overall performance and stability have been comparable to iOS 9.โ€

Similarly, The Wall Street Journalโ€™s Geoffrey A. Fowler reveals his discovery, having tested iOS 10 on all four generations of supported iPhones, that the software โ€œonly slows down key functions a bit, if at allโ€, while he also found โ€œno significant impact on battery life.โ€

Itโ€™s fair to say that the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, neither of which are eligible for iOS 10, date from a time when both product lines were still in their infancy, with a wealth of obvious tweaks and improvements still waiting to be made. As the iPhone and iPad lines have matured, however, we have seemingly seen a shrinking technical gulf between the newest and oldest devices supported by Apple โ€“ meaning more consistent performance with the latest updates.

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