iOS 10 on oldest models?

iOS
#1

G’day,

I have:

4th Gen iPad (Retina) 16GB running iOS 7
iPhone 5S 16GB running iOS 8

If I now update them to iOS 10, am I going to be impressed by how snappy it feels, or pull my hair out in frustration?

Also, I hear iOS 10 is BIG… Am I going to need to delete half my crap to fit it on in the first place?

Is it possible - without hacking - to instal iOS 8 or 9?

AND…

Is there any difference to doing a “simple” update to the iOS, VERSUS backing up the device and doing a factory reset/clear, and then upgrading the iOS and restoring the data from the backup?

Thanks!

cosmic

#2

Seeing as you’re two or three versions behind, you’re probably going to be shocked by some of the changes.

You “hear iOS 10 is big?” Where do people come up with this crap? Provided you haven’t filled your device to the brim with content, the size of iOS 10 isn’t appreciably larger than any previous iOS 10 update. Maybe smaller if you do it from-device, but I’m not even sure you can go from iOS 7 or 8 to 10.

Not possible to install iOS 8 or 9. That ship has sailed.

There’s no appreciable difference whether you’re doing a clean install and then restoring, or doing an upgrade. There may be in terms of how iOS handles its internal settings/what information is sent off to Apple, but you, as an end user, will notice no difference at all.

#3

I have just upgraded, from a 4s running iOS 8, to a 5s running iOS 10.
Phone is so much faster, I’m really very happy with the change.

#4

I am typing this from an iPad 4 running iOS 10.
It is fine. Not as snappy as My iPhone 7 or iPhone 6s, but fine. In fact since the video card died on my iMac the ipad4 is my home computer. Yes it has its limitations, but I will put up with it until I see what the new iMacs are like, before making a decision on moving to the dark side after over thirty years of macs.

I suspect your concern is the experience of an iPad 2 and upgraded iOSs. We have one of those too and performance on ios9 is glacial. The ipad4 with iOS 10 is nothing like that. There is an occasional pause, but only occasionally. Otherwise it works well.

As to trying the upgrade on the device rather than via iTunes, I reckon it is such a big upgrade (figuratively, not literally) you really should back up and then restore the device so everything is optimised, although I suspect that isnt the right word. You should back up anyway just in case things go pearshaped. Then the capacity issue will not be a problem, and it is all clean and sparkly.

#5

It’s not like trying to run iOS8 on an iPhone 4. iOS10 is perfectly good and quite snappy on a 5S.

#6

Fmy experience of iOS 10 on the iPhone 5 was generally good - I think it may have been ever so slightly slower than iOS 9, but the speed drop was no where like going from iOS 7 to 8 or 8 to 9 on my iPad 2. That being said, my iPad 2 was my main point of reference in judging the speed of my iPhone 5.

iOS 10 does slow the iPad 4 more than the iPhone 5, it introduces jerkiness and lag that wasn’t there before. The 5S less so, as the 5S is almost as fast as the iPhone 6.