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The phone has been running perfectly fine with iOS 5.1.1 and yet the moment I switch to iOS 6 I have started looking up applications to free-up memory. Obviously the OS is consuming more memory for internal tasks, but why exactly?

Is this a strategy from Apple or is there something wrong with the phone itself?

If other people are not seeing these results, what should I be looking at?

P.S.: I have more than 2GB free space and I keep the background clear of apps more than a few times per day.

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Interesting question, I am also wondering about this. I think this should be a strategic plan. Looking forward to the formal professional answer :) – X.Yang UK Jan 12 at 22:51
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Please limit your questions to one subject at a time, and remain constructive. Even if there would be a strategy behind, it would be impossible to confirm here as no-one can know. Far more likely though, as software and the OS become more advanced, your hardware will become slower and in the end obsolete. This has always been true for computing in general, and it is nothing not to be expected. – Gerry Jan 12 at 23:52
@Gerry Disagreed. The subject is very clear and Apple has limited software features from older phones intentionally in the past. I am not bashing Apple, I am trying to learn why the phone is slower with an OS update. Further, the quote "as software and the OS become more advanced, your hardware will become slower" is not true at all. Advancement is not equal to slower performance with older devices. I am currently typing this on a 4 year old MacBook Pro with Mountain Lion installed. – arin Jan 13 at 0:03
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Without hooking up your phone to Instruments and being specific about how much free memory you have (and which apps make it slow) this question might not be specific enough to be of use - feel free to ask for help improving it on Ask Different Meta if this question does get closed by community moderation. If you're up to the task, download Xcode for free from the App Store on to a Mac and you can peek into why your phone is slow. – bmike♦ Jan 13 at 1:48
@bmike that was specifically the info I was looking for. If such software or instruments do exist please point them out. If the question ends up getting closed, I will try to improve it, delete it or whatever. Thanks. – arin Jan 13 at 1:57

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Obviously the OS is consuming more memory for internal tasks, but why exactly?

Newer versions of software is developed for and tested on newer hardware, which is more capable. So they will not see that issue. My speculation: Apple does not bother to optimize for older devices because their culture is very focused on the future.

Is this a strategy from Apple?

Nobody knows unless they work for Apple, in which case they would not tell you.

If other people are not seeing these results, what should I be looking at?

My friend has an iPhone 4 and the performance is okay, even though there are some hiccups in animations. If you absolutely cannot stand the bad performance, consider doing a clean install or buying a new iPhone.

P.S.: I have more than 2GB free space

Your bottleneck is probably not having enough RAM, forcing the OS to send memory warnings, purge apps from memory, and reload them from disk.

and I keep the background clear of apps more than a few times per day.

Force quitting your apps actually reduces performance: http://speirs.org/blog/2012/1/2/misconceptions-about-ios-multitasking.html

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