Usually, iOS devices don't begin showing signs of slowness until a few years of updates, when older hardware simply cannot handle the newer features. If you have newer hardware and are experiencing slowness, however, there are a few sure-fire tricks to get your device back up to speed. Here are four tips and tricks that will make your device snappier.
1. Reboot
This may be one of the simplest tips, but it really can help. Most users are accustomed to never turning off modern devices because they can stay powered on for so long without needing a reboot. However, sometimes the best fix for a slow device is to simply power it off, then wait a few seconds before powering it back on.
A hard reboot can also make things a little snappier: Simply press the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons at the same time until the screen goes to black and the Apple logo appears. When the logo appears, release the buttons.
When iOS reboots, the device may be snappier, because temporary data and system overhead are removed during the reboot process.
2. Clear caches
iOS is usually very good at cleaning up unused data that was created in iOS by Safari and other built-in apps. However, sometimes you may want to manually clean up this data. By cleaning these caches periodically, you will be able to reclaim used space on smaller and older devices.
To clean up the Safari web cache, perform these steps:
Open the Settings app
Navigate into Safari's settings
Scroll down and locate the Clear History and Website Data button (Figure A)
Figure A
Clearing browsing history and data lets you recover that used space immediately.
When you tap this button, then tap the Clear History and Data button in the prompt, you'll have all of the history, cookies, and other cached browsing data on your device. If you're also signed into iCloud, then those other connected devices will also have their data removed.
3. Delete unused apps
We live in an app-centric world: Every day we download and utilize multiple apps on our devices; however, many of these apps remain on our devices long after we've stopped using them. Unused apps take up space on the device, limiting resources for other apps and even the system functions.
The best way to delete the unwanted data created by these apps is to delete the unused app. To do this, tap and hold on an icon on the home screen, then tap the small X that appears. When an app is removed, any data stored locally on the device by that app is also removed.
4. Turn off unused features
iOS 8 includes many handy features, including the ability for apps to use Background App Refreshes. If you utilize an app sporadically but can't delete it from your device, you can try disabling some of the features surrounding the app -- namely, push notifications and background refreshes.
To disable Background Refreshes for a specific app, do the following:
Open the Settings app
Navigate to General | Background App Refresh (Figure B)
Disable the feature for any app that you don't use on a regular basis
Figure B
By turning off unused features, you can speed up your iOS device.
Background App Refresh works by allowing apps to wake up for 30 seconds when receiving push notifications to perform updates in the background. Many new apps are utilizing this feature, but some apps may rely on the feature more than others, causing slowness or battery drainage.
Found in the Reset screen under the General category in Settings for iOS 8, the Reset All Settings option is supposed to simply reset your iOS settings but leave your data and media untouched. Yet several forum users say that's not the case as certain iCloud documents also vanished after they reset all settings.
Based on user comments, the bug seems to be specific to documents from iWork apps, such as Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, MacRumors said. One user reported that his iWork documents were deleted after resetting all settings, but other data files remained in iCloud.
"HELP," one user wrote. "Because iOS 8 was so sluggish on my iPad 3 I reset all settings (No data or media will be deleted) and sped it up BUT deleted my iWork data! Then promptly synced and deleted it in iCloud."
"I just had this happen to me," another forum user wrote. "I had a bit of weird behaviour on my iPad, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to just reset all settings. For the hell of it, I did it on my iPhone as well. ALL DOCUMENTS LOST! How on earth does resetting settings (with a clear notice that data will not be lost) wipe out iCloud drive? It's embarassing."
Apple's Time Machine feature is supposed to automatically back up your files so you can restore any that are lost. A couple of users said they checked Time Machine but were unable to retrieve the lost iCloud Drive files. However, a third person reported success with Time Machine, at least running the beta of OS X Yosemite. Several of the affected users say they've contacted Apple support personnel, who are investigating the issue.
MacRumors ran its own test on the bug and reported the following:
In our own testing, using "Reset All Settings" deleted all iWork documents stored in iCloud Drive on the iPhone and on iCloud.com. After allowing time for syncing to a Mac running OS X Yosemite, all of the documents disappeared from that machine as well. Preview and TextEdit documents, which cannot be accessed on the iPhone, remained untouched on the Mac.
iCloud Drive is Apple's answer to Google Drive, Microsoft's OneDrive, and other cloud-based storage services. Beyond just syncing your files between your iOS devices and iCloud, you can directly store and retrieve documents and other files on iCloud Drive just as you can store and retrieve them locally.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
iOS 8's tweaks aren't simply cosmetic.Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
Web programmers rejoice: Apple's new iOS 8 has added support for standards that will let you build better games and more productive websites.
Safari, the browser built into Apple's mobile operating system, now can run Web software written to use the WebGL standard for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics and the IndexedDBstandard for storing data that can be used even without a network connection. The first is good for Web-based games -- it can speed up 2D graphics, too -- and the second is good for tools like e-mail, word processors, or blog-posting tools for when people don't want to lose work when network access disappears on a plane or in a tunnel.
iOS, though trailing Google's Android in market share, remains widely used and is a favorite among programmers. Because of that, the moves Apple makes are important. That's doubly true for Web standards: the more widely supported a new standard becomes, the freer programmers are to use it rather than worry their software won't work on one browser or another.
WebGL and IndexedDB are important for the gradual transformation of the Web from a repository of static documents into a foundation for dynamic software like apps. Curiously, that was the only way third-party programmers could get apps onto the initial iPhone, which was before the App Store relied on the Web. But since those early days, Apple has had tremendous success attracting programmers to build native apps that run on iOS itself, not the browser.
But not everyone uses iOS. Plenty of programmers want something that works on Android, Windows Phone, Firefox OS, BlackBerry OS and any other mobile operating system that turns up. It's thoseprogrammers who will benefit most from the new Web standards support in iOS 8.
They'll benefit in another way, too: in addition to loading Web apps directly within the browser, native iOS apps running outside the browser can draw upon Web standards. Many programmers use this approach for building user interfaces; they get many of the cross-platform advantages of the Web packaged to work more like a native app.
For this approach, Apple previously offered a tool called UIWebView, but iOS 8 introduces a new tool called WKWebView. Not only does it support the new standards, but it lifts a restriction in UIWebView that had in effect throttled the JavaScript programming language that's at the heart of interactive Web apps.
Apple also added support for some other Web standards, according to a tally of iOS 8 Web improvements by Sencha, a company that offers programming tools to developers using Web interfaces to build apps.
Among the other standards arriving with iOS 8:
SPDY, a technology developed by Google that can speed Web page loading. It's not strictly speaking an industry standard, but it's widely used and some of its technology is being built into the HTTP standard that governs communications between Web browsers and Web servers that host Web pages.
The srcset attribute, part of the solution to letting programmers better handle graphics on high-resolution displays.
CSS Shapes Level 1, which permits more advanced layouts that combine text and graphic elements.
SVG Fragment IDs, which will help programmers use vector art for game elements like spaceships or avatars.
Promises, which helps browsers run multiple tasks at the same time.
And high-resolution timers, which let programmers carefully test Web page performance.
iPad Mini and a SteelSeries controller. Sooner or later, a bigger screen will make a lot of sense.Sarah Tew/CNET
"Apple's Metal technology in iOS 8 introduces a whole new level of performance that is unmatched in mobile today. With the ability to maximize game performance on the A7, we can deliver a console-level experience on an iPhone or iPad." -EA's prepared statement regarding Metal at WWDC.
Watching Apple's WWDC keynote, I knew right away what I was seeing before Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, even said it: EA and Popcap's Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, a console shooter made for current and next-gen consoles, was running -- or, at least part of it was -- on an iPad.
iPhones and iPads already play pretty impressive games and boast shockingly good graphics. ButMetal is a new developer tool that aims to push even more performance out of the current A7 processor. Graphics demonstrations at Apple's event involved thousands of blowing flower petals and other console-style gymnastics. The graphics capabilities mean running game engines intended for PCs and consoles: EA's Frostbite Engine, for instance, is what makes Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare tick; Frostbite also powers Battlefield 4 and upcoming games like Dragon Age III: Inquisition.
Tim Stevens/CNET
But, to what end? Console-level gaming hits a wall on iPhones and iPads, and that's mainly due to screen size and input. There are iOS game controllers that are currently changing the landscape of iOS gaming to a far more console-like level, but the games that tap into these controllers are hard to find.
Is it outlandish to think of a beefed-up Apple TV becoming a gaming superpower? The next-gen console landscape is still in transition: the PS4 and Xbox One are selling systems but are expensive and still have too few must-have games, while Nintendo's Wii U has completely run aground from the rest of the third-party publishing landscape. I felt this way last year, and I feel it even more now.
EA, CryTek, Epic, and Unity are all already working with Metal to improve iOS gaming, according to Federighi. Now, imagine: with E3 just around the corner, and mobile already carving out a dominant part of the gaming profit landscape, why wouldn't publishers want to push console games to an iOS-based, TV-connected platform -- especially if it means these games will work on iPhones and iPads, too?
iOS game controllers have always felt like a first step toward a gaming-ready Apple TV. At this point, MFi -- short for "Made for iPhone" -- game controllers exist but feel like a hobby: only a few accessories, and a long but hard-to-find iOS game controller-ready catalog. All it would take is an MFi controller and an app-ready Apple TV to open up living-room iOS gaming. But as far as how good these games could get, well, Metal might be a window into the depth of Apple's aspirations.
Metal is designed for A7 processors -- the powerful 64-bit mobile chip that powers the 2013 iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iPad Mini with Retina Display. Of course, A8 processors -- all but certain to debut in the fall inside Apple's inevitable new iPhones and iPads -- should be even more capable, especially where 3D graphics and gaming are concerned.
The current Apple TV box debuted in 2012 and runs on a 32-bit A5, the 2011 chip that debuted in the iPhone 4s. Whether the long-rumored next-gen Apple TV box runs the A7, the A8, or something in between -- the A7X? -- the fact that it's a 64-bit chip would give it the gaming chops it needs to deliver the sort of impressive performance that Apple teased at its WWDC keynote yesterday. Add Metal-enabled games to the mix -- which Federighi claimed could deliver up to a "10x improvement" in some areas of graphics performance, and that console-level bar might be a lot of more achievable.
Metal is too good, in a lot of ways, for smaller screens alone. Its true destiny feels like a larger screen -- and by that I mean a 60-inch TV, not just a 10-inch iPad. If it meant I could buy an inexpensive device and play affordable games that look nearly as good as what I could get on a console, I'd love to play.
Apple's Craig Federighi, head of software engineering, debuts iOS 8 onstage at WWDC 2014.Tim Stevens/CNET
With iOS 8, Apple has finally begun straying from its closed-garden philosophy -- if only with a small opening in the fence that's cut to fit only certain types of apps and functionalities.
Starting this fall, developers will be able to release third-party keyboards for iDevices and to integrate TouchID fingerprint scanning into any iOS app, and widgets will be able to populate the hampered and scarcely utilized Notification Center to overhaul its handiness by allowing interactive notifications. And that's just the beginning, says Apple. There's a slew of features baked into the app-building toolkit for iOS 8 that Apple hopes will empower a wave of services to talk to each other and leverage iOS in all new ways.
"With more than 800 million iOS devices sold worldwide, the opportunity for developers is huge," Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said in a statement following Monday's keynote address during Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. "This is the biggest iOS release since the launch of the App Store. The iOS 8 SDK delivers more than 4,000 new APIs including amazing new frameworks, greater extensibility and a revolutionary new programming language."
The strategy on display is a two-fold assault. Apple wants to be as friendly and accommodating as it can be to its developer community of more than 9 million coders and established companies with which it has a symbiotic relationship. But the iPhone maker is also being overtly clear concerning the app areas in which it wants to squash competitors big and small -- namely messaging and personal media, which also includes cross-device sharing and storage for files.
"Apple is not going to make themselves a multiplatform company," said Van Baker, an Apple analyst with the research firm Gartner. "These enhancements, the whole continuity thing, this is them saying, 'The Apple platform is the best platform across OS X and the Mac and iOS devices. If you want all these wonderful benefits, you need to buy into our platform.'"Because targeting those key sectors is how Apple beefs up the value proposition of sticking with its platform and selling a complementary Mac and iPad for every iPhone. You're far less likely to switch to Android if more of your life is tied up not in Google or Dropbox or Facebook, but in iCloud and iMessage.
So on one hand, it's clear that Apple is taking a step in the right direction, acknowledging that opening up its mobile OS can be beneficial. On the other, Apple is drawing a line in the sand over which parts of its garden it wants to cultivate alone in its battle to admonish Android users and the staggering mobile OS market share Google commands.
"It was clear that [Apple CEO] Tim Cook was much more aggressive relative to Android than I've ever seen him before," Baker said. "I think that's a sign that they're going to take them on aggressively and that they believe they've got some competitive differentiators."
Apple: Stay away from our messages
Anyone who's ever endured a robust group message in Apple's native text client, Messages, knows a universal pain: the constant buzzing of your phone, a never-ending avalanche of notifications that occasionally become so overwhelming that you give up on participating at all.
There's a "Do Not Disturb" feature, but it doesn't function unless your screen is off. You constantly have to swipe away new texts if a conversation is plowing forward while you're checking Facebook or trying to read a website. Turning off group messaging in the iPhone's settings panel doesn't solve the problem because your phone number is still tied to the texts your friends keep sending. Frankly put, it's a nightmare that has sent iMessage fans running for the hills -- or at least to competing standalone services like WhatsApp or GroupMe.
Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNET
That's why Apple, with the messaging overhaul baked into iOS 8, has staked out a bold position on texting that it hopes can trump third-party offerings. Apple wants Messages to be the paramount text experience and one you use freely across Mac, iPad, and iPhone. So it's giving users a slew of power features to not only mute conversations and leave group messages, but to also share audio, video, and location data more freely and intuitively than ever before. It also built in a direct response to the explosively popular Snapchat: texts in Messages can now be made ephemeral with a designated time limit until they poof into nonexistence.
Whatever your take on the sustainability of iMessage -- an iOS-exclusive messaging solution may be a losing battle in the long run -- Apple sent a clear signal: We want to own messaging on our platform. Federighi said as much onstage, outlining that Messages was the most used iOS app. Services like WhatsApp, now owned by Facebook, the social network's own Facebook Messenger, and the growing number of messaging upstarts -- from Snapchat and Kik to WeChat and Line --are carving up the globe in a war against SMS. With Messages, Apple is increasingly pulling up walls to avoid that fight altogether.
The fight for files
Communication is just one area in which Apple is saying, "Stay away." Another prominent sector is photography, one of the App Store's most thoroughly built-out departments. Apple has long had its visual app lunch eaten by Instagram, Hipstamatic, VSCOcam, Loom, and countless others that have spun out key photo editing or capturing features into standalone apps. With iOS 8, Apple strengthens its position in that fight.
For one, Photos will have cross-device editing, making it more sensible to stay within Apple's native gallery app than jump in and out of other editing tools that won't work on desktop. There are also numerous upgrades, like editing tools that incorporate more functionality you might expect from high-end software like Adobe's Photoshop, and new features -- like time lapse video -- that replace standalone apps as Apple did rather effectively with panoramas.
But more importantly, Apple is using Photos to go straight for the jugular of cloud storage company Dropbox, which announced its Carousel photo app barely two months ago. Carousel built on the flawed promise of services like Google+ and Flickr auto-upload and Apple's Photo Stream that never quite got it right. By creating a seamless system to back up every photo you take with your mobile device -- and storing a high-res version in the cloud on your Dropbox account -- Carousel lets you wipe the files from your device to save space. Low-res thumbnails are kept on hand to scroll through whilst on the go.
Now Photos for iOS will do the exact same, syncing all your photos with iCloud. Apple even undercut Dropbox on storage pricing, which remains the biggest impediment to storing all your photos in an online repository. iCloud Drive, Apple's new streamlined subscription storage service, is free up to 5GB, but now 20 GB of storage goes for 99 cents per month while 200 GB is $3.99 per month. There will eventually be a 1TB tier as well.
iCloud DriveScreenshot by Nick Statt/CNET
Dropbox, on the other hand, is 2GB for free -- though Carousel nets you a few gigabytes extra -- and $9.99 a month for 100GB and an additional $9.99 for every 100GB after that. It's clear that with iCloud and Photos, Apple has found a way to wage a price and feature war on storage and image collection simultaneously.
iCloud Drive is also a weapon in Apple's struggle against Google Drive. While Microsoft has steadily charted its paid path with Office apps, Apple and Google have long since fought a bitter battle over cheap -- or free in Google's case -- cloud-based apps for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Apple has iWork and iCloud, and Google has Drive.
In iOS 8, iCloud Drive is now a Finder-like file system on all iDevices that finally lets users access everything they have stored online and make instantaneous changes across iWork apps, making it more competitive with Drive. And in a surprising move, Apple is looping in other companies' services, in effect opening up its typically closed cloud software to cut into the spread of Google's.
"It was interesting that they did open up the back end of iCloud to others. You can use [Microsoft's] OneDrive, you can use Box," explained Baker. That's important for two reasons. One, Apple sees that it can appease enterprise companies -- even when it's directly competing with them in some aspects -- that are increasingly facing a world of "bring your own device," in which Apple phones and computers are becoming more common in the workplace and thus need support for more than iWork.
Secondly, and more pivotal to the long-run adoption of Apple's growing app and services family, is that it gets users more comfortable both with subscribing to iCloud and with actually using its companion apps and the many cross-device syncing that comes with it. Again, it's an appeal to the iOS and OSX ecosystem promise that forms the backbone of Apple's open- and closed-garden hedging.
If Apple can win its war with messaging, file sharing and storage, and perhaps even productivity, that will prove that it can start using iCloud and the seamless web its built between devices to pull people back to its many other, more forgotten proprietary app offerings. Maps, Mail, Calendar, Contacts -- not to mention all the social and power user features built into Safari that sync with everything else -- have long been pushed to the periphery.
Now, as Apple opens up, it may find ways to lock back down what it's long since lost to the competition.
