iPhone running slowly after the iOS 7 update? These tips will speed up the iPhone. Speed up the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 running the iOS 7 operating system.
Fix iPhone keyboard, battery life and crashing app problems .
You can breathe new life into your older device with a few simple tricks to make apps load faster and make the overall device seem much speedier running iOS 7.
iOS 7 is the most advanced operating system ever to appear a mobile phone. Its the heart of the iPhone and iPad and is the software responsible for running all your apps, notifications, and every other feature of the phone.
One thing thats clear is that iOS 7 is a lot happier on the latest 64-bit A7 processor then it is on older iPhones. iOS 7 is compatible all the way back to the iPhone 4 and iPad 2, but owners of iPhone 4 devices claim to find iOS 7 especially sluggish. Its older A4 processor isnt as capable to mask any problems as the lightning fast new A7.
But there are a few iOS 7 tips that can help speed up your experience. With this in mind weve written this guide to getting iOS 7 working properly on older iPhone devices. These tips should keep you up and running.
iOS 7.1 has already greatly improved the speed within the mobile operating system, but if you're running an older device that still supports iOS 7, you may have noticed that while the device operates, the animations and some of the other features of the OS still seem sluggish. Here are five tips that will make your older device running iOS 7 feel much snappier and can help you breathe new life into them.
Speed up iOS: Ditch the clutter
First of all get rid of all all your unused apps, files and any other flotsam and jetsam on your iPhone. We are not suggesting you run an iPhone on empty, but make sure you are not running it on full. This has always slowed down the iPhone but on iOS 7 with an older device the difference becomes especially noticeable.
Head in to Settings > General > Usage to check how much space is free on your iPhone or iPad.
Wed suggest keeping at least 1GB free just to make sure theres some free space for iOS to shunt files around without having to do too much juggling.
Kill Automatic Background Processes
If you've enabled some of the iOS background processes, like automatic downloads, then what you may not know is that iOS will routinely check for updates and install them automatically. This can happen at almost any time, and if it happens while you're using an older device, then you may find the OS to be a bit sluggish. However, automatic
downloads can eat away at the available CPU on your device during the time of the downloads and installs.
Turn off Automatic Updates.
Tap Settings > iTunes & App Store > and turn Updates off. If you spend a lot of time uploading Music, Apps and Books you might want to turn off those as well.
By doing this, you must manually update your apps by visiting App Store | Updates | Update All whenever there's an update available. However, on the plus side, disabling this feature can make for a snappier device if you have a lot of apps that are consistently receiving updates. Turning off the Music, Apps, and Books feature means that when you purchase one of these items on the iTunes Store from another device, your device will not automatically download that item. You can still manually re-download these purchases by visiting iTunes Store | More | Purchased.
Turn off Background App Refresh.
Tap Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Turn Background App Refresh off and tap Disable Background App Refresh.
Both of these are luxury items. You dont need them and youll see a big boost in battery life as well as a noticeable increase in performance.
Speed up iOS 7 by turning down the graphics (parallax, blur, transparency, and motion effects)
With iOS 7, Apple relies on new user interface and user experience elements like blurring, transparencies, and parallax, but all of these features can slow down an otherwise speedy device. Even on newer devices, disabling this feature will make it seem like apps are opening and performing faster.
Disabling the parallax feature of iOS 7 not only helps out with speeding up the device, but it can also preserve your battery life. To disable the parallax feature, follow these steps:
Turn off Motion.
Tap on Settings> General > Accessibility> Reduce Motion and set Reduce Motion to On. This turns off the parallax effect of icons and alerts (many people find it easier to use in this setting).
Disabling the Parallax feature of iOS 7.
Reducing the motion means that the CPU will not have to process and react to the accelerometer sensor in your device when tilting in order to make UI changes visible on the screen.
By enabling this feature, you will not harm the features of accelerometer-based applications — they will still behave normally.
Disabling transparency will alleviate some of the extra strain on an older device's CPU when creating the live blur. To disable blurring and transparency in features like the navigation bar in applications and the Control Center, perform the following steps:
Increase Contrast.
Tap on Settings > General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast and set Increase Contrast to On. This disables the see-through background effects, which speeds up iOS 7. Its most noticeable on Control Centre which will now have a solid background and should work much faster.
Enable Reduce Transparency.
Once transparency has been disabled, the Control Center and other UI elements that utilize the live blur will display a solid background instead of the semi-transparent overlay.
Solid background is displayed.
Both of these will help with battery life, but are especially helpful for speeding up iOS 7.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
As Roy from the IT Crowd always says: try turning it off and on again.
Hold down the Sleep/Wake button until Slide to Power Off appears, then slide the Red button to power down the phone. Give it a few seconds then hold Sleep;/Wake again to power up the phone.
You should havent to do this very often, but when you do itll clear out the memory pace and can often fix unruly apps. The occasional power cycle help keep iOS 7 ticking over.
iOS 7: speed up the keyboard
Many users of iOS 7 on older phones have complained that the iPhone keyboard isnt working as fast as they like it to. ONe way to fix this is to restart documents and data.
Be warned! This will wipe any keyboard shortcuts you may have.
Go to Settings > iCloud > Documents & Data and tap Documents & Data off. Tap Turn Off Documents
Now turn Documents & Data back on.
Hopefully this will help fix some of the keyboard troubles you may be having.
iOS 7 iTunes Store keeps crashing
Some people have noted problems with the iTunes Store running slowly and crashing. One way to fix this is to sign out and back in.
Click Settings > iTunes & App Store and tap your Apple ID.
Now tap Sign Out.
Tap Apple ID and enter your user ID and Password and tap Sign In.
This should take you back into the iTunes & App Stores and refresh your account. Both the iTunes Store and App Store apps should tick over a little more reliably from now on.
Hopefully these tips make using iOS 7 on an older iPhone device a little more pleasant. Feel free to add any more tips in the comments. Its worth bearing in mind that Apple often fixes and speeds up these issues over time, and we wouldnt be surprised if the next few updates to iOS 7 fixed many of these problems so be sure to keep checking Software Update and try turning features back on over time to see if its made any difference.
Keep the updates rolling in
If Apple has shown us anything, it's that it releases updates, then reiterates until the OS is operating at top notch. They most recently showed us this with the iOS 7.1 update.
Ensuring that you have the latest software update means that any software-related slow downs can be easily fixed by the manufacturer.
To check for device updates, perform the following steps:
1. Navigate to Settings | General
2. Select Software Update
Make sure you have the latest software update.
If a software update is available, you'll be able to install in this area; if not, then you'll be told that your device is already up-to-date. Ensuring that you've gotten the latest update installed on your device means that any software-related issues concerning the speed of the device can be fixed by the updates.
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