iOS 9[.1] public beta

[Ichinisan]

Some quick initial impressions...

- Clicking the IMG or URL button on this forum no longer crashes Safari.

- The letters on the keyboard show upper/lower-case to indicate the state of the shift key. I hated the way it was in iOS 8. You were expected to look at the color of the shift key, but there was no consistency because the whole keyboard could be a different color.

- Web browsing is way better in my initial experience. I loaded the Hume thread on my A7 iPad mini 2 and had no problems.

- Clicking YouTube links that try to jump to the app is extremely broken.

iPad
- Using two fingers on the keyboard to move the insertion point around like a mouse pointer is great. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

- The update disabled my airplane mode (enabling the LTE module) :thumbsdown:

 

[Eug]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I had to downgrade back to iOS 8.4 since Infuse's network stream support is completely borked on iOS 9 beta.

FireCore is aware and is working on a fix, but one support rep said they likely won't be releasing the fix until the iOS 9 release version is finalized.

 

[Ichinisan]

I had to look up how to do desktop browsing (hold the refresh button).

The shortcut to show Wallet on the lock screen (double-tap home button) has activated accidentally many times. Also, attempting to activate deliberately often just unlocks your phone with Touch ID the moment your thumb finds the home button, before you can double-press it.

 

[mmntech]

Anybody tried it on A5 devices? I'm curious to see how well it runs, since it's supposedly much leaner than iOS 8.

 

[Ichinisan]

I can't swipe to go forward in Safari. On iPad, that gesture activates the side-by-side multitasking thing. No idea why the phone won't allow me to do it. Maybe a setting I need to change...

My iPad is set to require PIN only if it has been locked for > 4 hours, but it prompts every time. [fixed -- only after reboot]

I don't like that "Return to search..." appears in place of my carrier / WiFi status whenever I use spotlight to launch an app (most of the time I launch anything that's not on my first page home screen).

 

[Excelsior]

Anybody tried it on A5 devices? I'm curious to see how well it runs, since it's supposedly much leaner than iOS 8.

Yep, my ipad Mini 1. Mind you, I skipped iOS 8 altogether, so I'm comparing my experience to 7.1.2. So far, things like opening up the app store, coming out of lock screen, and opening apps in general is a bit slower. Haven't used it enough otherwise to test features. If you want me to check something out, I'd be happy to.

 

[Eug]

I'd love to hear a comparison of iOS 9 beta speed versus iOS 8.4 on A5 devices.

 

[TheStu]

I'd love to hear a comparison of iOS 9 beta speed versus iOS 8.4 on A5 devices.

I'm using my iPad as my backup iOS 8 device* otherwise I'd be your huckleberry.


*The Jawbone Up app really doesn't like iOS 9 currently, and causes lockups until it is force-killed or you reboot the device.

 

[Ichinisan]

I deleted a test POP account from my phone and noticed that my iCloud and Gmail accounts are duplicated. Doesn't seem to be hurting anything, but I'll need to do a full wipe / fresh start to see what kind of glitches happen.

Annoying that the standard keyboard on iPhone doesn't show the pop-up key preview by default. I turned that back on almost immediately. It was useful to roll your finder around until the correct letter was displayed, then release.

 

[Tyranicus]

Some quick initial impressions...
- The update disabled my airplane mode (enabling the LTE module) :thumbsdown:

That happened for me to, but it happens every time I install an update on my iPad.

 

[Excelsior]

I'm finding the recent Public Beta 3 to be a reasonable improvement in speed and usability on my iPad Mini 1st gen. I think I'll be very happy with it overall especially once it is further updated. Haven't even found any particularly large glitches or bugs.

 

[Ichinisan]

Looks like I can finally swipe to go forward in Safari on my iPad mini 2 after disabling the side-by-side multitasking.

 

[Eug]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I had to downgrade back to iOS 8.4 since Infuse's network stream support is completely borked on iOS 9 beta.

FireCore is aware and is working on a fix, but one support rep said they likely won't be releasing the fix until the iOS 9 release version is finalized.

Excellent. This now works, both on my iPad 2 and iPad Air 2, in Public Beta 3 (Developer Beta 5).

I'm finding the recent Public Beta 3 to be a reasonable improvement in speed and usability on my iPad Mini 1st gen. I think I'll be very happy with it overall especially once it is further updated. Haven't even found any particularly large glitches or bugs.

I was having random hangs on the iPad 2 that would last for several seconds, when navigating Safari pages for example, in iOS 8.4. It was getting quite irritating, and would show up even after recent hard reboots.

This seems to have disappeared in iOS 9 PB3, but then again it wasn't there in iOS 8.1 either. However, OS navigation is still stuttery at times, so it's clear the iPad 2 is struggling, although it may be better than iOS 8 in general. I'm hoping for even better though, since IMO it still is slower than iOS 7.1.x.

One good fix in iOS 9 is the multitasking menu when you have all the eye candy turned off. In iOS 8.x it's grey on grey for the main apps listing, so the folders kinda disappear into the background. Very aesthetically displeasing. In iOS 9 they've changed it so it's clearer. I'm talking about the iPad 2 here obviously. For my iPad Air 2, all of these OSes simply fly. Super fast, so I don't need to turn off any eye candy of course on the iPad Air 2.

 

[Eug]

Split Screen is great! <-- Real side-by-side multitasking.
Slide Over? Not so much. <-- Basically just a user controllable app pop-up (or pop over the right side if the screen, as it were) that also blocks usage of the background app until you kill the pop-up.

Split Screen requires a 2 GB RAM machine, ie. Only the I Pad Air 2.
Slide Over works on any 64-bit iPad.

 

[Eug]

iPad
- Using two fingers on the keyboard to move the insertion point around like a mouse pointer is great. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Yeah this is great, and it works even on the lowly iPad 2.

 

[Excelsior]

This seems to have disappeared in iOS 9 PB3, but then again it wasn't there in iOS 8.1 either. However, OS navigation is still stuttery at times, so it's clear the iPad 2 is struggling, although it may be better than iOS 8 in general. I'm hoping for even better though, since IMO it still is slower than iOS 7.1.x.

Wow, I didn't even know about turning the eye candy off. Now that I've done that my mini seems to run PB3 quite well. I think I'll be pleased overall with IOS 9 on it. Certainly will not expect to see it support the next one but by then I'd want a much newer ipad anyways.

 

[Printer Bandit]

how do you turn off eye candy?

 

[Eug]

Settings > General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast > Reduce Transparency ----- Turn this feature ON
This kills the 3D transparency effects for menus, etc. You just get solid backgrounds instead. To test it, go to this setting location but leave it off. Then pull up the bottom menu with the WiFi and brightness settings, etc. Normally you see the background showing through the menu. Then toggle this setting on, and you'll see nothing in the background. The menu becomes a solid grey, completely opaque. Much less CPU/GPU cycles needed for this.

Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion > Reduce Motion ----- Turn this feature ON
This turns off the motion-sickness-inducing zoom effects, and has the added benefit of taking up less CPU/GPU cycles. Instead of the zoom effect for going home screen, you get a fade to home screen. Also, when you double-tap the home button to see the loaded apps, it's an instantaneous jump instead of the 3D transition.

In addition to gain speed, you can do stuff like turn off Background App Refresh in the General settings, and turn off the Search Engine Suggestions, Safari Suggestions, and Preload Top Hit in the Safari settings.

 

[Ichinisan]

Fresh wipe of iOS 9 without restoring backup (to fix certain problems like it asking for my iCloud password after every reboot)...

Safari and Mail swapped their default positions in the dock. At least, I think the order I've been using was never manipulated.

Mine used to be:
Phone, Mail, Safari, Music

Now it's:
Phone, Safari, Mail, Music

 

[Nebor]

Some quick initial impressions...

- Clicking the IMG or URL button on this forum no longer crashes Safari.

- The letters on the keyboard show upper/lower-case to indicate the state of the shift key. I hated the way it was in iOS 8. You were expected to look at the color of the shift key, but there was no consistency because the whole keyboard could be a different color.

Those are my biggest problems! Sweet.

 

[Ichinisan]

I had to look up how to do desktop browsing (hold the refresh button).

This is still frustrating in the newer public beta versions. The smaller target to tap-and-hold is annoying. Maybe not as bad on a non-Plus iPhone 6. They probably did this because people weren't finding the option before, but there are some things they can do to make this more tolerable.

Let me tap-and-hold while the page is still loading (while it's showing an "x" instead of a reload arrow). Don't make me wait for the page to finish loading!

I often find that I am holding the reload button, but the prompt to "request desktop site" never appears. When I release, it reloads the page -- so it definitely detected me holding that spot. It has something to do with the timing of when I started holding it.

 

[Oyeve]

Would this be worth testing on an ipad 2? 8.4.1 is pretty slow.

 

[Eug]

8.4.1 is uber slow on the iPad 2. So is the iOS 9 beta. However, it's possible iOS 9 will get faster. (It's so slow that we just bought another iPad Air 2 to use instead. Now we have one for me and one for the wife. The iPad 2 will become the kids' and IP camera streaming tablet.)

IOW, the best OS for the iPad 2 is 7.1.x, but hopefully iOS 9.1 won't be too slow.

 

[Oyeve]

8.4.1 is uber slow on the iPad 2. So is the iOS 9 beta. However, it's possible iOS 9 will get faster. (It's so slow that we just bought another iPad Air 2 to use instead. Now we have one for me and one for the wife. The iPad 2 will become the kids' and IP camera streaming tablet.)

IOW, the best OS for the iPad is 7.1.x, but hopefully iOS 9.1 won't be too slow.

Thanks. Unfortunately I need to update one of my ipads to 9.x to test my companies app. I was going to sacrifice my 64gb ipad2 for this. Is 9.x slower that 8.4.1 on the 2 or is it about the same?

 

[Eug]

Roughly same ballpark.

Haven't done side by side testing though.

Edit:

You can just downgrade back to 8 if you don't like 9.