iOS 11 update - sucking my will to live

@brdubb Thanks for your feedback on attaching pix. I was kinda hoping I could blame Apple and wait for an update, but I guess I have to pursue the real cause now. Probably some system setting or preference that got wiped in the update and I must seek it out.

I’ve noticed general, overall oddness throughout the system. Some of it might be new “features” I just don’t understand yet. But some of it is most definitely screwy behaviour.

@ruouttaurmind yea i’ve seen a few things that are odd, though a friend had the beta so i’ve already seen some of them. my biggest thing i’ve seen is lagginess between apps/opening apps and then the craptastic notification center that i can’t get out of without unlocking my phone.

@cinoclav Hmm… to reinstall… I guess restore my phone to the last backup, then wipe and restore, then reinstall update?

@ruouttaurmind I believe you may have to put it into recovery mode, then connect it and choose to restore from the backup. From there you should be able to reinstall the update.

@cinoclav Same here - have almost been burned by those tricky messages - the last time, I foiled it by declining to accept the terms and conditions.

Hmm I am now two OS’s behind on an older iphone someone gave me. Maybe I should just stay “behind”…

@Kidsandliz depending on how old the phone is, and how you use it, it might run faster with the old OS. (Haven’t tried 11 yet, but I did like 9 better than 10, though I didn’t notice a speed difference.)

Apple does not generally release any security updates for older iOS versions, though, and if you use many apps, those may well be updated to only support the current or last two iOS versions, too–meaning you stop getting app updates. There’s a broad expectation (and reality, for the most part) that people move fairly quickly onto the newest version.

The more recent phones have done better with the newer OS updates, as phones get faster in general, and pull away from orders-of-magnitude generational CPU improvements that almost make them qualitatively different devices.

@InnocuousFarmer Mine is a 5S and without researching it I have no idea how old it is as it was given to me when someone upgraded to a 6 something or other.

@Kidsandliz that is pretty old. Then again, that was a ways into that steep curve of performance improvements. I’d upgrade, myself, and hope for the best, just for the application support and security updates. That was a great phone.

I don’t think iOS 9 will be up to date enough to warn you about 32-bit apps, so if you’ve got any apps that you’re using that are old, and haven’t gotten updates in a while, I’d check on them before pulling the trigger.

@InnocuousFarmer Looks like I am using 9.3.5 mostly using it as a dumb phone, occasionally maps, solitaire, camera - mostly stuff that came with it. Every once in a while internet to find the phone number of something or the address. What is the newest system version that makes sense? It is an 8GB one.

@Kidsandliz the only version that you can upgrade to is 11, and Apple won’t let you downgrade.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/ios-11-on-the-iphone-5s-slower-but-not-quite-slow/ doesn’t look too bad.

I’d expect it to be noticeably slower but not intolerable. As a bonus, you’ll probably get slightly more storage space available, with the filesystem change that happened in 10.3.

And a little document “scanning” thing in the Notes app. Other features, I guess.

@Kidsandliz

The iPhone 5s runs ok on Ios 11. So far.

Now don’t be quick to upgrade. Wait and see.

You’ll need about 2-3 GB free to do it.

@f00l well I have hardly anything on the phone. Some photos, maps, solitaire and what came with it. Yup with data user LOL Not.

@Kidsandliz Until recently I was running iOS 10 on an iPhone 5. It ran OK but not what I’d call snappy. iOS 10 is the last iOS upgrade for the 5 but the 5 is like 5 years old so no big deal.

I’d think your 5s would run fine on iOS 9, but apps will start abandoning it.

Frustration 101: The Weather Channel dumped the 5, even tho it was running the very latest version of iOS! Scumbags.

If your phone starts to feel sluggish or apps you want abandon it, and you are on either AT&T post or prepaid, the bargain right now is a iPhone SE for $149 (you have to buy it in the “prepaid” version - the “postpaid” version is $349). The SE has the same guts as a 6s. The 6s is only three gens back from the 8.

On an SE now and it runs great. Another bonus, if you have become storage bound by the 16 GB on a 5 or 5s, the SE starts at 32 GB.

(Note: the prepaid version of the iPhone 6 is now $199. But unless you absolutely need the 4.7 inch screen vs the 4 inch in the SE, it might not be a smart buy due to having a generation older CPU in it. To the best of my knowledge, unlike the SE, you can’t even buy a new iPhone 6 other than via postpaid.)

@RedOak Thanks for the info. Unfortunately I, basically, am stuck with this until it breaks. Then back to a flip phone unless the job situation turns around.

@baqui63 Huh. I’ve been using iOS 11 since midway through the public beta., And while Exchange mail was broken within Mail.app for a while, it’s been working just fine for me and for everyone else in my company who connects to Exchange on their iPhone for about two weeks now.

@jbsegal Maybe you guys are running Exchange on something other than Windows Server 2016? Or maybe your admin already disabled HTTP/2 on the Exchange server.

@baqui63

Hopefully, with this screwup Apple doesn’t spend three weeks pretending that it isn’t their fault and gets right on fixing it.

Could be worse. I’ve been using QuickBooks Pro 2015 in my office since the forced obsolescence of Pro 2012 in Q4-2014. Intuit still hasn’t fixed any of the UI anomalies, blaming them on Microsoft, Apple, Intel, the graphics card manufacturers, and once even tried to convince me “that feature was added due to popular request in our user community sir”.

At least Apple eventually releases some kind of patch.

@baqui63 I signed up for beta day 1. No issues other than what was reported and resolved in beta

@ruouttaurmind, it is very true that Intuit and Quicken support has deteriorated over the 25+ years that I’ve been using Quicken. I’ve come to dread the forced upgrades every 3ish years… the last four have been far from painless. It is unfortunate that even with all its flaws, Quicken for Windows remains better than the alternatives, at least for my purposes.

Sometimes Apple calls those patches upgrades tho, and may charge money for them or even require purchase of a new computer to use them.

@jbsegal and @sohmageek, the most likely explanation is that your companies are not running the most current versions of Exchange and Windows Server. Or, as @kensey suggests, your admins have already disabled HTTP/2.

For example, my iPhone users lucked out because I got distracted from my plan to upgrade from Exchange 2013 on Windows Server 2012R2 to Exchange 2016 on Windows Server 2016 and decided to delay it from April.

@ruouttaurmind I do some consulting on the side and have folks running Intuit products.

We used them ourselves until that nasty Macrovision (?) anti-copy software thing they did where they left the Macrovision stuff running on your PC even after you uninstalled that year’s TurboTax. Scumbags.

Then there is their arbitrary bank file format updating to force you to upgrade Quicken every couple years. Scumbags.

It will be a cold day in hell before I recommend anything by Intuit.

Hopefully the Cloud will kill Intuit. They deserve it.

@RedOak I despise the Intuit forced upgrades! “You must upgrade or you can’t use QuickBooks to process merchant bank transactions”. Well, since the convenience of in-app CC processing is the ONLY reason many companies use QB in the first place, they have us over a barrel.

Their latest direction pushes companies to into the QuickBooks Online services. A couple years ago they dropped offline (in app) payroll processing. They are now making rumblings about local data file storage lacking adequate security for maintaining stored customer CC information. I wonder how many more years (or months) until Intuit disables the ability entirely for non-cloud QB.

@BillLehecka I suspect it’s a better example of why so many Android makers orphan a phone once it’s released into the wild.

@BillLehecka Apple does test updates. You’ve just been modestly lucky and not been in one of the large-by-numbers, small-by-percentage groups who gets hit by these things. Or maybe you get updates a little late in the process or something.

It’s been the same for me, as far as I can remember. I usually make a point of backing up first, but once that’s done, I’m pretty confident that things will be fine, and if they aren’t, that I can figure out what needs fixing.

@InnocuousFarmer Oh I Update immediately. I’m brazen like that. I think I didn’t update immediately once because someone screamed on my Twitter feed that that update was breaking phones.

@BillLehecka Apple staggers the rollout, not notifying you proactively until some time after the update is available if you go digging for it manually. That’s what I was referring to.

… just updated myself. So far, so good. Hopefully I can turn off some of these animations.

I checked, and took some notes on a couple apps, then upgraded.

They’ve made everything bigger again. Does this track with Jony Ive’s declining eyesight? What’s the deal with the constant reduction in on-screen information?

@InnocuousFarmer I’ll put it this way, w/r/t the bigger text and less information density.

I’m getting the Plus Size phone tomorrow. I’m 33. I have shit vision, and glasses only do so much, even with my prescription about as dialed in as I can get it. I actually appreciate the bigger text, because I don’t have to strain my eyes to read it. Even a little eye strain adds up after a while.

@sanspoint if you aren’t already aware of these features, you should look into the options in Settings -> General -> Accessibility. Particularly, Zoom, Magnifier, and Larger Text.

I think there is an option in there somewhere for plus size phones to be represented as having non-plus size screens, too, making everything bigger. Let me see if I can find a reference to it somewhere.

(I was not complaining primarily about text size, as much as the general use of space, particularly since these options to enbiggen screen elements do exist.)

Ahah. It’s not just for plus phones, and it’s under Settings -> Display and Brightness -> Display Zoom. This one gives you the effect of a smaller phone on your current screen, vs. the other zoom which gives you your current screen size, magnified, so that you have to pan around.

@InnocuousFarmer Well, it’s not that bad, that I need to have the iPhone 5 size display on my 6S, but the general OS display density and the big headers is fine and comfortable for me with my crappy vision. Glad the accessibility stuff is there for those who do need it, though.

I do use the Zoom accessibility feature, though—it lets me put a filter on the screen to reduce brightness even lower than it can normally go. Useful in the dark so you don’t blind everyone with your phone.

@Cerridwyn Until they stop updating your Droid. Or until you pick up yet another virus because they’re so damn bad at verifying the apps in their store.

@cinoclav never once have I gotten a virus on my phone. Android user for well over seven years now.

@jbartus I’m sure you very well know the extent of viruses for both OS’s. It’s estimated 97% of malware is written for Android while 0.7% is written for iOS since it’s a closed system. While YOU may have never had one, millions of Android users have. There’s really no comparison when it comes to security.

@cinoclav If you’re going to write malware, you’re usually going to target the largest population. There are at least twice as many android devices out there than IOS. Same reason there are more viruses targeting Windows PCs over other operating systems. Bad guys write malware for what they’re familiar with and for what will cause the biggest impact. I could say that my old HP TouchPad (running WebOS) is more secure than your Apple devices because there is less malware for that OS. That doesn’t mean the device nor OS is actually more secure; it just means fewer people can be arsed to exploit it.
I’ve used a bunch of Android devices (so has my daughter and wife) and none of us have ever gotten a virus. Even on a bag of crap Chinese tablet running an ancient version of Android.

Edit: Also a “closed system” isn’t a feature. It’s a limitation.

Edit again: I don’t get your point about “stop updating your droid”…I was given an old iPod Touch only to find out it wouldn’t run any apps worth a crap because the OS was too old and apps were not backwards compatible. Apple wasn’t offering OS updates for that device.

@medz In this case, it really doesn’t have anything to do with the ‘population’ of phones. This isn’t the days of yore when there were 60 Windows pc’s being sold for every Mac. You’re right, as it is there are approximately 2 Android phones for every iOS phone. If you’re going to write malware, you’re going to target the OS that’s open, accessible, and easier to attack. There are well over 700 million iPhones in use around the world, it’s not like they’re BlackBerrys that no one gives a shit about.

First of all, Android is based on Open Source code, easily accessible and modified by those who write malware. Apple doesn’t allow that kind of access or ability to modify their OS. A closed system is not a limitation to those that aren’t interested in working within it. The majority of users are perfectly happy doing exactly what their phones allow them to do.

Secondly, apps found in Apple’s app store are vetted and analyzed by Apple. They need to be approved. Apple makes it very difficult to push malware onto their phones. On the other hand, Android allows third party apps from dubious sites to be installed as you like. This is often where malware and viruses come from. Just because YOU are smart enough not to download from these sites doesn’t mean millions of others don’t do it.

Third, I didn’t say the user would stop updating their Android device. I said “they,” in which I was actually referring to the hardware or service providers. As Android most often requires these providers to push out the updates, many companies fail to do so in a timely manner. If a patch is made available by Google it may not make it to the device. Here’s a good piece about this problem: http://www.droid-life.com/2016/08/16/android-security-updates-suck/

I use both OS’s. I have an iPhone and an Android tablet. I can guarantee you I’m a lot more careful about what I install on my tablet.

@cinoclav good points. I’m glad you agree that Android rules.

@medz Not sure where you inferred that. Personally, I tend to dislike Android. A lot.

@cinoclav exactly
/image wink wink animated

@medz I wonder how many OS upgrades the typical Android phone owner gets? One, if that?

Apple tends to make OS upgrades available to all devices capable of running them for 4-5 years.

I too use both iOS and Android devices. I’m probably on the geeky side of things. Android has some advantages but I prefer iOS.

All the flavors of Android manufacturer-trashed skins are not an advantage.

And when it comes time to replace hardware, the Apple backup and restore process is smooth. Not always the case on Android.

And what to do with that old Android device? Forensics has shown Android does a really poor job of wiping your personal data.

For one of the most common if not the most common things I do on a phone, typing text, I rarely fight with iOS auto-correct. Android auto-correct is the scourge of the earth.

@RedOak
/giphy gonna hate


I get your point though. I was frustrated by cheap Android phones not getting updates and new features. They’ve made some changes going forward that will make it easier for all Android phones to get updates.

@medz no “hate”.

Simply preference backed up by specific examples based upon experience.

BTW, one of our Samsung Android devices is a current model and is stuck on a prior OS version.

@cinoclav just saw your reply addressing me. Would you be happier to hear that as an IT professional I have encountered zero users with a virus on their phones in my career?

All I will say is that that same percentage garbage has been used to support purchasing Mac OSX over Windows for years and it’s all drawing a false equivalency for the reasons @medz illustrated. The closed system isn’t what protects Apple devices, it’s the lower relative market share. If you can put in X amount of effort and impact 86.2% of the market or put in that same X amount of effort and impact 12.9% of the market you’re going to go for the first option. It’s really that simple. So yeah, a disproportionate number of viruses are going to be written for those devices but the delivery of those viruses is still an issue and it’s not one easily surmounted.

People rarely venture outside of the app stores to download things. If anything Amazon is probably the biggest culprit in causing people to risk the security of their devices, but even then it takes careful spoon feeding to get people to even try installing a non-app-store app, and that’s from a relatively trusted source. This talk of viruses is, frankly, almost exclusively fearmongering by biased parties, It doesn’t hold water in actual practice.

By the way, those are the real figures. Not 2:1, 7:1.

@jbartus And there are more bad guys familiar with the OS that has the higher market share because that’s how percentages work. If the bad guy uses Windows/Android, he’s not going to try to learn about other operating systems to write his malware.

@medz well if he was an iOS user he might…

@mfladd which iPad?

@RedOak It’s the iPad Air 2.

@thismyusername barely noticeable on my 6s, other than the new features, and some kind of WiFi bug where the toggle’s new behavior keeps forgetting to not connect me to WiFi. (Apple leaves WiFi on when you toggle it “off” in Control Center as of 11, so that their device-to-device features can still work. It’s supposed to stay off any networks though. Mine has toggled back on a couple times. So I’m setting that in Settings now.)

Haven’t tried to send any work emails yet. I bet that doesn’t work, based on this thread.

If you do upgrade, don’t forget to read your stack of news stories in the news app, as those are not preserved. (Doh. I’m sure there were a lot of nuanced descriptions of terrible things in there that I wanted to read.)

This is probably the most publicized change, but for good reason: 32-bit apps are not supported in iOS 11. If you’re on iOS 10, you can see a list of them in General -> About -> Applications. Those will be old apps that haven’t been maintained, but you might still be using them.

@emt305 Consider yourself lucky if you can’t get into Facebook.

@ruouttaurmind May your bugs be fixed and you experience a general sense of enhancement.

@djslack
/giphy serenity now

@ruouttaurmind Keep us updated… I’m waiting for a bit to do mine and the gf’s.

@cinoclav Since the iOS 11 update I’ve noticed a marked reduction in battery life. I could easily get along for 3 days without a charge. Now I can make it two full days, but better charge up on the second night. I’m really hoping this update addresses the battery.

I’ve also had general sluggish behaviour. If I click a link in Gmail, the Gmail/Safari browser opens, but it might just stick there on a blank screen for 15 or 20 seconds… like in the old 56k dial-up modem days. Or if I dismiss a text message, trying to get back to the main message list. Or if I’m done in the Gmail/Safari browser and click the little “Gmail” text in the upper-left corner to return to Gmail, it might just sort of stall there for a bit, or sometimes it even pops up a “<GMAIL” button on the screen (which is not clickable because it goes away the moment I lift my finger from the Gmail text in upper-left. Never had a responsiveness problem before. So again, hoping this update fixes all that.

@ruouttaurmind I hope so. Which phone are you using?

@cinoclav 6 Plus.

@ruouttaurmind Hmm. I have a 7+ that I apparently use way more often every day than you use yours. There’s no way it would last 3 days without a charge. Maybe 2 if I didn’t use it much but I charge mine every night as I’m normally down to about 20% by then.

@ruouttaurmind let the battery run all the way down, then recharge it to 100% without removing power, should re-calibrate the meter and you can see the real usage.

@cinoclav I seldom make/receive calls (30min/mo. avg) on my mobile. When I do, I tend to call back from a landline. Old habit from the days when calls were billed per-minute ($0.65/min in my case). I don’t stream vid, or music. I play audiobooks an hour a day, no games, mostly text and email really. WiFi and Bluetooth both enabled 24/7 but not much else doing.

@thismyusername Good tip. I did notice last night, AndroidWear app seems to have a process spooling issue now. An internal process keeps crashing and reloading in AW. Could be sucking battery life.

I’ll reset battery usage as you recommend and see what’s sucking it up.

@Bogie Had me wondering there for a second. All the 8’s (and the x) come with iOS 11. You’ll pick up on it quickly, iPhones tend to be rather intuitive to use. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

@f00l I haven’t really noticed any remarkable changes in battery life since the update. I have noticed my ZW 2 won’t stay connected though. Google posted an update to AW 2 designed to address the issue, but apparently Apple broke it again with the .2 update this week.

@f00l I think there is something up, perhaps with the actual battery meter tracking/display… I will see it down to 80% when I would have not used as much battery on 10.x… but… when I go to recharge it it recharges very quickly to 100% like it wasn’t really at 80%… I still haven’t done a full run down and re-charge… will try that this week.

@f00l just wanted to say since 11.0.3 my battery usage is being reported properly again.