Your iPhone might feel faster with iOS 10.3

by Victor Hristov / Mar 28, 2017, 7:01 AM

Your iPhone might feel faster with iOS 10.3

Apple has pulled off something quite amazing with the latest iOS 10.3 update for iPhones and iPads: within a couple of days it has changed the operating system on millions of devices without the common user even noticing.

The iOS 10.3 update, however, makes one other important change to the iPhone experience: it makes your device feel faster.

Notice that we say 'feel faster', not 'is faster'.

What we mean by that is that Apple has allegedly shortened many animations in iOS 10.3, so the interaction in many elements of the interface feels faster, without any changes to the actual processor clock speeds.

We have been toying around with an iOS 10.3-powered iPhone 6s around here and we can't really tell the difference ourselves, but it's been a short while. Do you feel those improvements in speed that have arrived with iOS 10.3?

source:

iOS 10.3 feels “snappier” because many animations were slightly tweaked & shortened, for the better.
— Renaud Lienhart (@NotoriousBUGS) March 28, 2017

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64 Comments

1. peace247 unregistered

it better should....10.2 was pretty bad on ip6s

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 7:04 AM 4

21. AlikMalix unregistered

I have two 6s's. Tell me how it's "pretty bad", again?

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 10:41 AM 1

25. sgtdisturbed47

Posts: 966; Member since: Feb 02, 2012

Transition animations on iOS are terribly slow. I jailbreak my iPhones just for the ability to shut off those lame zoom in/zoom out animations when switching or opening apps. Why Apple doesn't have an option to completely turn off animations is beyond me (Reduce Motion setting just changes the animation to fade in/fade out, and takes the same amount of time).

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 11:00 AM 5

28. AlikMalix unregistered

Oh. I don't seem to be bothered by it - I actually catch myself watching how apps respond with all the gestures - maybe for someone who designed websites as a hobby when I was younger - this kind of stuff is fascinating. Question: bunch of haters are saying that the reason Apple creates those animations is to hide load times - after you jailbrake to remove animations do you experience load times?

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 11:12 AM 0

41. sgtdisturbed47

Posts: 966; Member since: Feb 02, 2012

Nope, after removing animations there's zero delay opening apps, and even makes the camera load faster.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 1:30 PM 1

44. AlikMalix unregistered

So it is just for eye candy.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 2:05 PM 0

45. trojan_horse

Posts: 5868; Member since: May 06, 2016

"So it is just for eye candy." Or maybe just to hide slow loading time, a.k.a "lag"??? Just curious.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 2:35 PM 2

46. sgtdisturbed47

Posts: 966; Member since: Feb 02, 2012

No, I removed the animations after jailbreak, which eliminates any loading time. There is no "lag" when animations are gone. It's literally just eye candy

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 3:39 PM 0

50. trojan_horse

Posts: 5868; Member since: May 06, 2016

Okay... Thanks for the info @sgtdisturbed47. My curiosity is gone now.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 4:24 PM 0

52. TechieXP1969

Posts: 14967; Member since: Sep 25, 2013

Except there is a delay between actual app launching an app opening. Every phone has it. The animations do make it seem longer. The delay between click and app showing is just a few milliseconds. I would agree, removing the animations does make the UI faster. But it was design to high the delay between app launching and app opening.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 4:55 PM 0

51. TechieXP1969

Posts: 14967; Member since: Sep 25, 2013

Exactly. There is a delay in between app launch and app open. That is what the animations cover. Samsung by default sets the animations to 1x. But I turn them all, because we actually get to do that without jailbreaking/rooting...lol I'm pissed because over the weekend I finally updatd my iPad Pro to 10.2. I did it the way I always do, put device in DFU mode and update because anytime i do inplace OTA, it always has slowed my device. I did a cloud backup and then a PC backup as per usual. I put my IPad in DFU, and that part went find. As soon as it rebooted the iPad froze on the APple logo and stayed for several minutes and never went to the setup. After 10 mins I forced it off and powered on and it doid the same. I put it back in DFU mode which was a struggle and did it again. This time it came up, but got stuck during the setup and had to power off again. I never made it past the setup and on another attempt to reboot it got stuck again. I took it to VZW and after fooling with it and hour they replaced it. The I got my iPhone 7 Plus in Red today at 1030. I updated it to 10.2 and it also got stcuk on the Apple logo. However I did a OTA upgarde only because nothign was on the device. Booted it and it got stuck. After 3 attempts to reste, I finally got it in DFU mode and did the fiormware again for 10.2. The device failed to boot back up. So I took it to VZW on my lunch and they couldn't get it up either. Manager didnt have any to replace and the item is now on backorder until end of next month. I called Customer Care because we have history since 1996 and they assured me they would have a new replacements for me at First AM tomorrow. There is no reason a new phone I unboxed today should fail right out the box. Here is me opening the phone this morning...now I dont have the phone. I am so unhappy! It's disappointing that you pay in this case for me $869 and have the phone completely die after an update right out the box. I have never had this happen with Windows or Android. I avoid OTA updates and always fully reset any device even if it has data after doing a backup or 2 with 2 apps or in to ways and then install, update and restore a backup. But for my iPhone to die on me while setting it up, is a shame. I am totally pissed. But the phone is nice, the red is nicely done and it looks great, though I dont liek the red and white. But I have an EasySkinz coming which is the red carbone skin and I will have black antenna lines and a black front. SO that will make it dope. Gonna get this skin -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTHi4vbsYzk Me opening the box -https://flic.kr/p/Ti3hKq

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 4:50 PM 0

58. darkkjedii

Posts: 30950; Member since: Feb 05, 2011

Stop buying stuff you don't like dumb ass. We do not believe all that crap. No one else's phone broke but yours...hmmm.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 8:53 PM 1

64. TechieXP1969

Posts: 14967; Member since: Sep 25, 2013

you can't ptove or disprove. I dont have to prove anythign to you. Loving my NOTE 7 and iPHONE 7 PLUS RED... Go chilax dude. I am trying to at leats treat you with respect. You have a right to believe or not believe whatever you ant. I never said I dont like the iPhone. So go phuck yourself. However here is a fact for you. Not believing doesn't make what I said true or false. So you are welcome to believe whatever you want bruh. It doesn't matter to me.

posted on Mar 29, 2017, 12:02 PM 0

47. sgtdisturbed47

Posts: 966; Member since: Feb 02, 2012

Yeah that's what I'm thinking

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 3:39 PM 0

31. Finalflash

Posts: 4063; Member since: Jul 23, 2013

They can't because they need it as a marketing bullet in their ridiculous yearly on-stage circle-jerk during an iPhone release. Every year they mention the words "butter" or "smooth" at least once, and you can't have that without painfully slow animations. The timing of this update is coincidentally, at the same time as the competition releases their stuff. This keeps the faithful from upgrading until their phones slow down again in the winter when they add all the new features that end up slowing down the system (like new fonts and colors).

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 11:55 AM 3

35. AlikMalix unregistered

Shut the hell up, nobody asked you.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 12:29 PM 1

55. vincelongman

Posts: 5676; Member since: Feb 10, 2013

And the app switcher The blur effect in general is really taxing on iPads

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 6:29 PM 0

26. piyath

Posts: 2445; Member since: Mar 23, 2012

Mean while S8 is gonna be so damn expensive.....lol

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 11:00 AM 0

2. Andrei97

Posts: 1; Member since: Jan 10, 2014

iPhone 7 Plus definitely feels faster on iOS 10.3. Animations are way quicker and make the whole experience feel snappier overall

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 7:31 AM 6

8. Nopers unregistered

Especially closing apps. Before it used to stop shortly to make sure you weren't going in to the app switcher.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 8:30 AM 0

13. mikehunta727 unregistered

Yeah it's like a little shot of adrenaline to the whole system. It is nice.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 9:24 AM 0

15. Well-Manicured-Man

Posts: 670; Member since: Jun 16, 2015

I agree. I feel an increased speed too. Can someone explain what benefits the new file system brings for the user? I read it is optimized for flash storage but I didn't find any details.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 9:41 AM 0

17. mikehunta727 unregistered

A lot of modern file system features like atomicity, etc. It is optimized for modern flash storage systems too like you said, and it also improves device encryption. There is a lot of good stuff that I can't really explain but it is just a lot better than previous HFS +

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 9:56 AM 0

33. Podrick

Posts: 1284; Member since: Aug 19, 2015

Is this file system supported on older device like iPad Mini 2? I want to update to iOS 10 but I'm hesitant because of iOS' history of causing problems on older devices.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 12:22 PM 1

39. mikehunta727 unregistered

Yes, and it should actually speed up your Mini 2

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 12:50 PM 1

40. Podrick

Posts: 1284; Member since: Aug 19, 2015

Thanks for the reply. Another question, do you or your friend/relative have this device or identical speced ones like Mini 3 or iphone 5s? I want to know how iOS 10 performs compared to 9. I would try myself if Apple supported downgrading to older iOS versions. Thanks in advance even if you don't have this.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 1:02 PM 0

42. mikehunta727 unregistered

Yes a family member has a 5S, but she isn't really technically inclined at all. But from what I noticed, performance is definitely better on 10.3 on the 5S compared to previous versions of iOS 10, I have compared it with my 7 Plus many times side by side out of curiosity. I'm also seeing positive reports of people on 5S/on the A7 SoC having improvements going to 10.3. 10.3 has been generally positive so far from what I'm seeing on Reddit and Macrumors forums

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 1:52 PM 0

29. Luuthian

Posts: 332; Member since: Sep 09, 2011

Better encryption and stuff like that. All background things we won't notice.Honestly I'm not seeing any faster load times or anything. It seems like it was purely back end improvements we'll benefit from invisibly.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 11:40 AM 0

43. SteveS

Posts: 51; Member since: Oct 15, 2013

For the most part APFS is playing catchup with the rest of the industry. Things like fully atomic safe operations, cloning, snapshots, being multi-threaded with finer grained locking (think less beachballs), etc. At the same time, APFS is cutting edge in a few areas with things like space sharing between volumes, multi-key encryption, integration with the Flash transition layer, etc. It's optimized for low latency as well.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 2:03 PM 1

23. bambamboogy02

Posts: 835; Member since: Jun 23, 2012

Not hating, but on my devices (Android) I have always minimized the time for animations and turned some of them off completely after I started using Nova Launcher. I never really understood the need for animations for closing or opening of apps and the app drawer. The device should just do it, open instantly, or close. I never saw the charm of animating any of the menu options and things.

posted on Mar 28, 2017, 10:53 AM 0

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