PSA: iOS8 & iPad

explanade said:
Kindle or Kindle Fire?

Monochrome Kindle isn't going to be too useful for movies.

Here is the Android OS distribution:

Distribution | Droid Life

It's well known a lot of manufacturers drag their feet on putting out later OS releases for their devices. The numbers speak for themselves.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, my bad..it's a Fire. The manufacturers are going to do this for the simple reason of planned obsolesce. It's one of the more annoying things of present-day consumerism. :mad:
 
mpeirce said:
Rather than messing with iTunes, try looking in the App Store app on your iPad. You should see a Purchased tab which lists all the apps you've bought in the App Store. You can re-download them from their.
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Actually the App Store is worse to than iTunes in my situation...zero, zip, nada! At least iTunes shows the missing apps, it just can't reinstall. Nothing's been lost, I just can't it all on my iPad anymore since 'downgrading' back to iOS 7.1.2, and I can't run iOS 8.x.x - it's lovely!
 

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FWIW, my iPad 2 was balky and acted weird when I first loaded iOS 7 on it. But, many months of updates to the iOS and apps cleared up the problems. In my IT days our motto was to be six months or one release behind. Let others be on the bleeding edge. The only exception was security patches, and even those could be put off if the threat was not serious.
 
Midpack said:
Actually the App Store is worse to than iTunes in my situation...zero, zip, nada! At least iTunes shows the missing apps, it just can't reinstall. Nothing's been lost, I just can't it all on my iPad anymore since 'downgrading' back to iOS 7.1.2, and I can't run iOS 8.x.x - it's lovely!
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Yes, I noticed that some of my apps now won't work unless I update to iOS 8. I suspect there are security issues here that we are not being told about.
 
Chuckanut said:
Yes, I noticed that some of my apps now won't work unless I update to iOS 8. I suspect there are security issues here that we are not being told about.
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I'd be surprise if it isn't just developers who find it easier to make their apps iOS 8 only when they take advantage of some of the new APIs available in iOS 8.

I've seen reports that the iOS 8 adoption rate is already over 50% (https://developer.apple.com/support/appstore/ reported it at 46% over a week ago 9/12/14). iPhone/iPad users update to the new OS very quickly and those who don't usually aren't the people who buy lots of apps.
 
Personally, I will probably update to iOS8, but given my experience with iOS7, I will wait a few months so as to give APPLE and the app developers time to fine tune the performance of things. My iOS experience indicates that is better than jumping in today.
 
Chuckanut said:
Personally, I will probably update to iOS8, but given my experience with iOS7, I will wait a few months so as to give APPLE and the app developers time to fine tune the performance of things. My iOS experience indicates that is better than jumping in today.
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Really wish I'd done the same, but I'd never had a bad experience with Apple OS updates before this. Again I think it's just an old processor that's just no match for their latest OS, not anything fundamentally wrong with iOS8. And again, my only criticism is that Apple shouldn't have included the original iPad2 (later iPad2's may be OK, they changed about Mar 2012) among the legitimate products to "upgrade" to iOS8. My 2 cents...
 
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I think Apple continued to sell the iPad 2 a lot longer because they wanted to continue selling to some lower cost markets, like perhaps education.

Yeah it's mystifying why they tried to include it with iOS 8, unless to nudge people towards newer products.
 
Chuckanut said:
Yes, I noticed that some of my apps now won't work unless I update to iOS 8. I suspect there are security issues here that we are not being told about.
Click to expand...

mpeirce said:
I'd be surprise if it isn't just developers who find it easier to make their apps iOS 8 only when they take advantage of some of the new APIs available in iOS 8. ...
Click to expand...

Yep, and once they update their app to work with the latest iOS, the Apple app-store drops the old one. I bet some developers update something just to make it stand out ' iOS 8 compatible!!!! '. So unless you already downloaded and archived their old version, you may be out of luck.

That approach is one of the reasons I'm on Android. If you have old Apple hardware that is perfectly functional for lesser tasks but too old to upgrade to the latest iOS, it soon becomes obsolete - almost no apps will remain in the store for the older iOS. Hang onto your old apps, and hope they don't do a forced upgrade of an app - you'll be out of luck. iHeart radio was one for me - the old version stopped working because of other changes in their system, and my old device, which was fine as an internet-radio-player, couldn't run the newer app. So instead of buying a new iPod (this was a 'touch'), I bought a cheap Android tablet.

-ERD50
 
Actually that's one of the criticisms of Android. There are a lot of devices out in the field which are running Android revisions over 2 years old.

It's not just about features. Newest OSes often get security patches and newer drivers.

But it's often up to the manufacturers, unless you have a Nexus device which was sold by Google, to offer the newest releases for their devices. Some manufacturers have been criticized for appearing to drop support on one-year old devices, to push newer devices with the newest Android.
 
explanade said:
Actually that's one of the criticisms of Android. There are a lot of devices out in the field which are running Android revisions over 2 years old.

It's not just about features. Newest OSes often get security patches and newer drivers.

But it's often up to the manufacturers, unless you have a Nexus device which was sold by Google, to offer the newest releases for their devices. Some manufacturers have been criticized for appearing to drop support on one-year old devices, to push newer devices with the newest Android.
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That's true - you may not be able to update a device to the latest Android OS. But more important to me is that you will (almost) always be able to find apps that run on that older OS. You won't be locked out of existing apps.

It's easier for me to accept that my older device won't accept an OS upgrade, than it is that I can't load some simple app (like a kitchen timer, that makes no use of any new features of the OS) on my old device.

Pros and cons to each - in some ways it is 'pick your poison'.

-ERD50
 
Both platforms have about a million apps. Many of them haven't been updated in years.

I have an iPhone 5S and an iPad Mini Retina. I updated the latter to iOS8 and found one of the older games I have crashes on iOS 8 so I have held off on upgrading the iPhone. I emailed the developer to see if he would fix it but they've moved on to something else.

Meanwhile, pretty much every app has updated to iOS8 but they all work fine. For instance, I just used the eTrade app this afternoon and it had a screen saying with iOS 8, it supports logging in by TouchID. Well I have touch ID but haven't updated my iPhone to iOS8 yet so I can't use that feature. But otherwise, the app works fine.

It's doubtful too many app developers will lock out iOS 7 users.
 
Midpack said:
I was never interested in previous iPhones (too small), but I looked at the iPhone 6/Plus yesterday and me likey, esp the Plus. But until "they" offer an unlimited plan for $50/mo or about $90/mo for DW and I, I'll wait.
Click to expand...

My 6 Plus just arrived today. It is almost shockingly big, but I already like it a lot. It is sort of more like a mini mini iPad which is great for my use. We gave up our unlimited plan awhile back and was worried a bit at the time. As it turns out unlimited data has been unnecessary since most of the time we are on Wifi. Even with 4 of us on the account (DH and 2 of our kids in college) we rarely exceed 4 GB of data usage and usually it is less.
 
explanade said:
Both platforms have about a million apps. Many of them haven't been updated in years.

I have an iPhone 5S and an iPad Mini Retina. I updated the latter to iOS8 and found one of the older games I have crashes on iOS 8 so I have held off on upgrading the iPhone. I emailed the developer to see if he would fix it but they've moved on to something else.

Meanwhile, pretty much every app has updated to iOS8 but they all work fine. For instance, I just used the eTrade app this afternoon and it had a screen saying with iOS 8, it supports logging in by TouchID. Well I have touch ID but haven't updated my iPhone to iOS8 yet so I can't use that feature. But otherwise, the app works fine.

It's doubtful too many app developers will lock out iOS 7 users.
Click to expand...

I don't care about a million apps, I care about the ones I use.

Checked my notes, my 3.5 year old Apple device could not be updated past a certain iOS version, and apps started passing me by. The iHeart radio one was the worst for me, that's what I mostly used the device for - internet radio.

Later, when I tried to add some simple apps, Apple sent me through this stupid process - download the app (and install it even, IIRC), and then it tells me 'incompatible with this device'. Why not warn me before I DL it, so I can keep looking for alternatives? I never found an internet radio app that would run on the old OS.

I understand if the app uses new features that are only in the new OS or new HW - but that wasn't the case with what I was looking for.

-ERD50
 
While we're debating Android vs Apple, let's throw privacy into the mix. Google's revenues are built on ads, and knowing (sharing?) as much about users as possible. Apple's revenues are based on selling hardware, and the software needed to make their hardware desirable. Neither is without risk, but there's a marked difference in how Apple handles personal information vs Google and many others. Apple gets my $ for making more of an effort to guard users personal information.

And having an Android phone for several years now, Google is a little too insistent on forcing their apps down users throats IME. There are quite a few Google apps (Hangouts, Google Play Music, Google + come to mind) that just won't go away while demanding access to MY photos and other files they have no business accessing IMO. My next smartphone will probably be an iPhone. YMMV
 
Both Android and Apple devices have their plusses and minuses. I have owned both. Android was very frustrating in that updates to the OS that I wanted were never made available. The updates had to go through Google, the phone manufacturer and the cell service provider. I had a a less than two year old usable phone that insisted on going into a rebooting loop at 2:00 AM, each time loudly shouting 'DROID' to make sure I woke up and stayed up. All three companies involved with the phone pointed fingers at the other two and the problem was 'fixed' only by leaving the phone off all night. Not so good

The one iPhone problem I had was fixed with a quick trip to the Apple store.

Since they stopped updating the OS only about one year after I bought the then state of the art phone, I could not use certain apps I wanted since they required the newer OS. I guess this app thing works both ways.
 
Midpack said:
While we're debating Android vs Apple, let's throw privacy into the mix. Google's revenues are built on ads, and knowing (sharing?) as much about users as possible. Apple's revenues are based on selling hardware, and the software needed to make their hardware desirable. Neither is without risk, but there's a marked difference in how Apple handles personal information vs Google and many others. Apple gets my $ for making more of an effort to guard users personal information.

And having an Android phone for several years now, Google is a little too insistent on forcing their apps down users throats IME. There are quite a few Google apps (Hangouts, Google Play Music, Google + come to mind) that just won't go away while demanding access to MY photos and other files they have no business accessing IMO. My next smartphone will probably be an iPhone. YMMV
Click to expand...

That is true but beware if you use any Google apps or services, like GMail and Google Maps, even on iPhone.

I have GMail accounts and heavily use Google Maps, especially for navigation overseas.

So when planning trips, I search destinations on the desktop version and save locations as starred locations and create custom maps. I do that with my Google account logged in. Then the Google Maps app. on iPhone will show those same starred locations, making it very convenient.

But that results in tracking:

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0

If you have any Google app. that you were signed into on your phone, it uses the GPS and logs your movements.

I also have a couple of GMail accounts that I've been using for years. But now I'm going to start using more of iCloud email accounts.
 
Katsmeow said:
My 6 Plus just arrived today. It is almost shockingly big, but I already like it a lot. It is sort of more like a mini mini iPad which is great for my use. We gave up our unlimited plan awhile back and was worried a bit at the time. As it turns out unlimited data has been unnecessary since most of the time we are on Wifi. Even with 4 of us on the account (DH and 2 of our kids in college) we rarely exceed 4 GB of data usage and usually it is less.
Click to expand...

I've had the 6 for two days now and am finally getting used to the huge screen compared to the 4 I have been carrying. I can imagine the plus is even more of an adjustment! I love the predictive text and the touch security.
I am downgrading data as well. Wifi is everywhere!
 
Sarah in SC said:
I've had the 6 for two days now and am finally getting used to the huge screen compared to the 4 I have been carrying. I can imagine the plus is even more of an adjustment! I love the predictive text and the touch security.
I am downgrading data as well. Wifi is everywhere!
Click to expand...
Does the bigger screen motivate you to use the iPad less and the new iPhone more?
 
I'd be wary about using too much public Wifi.

Convenient but there could be people with packet sniffers.
 
People have equipment that could intercept the data being sent from your device.

If some web sites or services used by apps. send passwords without encrypting them, then they could be intercepted.

This kind of hacking is much easier on a public Wifi network than say through a cellular data connection.

Most web sites and apps use SSL encryption so it shouldn't be a problem but you never know.
 
MichaelB said:
Does the bigger screen motivate you to use the iPad less and the new iPhone more?
Click to expand...

I rarely use the iPad, because that became what DH used once I got my Mac laptop. Honestly, I really use the phone for EVERYTHING. Flipboard for news is awesome!
 
Yeah the real test is someone who was not using the phone much for surfing, preferring iPad or devices with larger screens, whether they wean themselves off the larger devices.
 
Update: Being trapped in limbo with an unauthorized downgrade to iOS 7.1.2 from iOS 8.0,
  • web surfing, email and most apps working much better with 7.1.2,
  • but unable to create an iTunes backup or sync,
  • with no music or movies on my iPad (all intact on iTunes),
  • and several purchased apps missing (all intact on iTunes),
I reluctantly upgraded my iPad 2 to iOS 8.0.2 yesterday.

My iPad 2 is still very slow, but at least everything works again, unlike 8.0 (seemingly random crashes and glitches). I'm probably still going to buy an iPad Air 2 (announced yesterday), but at least my iPad 2 works again under 8.0.2. Whew!
 
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