Four months after launch, iOS 16 users continue to report experiencing a plethora of bugs, ranging from slow keyboard pop-ups, random rebooting, UI glitches, camera freezes, and more.
Apple released iOS 16 in September and has since released multiple follow-up updates to address bugs and security patches. The most recent update for the operating system is iOS 16.2, released on December 13. iOS 16.2 brought a new Freeform app, new always-on display options for the iPhone 14 Pro, new lock screen widgets, 5G support for India, and more. Along with the latest features, the update also brought many bugs and system glitches, according to user reports.
Across Twitter, Reddit (1,2,3,4,5,6), the MacRumors forum (1,2,3,4), and Apple Support, users say they're experiencing an unusual amount of bugs and poor system performance following the most recent iOS 16 update. According to users, the issues are wide-ranging, including Spotlight search glitches, the keyboard not appearing in apps, excessive battery drain, the Camera app freezing, problems with Focus modes, Apple Music app bugs, HomeKit accessories not working, and CarPlay glitches.
My iPhone 14 pro max is far the buggiest iPhone I’ve used in a LONG time. -Camera freezes
-Keyboard haptic/sounds randomly change
- keyboard is slow when on WhatsApp calls
- battery getting worse Is it just me?? (iOS 16.2) — The Tech Chap (@TheTechChap) January 14, 2023
More and more people keep telling me all the issues with iOS 16.2. Hope we get a major bug fix soon. Hearing this more each day. — Aaron Zollo (@zollotech) January 13, 2023
Are you noticing a lot more app crashes on iOS 16.2? — Rjey (@RjeyTech) January 13, 2023
Another day, another iOS 16 bug… #apple #ios #iphone pic.twitter.com/NKQW6f008K — 💀 (@t3mporarybl1p) January 13, 2023
Nuevo bug en iOS 16.2. He tenido que forzar un reinicio porque los widgets de la pantalla de bloqueo no iban. Urge una actualización. — Fran Besora (@ifrnb) January 14, 2023
On Reddit, users report that apps can freeze after they're opened or crash entirely while in use. "This started happening after updating to iOS 16.2, where I'll be using an app (happening on any app), and the application freezes for a couple of seconds," one user said. "Yeah it's been awful! I even decided this year was the year to upgrade my phone to 14 Pro and it's been so bad," said another user.
Users also report ongoing issues with the Home app following the iOS 16.2 update. One new feature of the update was an overhaul of the architecture of the Home app. Apple announced the new architecture in June, promising faster, more reliable HomeKit performance. Following the release of the new app, however, users reported issues with accessories not working, forcing Apple to withdraw the update.
User reports suggest issues are not limited to any specific iPhone model, given iOS 16 is supported by the iPhone 8 and later models. Even with the latest high-end iPhones, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, users are experiencing issues, including a long-standing problem with the device lagging when a user closes out of an app.
iOS 16.2 was released last month after testing with developers and public testers since October. Through the beta testing period in October, November, and December, Apple released five updates, addressing bugs and issues reported by testers.
Given the nature of bugs experienced by some users on iOS 16.2, Apple could release iOS 16.2.1 before releasing iOS 16.3 several weeks later. Apple is currently testing iOS 16.3 with developers and public beta members with just a few new features.
Top Rated Comments
We've invested a lot in Apple's ecosystem. We also have iCloud, Apple Music, stuff like that. And a plethora of Homekit accessories.
Ever since iOS 16 came out (mind you, ALL our devices are capable of running the latest OS versions) and macOS 13 as well, our digital life has been ONE BIG HELL!!!
I hope Apple is reading this, because I'm really fed up with this. We're paying premium prices for premium products and a bug here and there is acceptable, but this is absolutely ridiculous and TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.
What we experience on a (nearly) daily basis:
* Screen time requests do not come through, either: at all, for 1 of us (at random)
* Screen time requests now come in as iMessage, after 5-10 are in the history of the chat the Messages app gets extremely slow, both on iPhones, iPads and worst of all: MacBooks.
* Screen time request approval on Apple Watch does NOT work
* App approval (Ask to buy) for the kids does NOT work, they can request it from their device, but we never get any notification or way to approve. Have to turn it off, then install locally and then turn on again to prevent them from installing anything else.
* Multiple Apple apps often freeze/hang and then are killed: Find My, Maps, Apple Music, Camera, etc.
* AirPlay video to Apple TVs sometimes only sends out audio, restarting Apple TV or iPhone helps until it happens again sometime later.
* Keyboard doesn't show in lots of apps, app needs to be killed.
* Battery drain is exceptionally high, I cannot get over 4 hours of screen on my iPhone while this used to be easy 5 and sometimes 6.
* Apps and camera often stutter, easily visible that it either goes down to a very low fps/Hz like 10 fps or something and/or it stutters at 1 fps for a few seconds.
* Automations don't work often times. And I know that this is Homekit and not my WiFi or anything else, because I also heavily use Philips Hue and since that is much more detailed in terms of automations for motion sensors (it reads the lux for one) and switches (I can actually configure short and long presses on my FoH switches for turning off/on and dimming) and those NEVER FAIL. Same with the few Aqara specific automations, for stuff that Homekit doesn't support: it's not as robust as Hue itself, but 95% of the time it works. Homekit? It's like 50/50 right now, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Deleting an Automation seems to work, but temporarily.
* Homekit accessories don't respond at random moments. Rebooting the Apple TV seems to help the most, but it's not a given.
* Homekit notifications for cameras are inconsistent. I own multiple Netatmo Presence cameras and to test I enabled notifications from their own app as well. Sometimes the notifications are almost instant for both (Netatmo and HKSV) but 7/10 times HKSV lags behind for at least 2-3 seconds. Sometimes it's minutes later.
* My only AirTag which is attached to my home keys has already started ringing when I picked it up when I was about to leave the house. I had my phone in my pocket, no notification, no way to stop it and simply no idea why this happened. It never was away from my phone during that period.
* My 64 GB iPhone 12 became incredibly slow after updating to iOS 16, found out that it only had 2 GB of storage left, while it was 4.5 GB before! Where the heck has those 2.5 GB gone to Apple?! I rigorously deleted some apps since it was slowing to a crawl with everything from unlocking to even opening apps, it literally felt like I was using a €50 Android phone with stutters, no response, freezes and everything along those lines with literally everything I did. Now I'm hovering at 4 GB and it's back to somewhat normal (apart from everything else above) but a 2 year old iPhone 12 need 4 GB of free storage space on a 64 GB model to run smoothly? Unacceptable. And there's no way for me to remove caches like the 4.1 GB of the Photos app while I have a total of 2.2 TB iCloud storage with Photos enabled in iCloud and not even 1 TB in use with the whole family? Same with Apple Music: I specifically said it to not download anything, I don't have local music or playlists saved (I've got unlimited 5G anyway) and it takes up 1.28 GB?! I don't mind if it does this to smoothen things up, but I find it absolutely STUPID from a company like Apple and an almost €1000 phone that it cannot see that I only have 2-4 GB storage free and stubbornly keeps a hold of over 5 GB in caches in apps that are cloud-based. At least be smart about it, just like the Offload Unused Apps feature (which I want to keep in control myself, thank you very much) or give users the option to specify how much cache can be used, like: 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, etc. Even if that makes viewing my photos slightly slower.
And there's lots more, but this has already become a novel almost.
Don't get me wrong: apart from this, I still love Apple hardware and software. But we specifically decided to go all-in on Apple and things like Homekit, because it would make our lives easier. We're a busy family with work, school, sports and a social life, like most families I suppose, so we just want stuff to work. I don't mind paying a premium, I don't mind subscriptions (there is a limit, I'm not paying for a calendar app or something), but then stuff should work. And right now it's a complete **** show from Apple. I bought a Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Android phone just to test it out, it was just €230, not even a Black Friday deal or anything, and that works much more bug-free than my iPhone 12 right now. Yes, the camera is **** (but that's what you pay for as well, or not in case of the Xiaomi) and it's slightly slower than most recent iPhones when they perform as they should, but it's performing consistent and definitely not slow at all. For my son I even tried out Genshin Impact which is a huge game and it runs flawlessly. I've literally been using it side-by-side with all the exact same apps installed as on my iPhone and it gives me over 7 hours on-screen time. The only difference of course being Homekit not running on there and some apps I had to swap out to an equivalent.
In short: I know for example that my iPhone 12 with 64 GB is too much on the limit, so I need a 128 GB phone next time, I wanted to buy the 14 Pro, but I'm waiting to see if Apple finally fixes this **** show with 16.3 or something. My son's iPad 6th gen is also getting slow for some of his games, so a new iPad is on the wish list, just as replacing the 2nd Apple TV 4K with the same one as in the living room (with Thread support), but right now I'm not buying anything until this is fixed. And I'm a patient person, but if even iOS 17 doesn't fix this, then I don't give a **** about how much pain it will cost me and my family to move away, but that would straight away mean that I would sell everything from Apple and go full in on Android+Windows+Google Home. I used to not want that, partly because of privacy, but I rate working products and services higher than my privacy (to a limit of course), especially when paying premium prices.
Let's end with a bold statement: Apple has lost it, their teams have become too big so they can't handle it and either need to go back to the drawing board on how they work or at the very least stop releasing a new iOS version every year. Just focus on getting things to actually work, then nobody will mind waiting 2 years in between major releases.
But anyway, if you have a problem with an apple product, tell them rather than shitposting on Twitter: https://www.apple.com/feedback/
They fixed the three I submitted within 2 minor releases (one issue with reminders and one issue with notes)
Compare that to Microsoft who I held a bug open for 9 years via very expensive paid enterprise support on Connect that impacted 50,000. users and they never fixed it. The bug was only closed when they shut Connect down and deprecated Internet Explorer.