Should I install iOS 12 on my old iPhone or iPad?
Not all of you buy a new iPhone or iPad every year. I don't think that many of you do, and to be honest it isn't something that I recommend. In fact, I recommend that you plan for a new device offering you a good three years of service before it makes technical sense to upgrade (that said, it's your cash, and if you want new devices every year, go for it).
iPhone
While installing iOS 12 is a no-brainer for those running newer devices, what about those who have older devices? In the past, major releases of iOS did little more than kludge up older devices, making them essentially obsolete.
Does iOS 12 change this?
Also: iOS 12 features you should try today
While I can't speak for every iOS device out there, based on my testing of iOS 12 on older iPhones and iPads, this release seems to be worth installing.
Take, for example, my old iPhone 6 Plus. Under iOS 11 this device felt old and kludgy, and that was my primary motivation for buying an iPhone 8 Plus. And under the early betas of iOS 12, that older iPhone felt slower and kludgier.
But then things started to change. I started to notice that my test devices felt snappier as the betas progressed.
According to Apple, iOS 12 is up to 70 percent faster when swiping to the camera, up to 50 percent faster at displaying the keyboard, and apps load up to twice as fast under heavy workload compared to iOS 11. Based on my testing, Apple has accomplished all this.
Top 10 iOS 12.1 features you should try out today
But this stuff is hard to benchmark, and some of the improvements feel subjective. For example, apps feel like they fire up faster when the system is under load, but I'm not sure how much quicker they are to get to a usable state.
But even benchmark tests I've carried out suggest a small uptick in performance.
I've seen similar results on other devices, going back to the iPhone 5S and iPad Air. Overall, the iOS 12 experience on older devices is noticeably better than the iOS 11 experience. The keyboard and camera responsiveness is clearly there, and there's a snappiness to using the devices that hadn't been there for years.
Also: Apple iOS 12: Cheat sheet TechRepublic
Credit where it's due, Apple has done a good job with iOS 12 of making it work well on older devices.
If you've got an older iPhone or iPad that's been consigned to the 'Tech Drawer of Doom," it might be worth recharging it and seeing if this update gives it a new lease of life.
iOS 12 tells you (almost) everything you need to know about your iPhone's battery
See also:
- Apple iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR: Features and specs compared
- Meet Apple's iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR: Prices and specs
- Apple tries to wipe AirPower from the history books
- Top 12 Raspberry Pi alternatives (September 2018 edition)
- Galaxy Note 9: Nine ways it beats the iPhone
- AMD unveils 'world record breaking' Intel-beating 2nd-generation Ryzen Threadripper processors
- iOS 12/watchOS 5/tvOS 12: Which devices are supported?
- iOS 12: The hidden feature I won't be switching on