iOS 7 hell! please help me downgrade

[Berryracer]

My wife has an iPad 2 and it has been working perfectly until she updated to that cursed iOS 7

1) She hates the cartoony look

2) her iPad became laggy in everything she does including typing

3) she updated to the 2nd iOS 7 update hoping things would get better but nope

4) in Skype, when she is in a call, the other party cannot hear her although the mic is not muted

5) we installed a free sound recorder to see if the mic is even working and it IS! so it's skype that is not playing well with iOS 7

6) Please help me help her downgrade to iOS 6 with a step by step guide I am a noobie when it comes to
Apple products

thanks in advance

 

[zaydq]

My wife has an iPad 2 and it has been working perfectly until she updated to that cursed iOS 7

1) She hates the cartoony look

2) her iPad became laggy in everything she does including typing

3) she updated to the 2nd iOS 7 update hoping things would get better but nope

4) in Skype, when she is in a call, the other party cannot hear her although the mic is not muted

5) we installed a free sound recorder to see if the mic is even working and it IS! so it's skype that is not playing well with iOS 7

6) Please help me help her downgrade to iOS 6 with a step by step guide I am a noobie when it comes to
Apple products

thanks in advance

Knowing Apple, they probably no longer sign iOS 6 and therefore cannot be downloaded/downgraded unless you were jailbroken with a good shsh blob. You're Sol, mate.

 

[Kaido]

1. You cannot downgrade

2. Skype will issue an update to fix the issue...eventually

If she really wants to go back to iOS 6, she will have to sell her iPad and buy a used one that still has the old software on it. The downside is, eventually software vendors will stop supporting iOS 6 in their apps, so unless she keeps the OS up-to-date, she won't be able to get all of the latest apps.

I agree, I think iOS 7 is a joke. Total ripoff of Droid with a side of rainbow ugly slapped on. I accidentally hit the variety of hidden controls all the time, especially when swiping between pages of apps, 9 times out of 10 I accidentally slide down the search bar, and you have to be picky about whether you want to swipe down to do an iPhone search, or swipe down to do the notification center. Plus the slide-up is finicky for me, and the bottom physical button kind of gets in the way.

I feel it was worth the upgrade just for the new slide-up control center panel because I find that really handy for the flashlight, Wifi control, Bluetooth control, and Portrait control, but other than that, I don't like it. I don't like the animation, the lack of borders, the whiteness, and how they changed apps that I liked into unusable piles of garbage (Calendars, Alarms, etc.). Oh well.

 

[Printer Bandit]

iOS 6 vs 7, side by side

 

[Eug]

You can't downgrade. Apple stopped signing 6.1.x last week, a couple of days after iOS 7 came out.

iOS 7 on the iPad 2 is great IMO. We don't find it significantly laggy. However, if you want to speed it up you can:

1) Turn on Reduce Motion. That eliminates the parallax animation.
2) Turn on Increase Contrast. That removes transparency.
3) Turn off background app updating over WiFi.

As for Skype, that will be fixed soon enough.

 

[Kaido]

1) Turn on Reduce Motion. That eliminates the parallax animation.
2) Turn on Increase Contrast. That removes transparency.

They should advertise those two settings, and also turn them up - still not enough contrast and still too much motion (I'm looking at you, bouncy SMS! haha).

 

[Zodiark1593]

I recommend jailbreaking at this point. No offense to anyone here, but that UI looks like it was designed for a tablet specifically for toddlers.

 

[Eug]

Personally overall I think it looks great (but not perfect), but to each his own.

Unfortunately, you can't jailbreak an iOS 7 device. At least not yet.

 

[Printer Bandit]

I recommend jailbreaking at this point. No offense to anyone here, but that UI looks like it was designed for a tablet specifically for toddlers.

 

[Aikouka]

I recommend jailbreaking at this point. No offense to anyone here, but that UI looks like it was designed for a tablet specifically for toddlers.

I don't get why people have such crazy gripes with it. Frankly, I am far more concerned with some of the performance issues that I've had than silly quibbles with looks. After using it for over a week, the only thing that I'd complain about is why the music app is always white. Apple spent time making iTunes adjust the bar in its music viewer to change to the album art's color scheme -- why not do that in iOS too?

 

[WelshBloke]

iOS 6 vs 7, side by side

Well at least in the maps icon they aren't directing you over the edge of an overpass anymore. :thumbup:

 

[Berryracer]

You can't downgrade. Apple stopped signing 6.1.x last week, a couple of days after iOS 7 came out.

iOS 7 on the iPad 2 is great IMO. We don't find it significantly laggy. However, if you want to speed it up you can:

1) Turn on Reduce Motion. That eliminates the parallax animation.
2) Turn on Increase Contrast. That removes transparency.
3) Turn off background app updating over WiFi.

As for Skype, that will be fixed soon enough.

what a shame, but tanks for the tips bro, ill try that

 

[Eug]

iOS 7 battery life and performance tips:

http://gizmodo.com/how-to-take-care...y-the-right-w-513217256/1416982678/@ericlimer

http://m.cnet.com/news/for-longer-battery-life-change-these-ios-7-settings/57604792

 

[AkumaX]

Well at least in the maps icon they aren't directing you over the edge of an overpass anymore. :thumbup:

Maps icon pointing to their new campus

 

[gevorg]

To get back to iOS 6, your only option is buying used on eBay/etc. Pretty sure there will be some jailbreak folks with iPad 3/4 running 6.1.2 that want to upgrade to the upcoming iPad 5.

 

[MotionMan]

4) in Skype, when she is in a call, the other party cannot hear her although the mic is not muted

5) we installed a free sound recorder to see if the mic is even working and it IS! so it's skype that is not playing well with iOS 7

Make sure that Skype has permission to use the mic.

1. Go to Settings.
2. Select Privacy.
3. Select Microphone.
4. Find Skype (if it is listed) and enable it by tapping on the slider.

MotionMan

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I get the feeling that the two iP{hone5's and iPad3 running 6.x will become valuable.

 

[MotionMan]

I get the feeling that the two iP{hone5's and iPad3 running 6.x will become valuable.

Maybe for luddites, but they will die off pretty quickly.

They can always switch to Android.

MotionMan

 

[mmntech]

I hate how Apple doesn't let you downgrade. Especially if the new iOS version runs like crap on your older handset. That's just how they work though. Don't like it, get an Android phone. Me, I'm just waiting for the jailbreak. Feels like it's going to take a while this time though.

 

[Adrenaline]

Here is what I did for my iPhone:

1. Take pictures of how your stuff is organized so you can get it back to how you had it.
2. Made a backup
3. Uninstalled iTunes 11.1
4. Installed iTunes 10.7
5. Erased and started over
6. Installed the max iOS from iTunes 10.7 gave me iOS 6.1.3
7. Restore from backup

 

[ViRGE]

I hate how Apple doesn't let you downgrade. Especially if the new iOS version runs like crap on your older handset. That's just how they work though.

From a development perspective iOS doesn't have distinct branches, it's just one consecutive development path. As a result Apple doesn't issue security updates for old branches of iOS, so letting users downgrade makes very little sense. The only safe version of iOS to use is the latest one.

 

[redgtxdi]

Isn't there still that site that has all the previous ios versions?? I know I used to go backwards with my kids' iPod Touches all the time to get back to a "best" version for their stuff.

I, too, have an iPad2 and am sticking with iOS 6. I just got done reading this article....

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-57603765-233/the-7-worst-things-about-ios-7/

....and you'll notice that the author also is having issues with iOS7 & iPad2. Granted, it was probably written before the latest version as I type this but I have no problem with iOS6 as it is and would NOT be willing to do anything to slow it down.

Optimization is key, imho, when upgrading and if they're not considering older devices that is not cool. (Especially for mini iPad folks which are essentially small iPad2's, no???)