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iPhone Users Complain of App Slowdowns and Performance Drops After Installing iOS 11

Monday September 25, 2017 2:41 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Following the release of a new version of iOS, there are typically complaints about battery problems, issues with apps, and minor bugs, and the launch of iOS 11 has proven to be no exception.

On reddit, numerous users who have installed iOS 11 claim to be experiencing much slower app performance, app crashes, and other similar issues. The initial reddit post calls launching apps "an absolute chore," a sentiment echoed by dozens of additional comments.

Ever since I upgraded, launching apps is an absolute chore. Safari, Reddit, ESPN, Yahoo, texts, etc all have a terrible time opening. They either crash back to home, freeze and require closing the app or take well over a minute to load. I never had a single issue with my 7+ before last night and now suddenly it's like this phone is stuck in quicksand. I've never had to hard reset this phone before but I've had to do it twice in the past two days.
Users are complaining that their phones "just get stuck on apps" and that a hard reset is the only way to fix the problem. Reddit, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Messenger, Safari, and more are all affected apps. Sometimes, apps refuse to open just launching from the Home screen, while at other times, apps launched from Notifications won't work, and there are issues with Bluetooth.
I've been using the beta and it's been super fine for me. But now on the GM I get all the same issues. Apps don't launch, or if they finally do they crash. Things are freezing and crashing. Sometimes just bringing up CC stalls my phone and makes it unresponsive. Something in the update broke the Bluetooth controls connection and now I can't use the skip button from my transmitter (which worked in the beta) to change songs.
The Now Playing widget in the Control Center is also a chief complaint, with multiple users unable to control songs on Spotify and Apple Music using the widget, and some users say their battery life has taken a serious hit since updating.

Not all customers who upgraded to iOS 11 are seeing these issues but based on the reddit thread, it seems a fair number of people are having problems. App updates and subsequent iOS 11 updates are likely to resolve these issues over time, but customers who want an immediate fix can try some of the methods reported to work on reddit

Some reddit users claim that resetting their settings (Settings --> General ---> Reset --> Reset All Settings) fixed all of the app issues, while others have restored their devices and set it up as new to solve the problem. Others have backed up and restored and had better results. From one reddit user on backup and restore:
Exactly. I think people think this is a placebo effect but it really does work. Brought my 6S from a sluggish beast to more or less the same performance I had in iOS 10.
Multiple iPhone models appear to be affected, with redditors reporting issues on the iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and other earlier models. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus do not appear to be affected, and there are few complaints about iPad Pro models.

[ 399 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

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Ds6778
18 months ago
Lmao at the “reindexing” stop making excuses for apples lack of attention to detail.
Rating: 49 Votes
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abrooks
18 months ago

Your phone is reindexing. Relax and let it do its job.


For a week?
Rating: 47 Votes
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d5aqoëp
18 months ago
This simply can’t be true. Apple’s software is perfection. Those complaining might have mixed up Touchwiz with iOS 11.
/s
Rating: 32 Votes
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jonmspencer
18 months ago
Planned obsolescence? Yeah, iOS11 is super slow. I love my iPhone, but seems like a sales tactic.
Rating: 24 Votes
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gruversm
18 months ago
Your phone is reindexing. Relax and let it do its job.
Rating: 21 Votes
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terrywfoster
18 months ago
I have had ZERO negative issues with iOS 11. I'm running it on an iPhone 7 Plus and an iPad Pro 10.5.
Rating: 13 Votes
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citi
18 months ago
It's re-indexing. The first 2 days my phone was super slow, now it's moving much faster. Of course, maybe I'm just used to the slowness now. :-)
Rating: 13 Votes
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Stella
18 months ago
My iphone certainly doesn't keep connected to Wifi.. drops all the time even under an excellent signal. Never had this issue prior to ios11.
Rating: 12 Votes
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Hberg
18 months ago
I have the 7 Plus, and I am not noticing any issues after updating to iOS 11.
Rating: 10 Votes
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Hustler1337
18 months ago

I have a 6s, 16GB. I’ve tested iOS 11 since it’s release at WWDC and I’ve had all the log files clog this device up, but I still didn’t have any issues with stuttering and opening apps after the second beta. I did a clean install of the production release and performance is great.

Doing a clean install and setting up as a new device is a pain but it will help you clean out your device, especially if you always do OTA updates. And yes, backups get corrupted. Restore and set up as a new iPhone. Don’t be lazy.


I had terrible performance with my 6s even before iOS 11, mostly lag and choppy animations. I though updating would fix this but became worse. I let it for 1 week to finish indexing just to make sure it wasn't that. Nothing changed so today I did a back up, reset and restore. It took it 3 hours to download everything back but man, it feels like I bought it today. I forgot my iPhone was this fast.


The moment you have to go through the effort of backing up, doing a clean install and restoring your device for 3 hours, that's when iOS stops becoming iOS. Simplicity and 'it just works' was what made iOS successful and distinguished it from the rest. The moment it starts losing this quality and when it starts to become a chore for users to maintain its performance, then iOS has lost its identity and in the end, will start losing its user base.
Rating: 9 Votes

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