How Bad is iOS 15 on these Old Apple devices?
Mac Address
·Mac Address
·2022-05-05
·
1,981 words · ~9 min read
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(notification bell dings) - [Jonathan] Do you remember what you were doing in 2014?
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I was 25 and bored.
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God, that was seven years ago. Man, how time flies.
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But there is a milestone from 2014 worth noting
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because it's when this came out. It's the iPad Air 2.
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And despite its age, it will be getting the latest iOS 15 update in the fall.
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That makes it the longest supported iOS device in Apple's history.
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So that's through eight generations.
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And on the iPhone, the six-year-old 6s and SE
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will get the update as well. That's frankly, unprecedented in this segment.
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It shows how Apple's tight integration of software and hardware really stretches the longevity
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of their products. And I thought it might be a neat way to get a taste of what's to come in iOS 15,
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before it gets released in the fall. So let's see how these devices run with the latest beta.
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(drawer slides) (objects rattling)
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There it is. For comparison's sake, let's look at Android.
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Google announced their latest version, version 12 of their mobile software this summer too.
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And when it gets released in the fall, the oldest supported device that I knew of
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will probably be this, the Pixel 3.
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It came out three years ago in 2018. Now, that year, I can remember a little bit better
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because I moved to Winnipeg.
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Nevertheless, Pixel phones have been reliably getting updates for three years now,
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because Google committed to it. Get any other Android phone and chances are,
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you'll get one update, if you're lucky.
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With the iPhone, only the original got three years of updates,
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everything released after got more, but that didn't mean they got all the fancy new features
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included in their updates. And so, there are a few things admitted
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from the iOS 15 update for these devices too.
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Fancy 3d maps and turn-by-turn navigation, no live text recognition and no spatial audio
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in FaceTime calls among other things. That's fine.
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And we'll dig into those when the software gets released, make sure to stay subscribed for that.
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The question is how does the iOS 15 update run on these aging devices?
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Rather well, I must say. These are both old devices though.
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So there are slightly slower loading times here and occasional stutters there,
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but it's not unusable like an iPad 2 with iOS 9.
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I'm still waiting for that picture of the dress to load. Apparently, it's white and gold?
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If you're worried about any of the update slowdowns we remember from the past, (coughs) battery gate, (coughs)
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I wouldn't worry too much about it with this one. After over a week running both of these devices,
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they don't seem to run all that much slower than equivalents running iOS 14.
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Appearance-wise, the operating system is still as flat and plain as ever.
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On the iPad, one can now add large widgets to the home screen, which is nice,
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and multitasking is a little bit more discoverable. There are three dots on the top of open apps
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that allow you to move Windows to split view or slide over.
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Generally speaking, it works well on this iPad Air 2, but if you do try to web browse,
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while watching a YouTube video, you'll hear some stutters.
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The most annoying thing happens regardless of what iPad you're using,
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because look what happens when you miss the button.
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Mercifully, it's much easier now to add apps into slide over
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because before, you could only add apps available in the dock, which was a royal pain to deal with.
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Here's what you had to do. Close the open app, then open the app you want to have in slide over
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to put it in the recent three on the dock, then close that up, then reopen the original app,
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and then drag the new app into slide over.
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Now, though, all apps are available on an app library located on the dock.
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(upbeat music)
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Now how about old iPhones? In iOS 15, many inputs no longer span across the screen.
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The group together in rounded squares, like in the classic iOS days, only with less definition.
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It's not so bad, except that borders take up so much space
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on this SE. So that in-apps like calendar,
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critical information, like the date gets truncated.
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Why don't you prioritize the year? Now, there is a solution in iOS 15 to help with that.
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It's a feature that lets you adjust the text size on an app by app basis.
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So by adding this aA button in the control center, I can shrink the text in only the calendar app
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to 85% to fit the date. Great.
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But I'm not the only one who nitpicks Apple's design decisions to this degree.
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One of the biggest changes with iOS 15 is with Safari.
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They've moved the address bar to the bottom, and now you can swipe between tabs.
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Yay! Another swipe gesture! But this final design came after many weeks of outrage
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from the community. I'll explain what happened right after thanking this video's sponsor, Privacy.
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And you know you're gonna forget to cancel when the trial finishes and incur a charge.
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Well, Privacy is a service that lets you set up virtual credit cards
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with way more security and control than conventional cards.
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That means you can set up a single-use card with a $1 limit for trials,
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or just set up another to use when online shopping. Head to privacy.com/macaddress
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to get $5 off your first purchase. Now, where was I?
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Ah, Safari. When it was unveiled at WWDC back in June,
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everything was to be compacted into one interface row on all platforms.
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What was problematic about this design was that it required too many buttons and options to be hidden in an all-encompassing submenu,
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like the junk drawer in your foyer. So things were hard to find.
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And when Apple tried reintroducing the buttons back into the floating orb,
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it got real crowded real quick. That and the fact that a floating pill shape
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flooded over many website's bottom interface buttons.
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Ultimately, the current interface is much like it was before all of this,
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but I'm still a little bothered by the way tabs look on iPad OS and macOS.
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They're contained in these weird and wide pill shapes that just waste space and make it hard to tell what's open.
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Tab groups are the big new feature in Safari and it lets tab fiends organize their tabs
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better into groups with titles, et cetera. You can even turn your clusters of already open tabs
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into a group to get them out of the way. Now, they're supposed to be syncing across devices,
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but the tab groups that I've made on my iPad aren't showing up on my iPhone and vice versa.
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So beta bugs? (notification bell dings)
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Oh yeah, notifications. There are new focus and notification settings in iOS 15
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that provide you an interesting way to better manage your notifications
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for the different states you might be in. So when you set up the work state,
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you could choose what apps and people can make your phone chime.
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You can also set up custom pages on the home screen full of apps
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that you'd only use at work and make it visible only during work time.
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It appears to be a more customizable and robust version of Apple's Do Not Disturb feature.
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The default focus states are driving, sleep, personal and work.
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You can choose who disturbs you and when, or even where,
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and then label it for the times and states of your life when this would be handy.
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So a work focus is good to make sure only colleagues and apps that you use at work notify you.
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Though, it's a little tedious to have to go through one's contact list
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to choose the right people for that focus.
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Like all your work colleagues in work, friends for personal and study buddies for study?
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A Select All toggle would also be really nice here.
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My personal problem with this is FOMO. I always get the feeling that I'm missing out
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on something important when I'm in my work focus mode, which turns on automatically
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whenever I arrive at the office. But I guess, that's what this feature is all about anyway,
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isn't it? You do get a while in focus notification
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in your Notification Center during those times. I think it'll be useful,
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even though it might be yet another thing to maintain as life flows.
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Now there are a lot of apps on iPhone that send you notifications right away
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when you really don't care, but Apple's notification summary feature
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might be a good solution for that. There are a lot of apps
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that you probably don't want bugging you every day. So you can put them in the notification summary,
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which can be scheduled to pop up once or more times a day
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to show you what you missed. But this doesn't solve the most infamous notification problem.
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The sharing economy. You know those apps where you require instant notifications,
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like when you're getting your meal delivered, but you don't need to know about the 5% off deal-
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(notification bell dings) Right now, really?
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I tried notification summary by turning on all of the apps
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I previously had off to see what I'd get. And after a few days, I have to say,
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it's just as annoying as using notifications
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that would normally appear on the lock screen. Easier to clear perhaps, but I'm just turning this off.
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Oh, and look here. I have two sub levels in notifications
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where my While in Work Focus contains my notification summary.
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(Jonathan laughs) I feel like notifications are somehow more complicated than ever.
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Perhaps, the defaults will lead you into a more manageable life.
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And there are plenty of options for power users, but I don't know,
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I just feel like my mom's gonna avoid all this anyway.
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(tranquil music)
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The quick obsolescence of technology has been an ongoing discussion for a while now,
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but using these two seemingly ancient devices over the past week with a beta version
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of the latest software, it shows that Apple's mobile devices are being given longer lifespans
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than I ever expected them to get. This iPad Air 2 is impressively competent,
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even after all these years, but there is however one fly in the ointment
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worth mentioning. While Apple's software support is unparalleled in its longevity,
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the hardware still has batteries, which aren't accessible and wear out quickly.
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It would be nice to see the devices last equally as long in hardware as it does in software.
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Otherwise, if you own an iPad Air 2 that you bought new and still working,
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you made a extremely good long-term purchase,
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all thanks to iOS 15.
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Thanks for updating to this Mac Address. And since you made it this far,
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I think it means the video is worthy of a like, or even a subscribe.
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Now, one thing to note is that Apple plans to provide bug fixes
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and security updates to users who choose not to update to iOS 15,
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so that means that you can update this old phone,
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but you don't necessarily have to.