iOS 9 is on it’s way and I’m super excited! There are all sorts of really great things coming. Of all the features of this upcoming release, I’m most excited about “under the hood refinements”.
I am still using an iPhone 4S and I get a lot of blowback on this from everyone that knows me and all the cutting edge gizmos I have. My iPhone is definitely my most significant and most used device and while I’ve thought a lot about going for a brand new iPhone 6 plus 64GB and adding AppleCare+ to the mix, the price tag has scared me away (I buy my phones outright leaving me free from 2 year contracts and early termination fees). It’s a beautiful device and the speed improvements would be something I feel many times throughout the day.
My poor iPhone 4S 64GB is pushed much harder than most. I’ve got dozens of push notifications coming in every day, sometimes dozens in an hour, on top of that I have several really awesome notification center widgets. This old iPhone from 2011 is a technological marvel. I remember when it was being announced in October of 2011, Steve Jobs was on his deathbed. The iPhone 4S was and remains a truly beautiful device. It’s well built, but its dated hardware struggles (sometimes limping, flailing, or crawling) through every task that I throw at it. I also love the physical size.
The 3.5 inch display was actually a very carefully thought out design decision because it would allow the average human thumb to reach every part of the screen without needing the grip to be repositioned. There’s a feature on the iPhone 6 that addresses that issue. A double tap on the home button (not actually mechanically pushing down on the home button causing it to click) will cause the display, or at least the image on it, to slide down a bit and make it much closer reach. While one handed operation has never been something I’ve needed on my iPad, it doesn’t make sense to me to have a phone that can’t always be used with just one hand.
The small physical size of the iPhone 4S isn’t something that I want to give up, but the speed of the device is definitely making me long for a faster device. The device will routinely freeze up when I’m using an app and I’ll have to quit out of the app by pressing the home button, return to the home screen, quit the app and try again. Sometimes this will be so bad that I’ll have to force reboot the device by pressing the home button and the lock button at the same time until the Apple logo appears and let my poor old iPhone 4S reboot. Even rebooting has become a painful process; it takes over 2 minutes for the device to power back on. Generally this isn’t too bad, but if I’m in the middle of something (like taking a photo or video) it’s a real show stopper that’s sometimes the most frustrating part of my day.
iOS 9 is supposedly going to address these issues with “under the hood refinements”. Copying the marketing directly from Apple’s iOS 9 preview website, these improvements will result in more responsive performance (hopefully this will be an even bigger deal on older devices), easier updates (optimized storage of only what you need for the specific device, rather than one universal app for all devices), and better battery life (more efficient programming means less work for the processor, this also ties back into the more responsive performance).
The fact that iOS 9 is going to be compatible with older devices like the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 means a lot to me. It makes me feel like my older devices are still current and relevant even though they’re missing a few features the newer devices get. Even with those missing features, it’s not like I bought my device with those features and they disappeared. My iPhone does more, works harder, and is more capable than it was when I bought it. Same goes for my iPad 2. I’m happy with my older iOS devices. They meet my needs and I am glad they are still able to roll with the punches.