Apple

How to Fix iPhone 12 Performance Problems

Published

8 months ago

01/13/2023

iPhone 12 owners continue to provide feedback about Apple’s iPhone 12 models and we’ve heard about a number of issues plaguing the former flagships.

Some iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max users are complaining about performance issues including UI lag, freezes, lock ups, stuttering, and random reboots.

If your iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, or iPhone 12 Pro Max stutters, freezes, lags, or randomly reboots, you don’t need to get in touch with customer service just yet. There’s a chance you’ll be able to fix your problems on your own.

Table of Contents

This walkthrough will take you through the solutions that have worked for us, and many others, in the past and they’ll help you maintain a fast, and efficient, phone down the road.

Restart Your iPhone 12

If you start noticing performance issues on your iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, or iPhone 12 Pro Max, the first thing we recommend is a quick restart.

Power down your phone, leave it off for 30 seconds or so, and then power it back on and see if the problems are resolved. If they aren’t, you’ll want to try the solutions below.

Update Your iPhone

Apple will release new iOS software throughout the year. Point updates (x.x.x) are almost always focused on fixing bugs while milestone upgrades (x.x) typically deliver a mix of new features and bug fixes.

While Apple might not call out performance fixes in an iOS update’s change log, new software always has the potential to help (or hurt) your iPhone’s overall performance.

For more on the latest version of iOS 16, check out our guide. And for more about the latest version of iOS 16, please see our guide for that software.

Update Your Applications

Try updating your applications to the latest version.

App developers are still rolling out iOS 16 support updates and they could help stabilize your device’s performance.

Before you install the latest version of an app, make sure you dig into reviews from other iPhone 12/iOS 16 users. If the reviews are mostly good, you’ll want to download the latest version.

Reset Your Settings

If you’re still running into performance problems on your phone, try resetting your iPhone 12’s settings. Here’s how you do that on iOS 14:

Go to Settings.
Tap General.
Tap Reset.
Tap Reset All Settings.
Enter your passcode if you have one enabled.

If you’re running iOS 15 or iOS 16 on your iPhone 12, here’s how to reset all of your settings:

Go to Settings.
Go to General.
Scroll and tap Transfer or Reset iPhone.
Tap Reset.
Tap Reset All Settings.

This will restore your iPhone 12’s settings to their factory defaults so make sure you have your Wi-Fi passwords handy. You’ll need to re-enter them.

Cleanup Your Storage

If you transferred your files from your old phone to your new iPhone, and you owned that old phone for a number of years, you probably have a ton of clutter taking up space on your internal storage.

Getting rid of unused files and apps could help improve your phone’s performance.

If you want to do some cleanup, you’ll want to first check and see how much space is available on your iPhone. Here’s how to do that:

Head into Settings.
Tap General.
Tap Storage & iCloud Usage.
Select Manage Storage.

If you’re getting close to reaching your device’s storage threshold, you’ll want to head back into General and head to where it says iPhone Storage. Here you’ll get a detailed rundown of your data.

Apple will make some recommendations based on your utilization of your device’s storage, but you can also just go through each section manually delete files you no longer need.

Stop Automatic Downloads

Apple’s automatic update feature can be useful, but a constant stream of updates will make your iPhone 12 work in the background.

If you’re fine with manually updating your applications on the App Store, try disabling Automatic Downloads on your iPhone and see if performance improves.

Head into the Settings app. Once you’re in there, tap on iTunes & App Store. From there you’ll want to toggle Updates, located in the Automatic Downloads section, off.

You might want to toggle the other options off as well.

Disable Widgets

If you don’t use widgets on your phone, try disabling some, or all of them, to see if that helps. Here’s how to do that.

Swipe to the right while you’re on your iPhone 12’s home screen. After that, you have two options. You can:

Hard press on an individual Widget.
Scroll all the way to bottom of the screen and select Edit. This will cause widgets to start wiggling.

If you hard press on a widget, a small menu will popup. To remove a widget you’ll want to tap on Remove Widget located at the top.

If you selected Edit at the bottom, you can tap the minus sign on a wiggling widget to remove it. You can also scroll down to the bottom and select Customize. This will allow you to quickly add or subtract Widgets.

We recommend disabling Widgets you don’t use. Remember, you can always turn them back on if you don’t notice a change or if you decide you want to utilize a particular widget.

Clear Browser Cookies & Data

Clearing your browser’s cookies and data will free up memory which could have a positive impact on your iPhone 12’s performance.

If you use Apple’s Safari browser, here’s what you need to do:

Go into the Settings app.
Tap Safari.
Scroll down to where it says Clear History and Website Data. Tap on it.

Tapping this will remove your browsing history, cookies, and other data from Safari. History will also be cleared from any devices signed into your iCloud account. If you’re fine with that, tap Clear History and Data again.

If you use Google’s Chrome browser:

Head into the app.
Tap the three horizontal circles in the bottom right corner.
Tap Settings.
Tap Privacy.
Now tap Clear Browsing Data.

You can now select what you wish to delete. If you’re noticing heavy lag, you might want to clear out everything and start from scratch.

Stop Using Background Refresh

Apple’s Background App Refresh feature refreshes apps in the background to show you the latest data when you open them up on your device. It makes your phone work in the background so if you don’t think you need this feature active, you might want to shut it off.

Here’s how you disable it:

Go into the Settings app.
Tap General.
Tap Background App Refresh.
At the top tap Background App Refresh and toggle it off.

If you want to keep it on for some apps, leave it on and then go down your list of apps and manually turn it off for apps you don’t use.

Check Your SIM Card

If your phone is randomly rebooting, try removing your SIM card. You’ll need a paperclip (or something like it) or a SIM removal tool to eject it. The SIM card tray on the iPhone 12 is located on the left side of the device.

If you no longer run into the problem with the SIM card removed, put it back in and monitor your phone’s performance. If you run into the issue again, try hard resetting your iPhone with the SIM card removed and then putting the SIM card back in after the phone boots back up.

Downgrade

If you recently upgraded to a new version of iOS 16, and you’re running into issues, you could try moving your iPhone 12’s software back to the previous version.

If you don’t know how to downgrade an iPhone’s software, have a look at our walkthrough. It’ll walk you through the steps you need to take.

Restore

If you can’t find a fix for your issue, and you want to avoid taking your phone into a store, you might want to restore your iPhone. This should only be used as a last resort.

You can do this via Finder, iTunes, or iCloud.

4 Reasons Not to Install iOS 16.7 & 10 Reasons You Should

Install iOS 16.7 for Better Security

1 / 14

If security is important to you, think about installing Apple's iOS 16.7 update on your iPhone X, iPhone 8, or iPhone 8 Plus right away.

iOS 16.7 isn't a huge upgrade, but the software has three security patches on board and you can learn more about them right here.

As for older updates, iOS 16.6.1 brought two important security patches to iPhone. If you're interested in what they patch up, here's Apple's guide.

The iOS 16.6 update delivered 16 security patches. For more information about the changes, check out Apple's rundown.

iOS 16.5.1 brought two security patches to iPhone users If you want to learn more, head on over to Apple's website.

The company's iOS Security Response 16.5.1 (c) update also included a security update and you can learn more about it right here.

iOS 16.5 brought a ton of security patches to the iPhone. You can find out more about them over on Apple's security site.

iOS 16.4.1 included two security upgrades . You can learn more about the pair right here.

Apple's iOS 16.4 update had a substantial number of patches on board. You can read about them in detail over on Apple's security site.

The iOS 16.3.1 update had three security patches on board including one for an actively exploited vulnerability. For more on the security contents of iOS 16.3.1, check out Apple's security page.

iOS 16.3 brought 10+ new security patches with it and you can learn more about all of those right here.

In addition, the software came with support for physical security keys for Apple ID. These will beef up your account security by requiring a physical security key as part of the two factor authentication sign in process. Learn more about the change right here.

If you skipped iOS 16.2, you'll get its changes with iOS 16.7. iOS 16.2 brought a ton of important security patches with it and you can dig into the details on Apple's security site.

The update also brought end-to-end encryption to iCloud, iMessage, iPhone backups, Notes, Photos, and more. If you want to learn more about it, head over to Apple's guide.

If you decided to missed iOS 16.1.2, you'll get its solitary security patch with your upgrade. Learn more about it right here.

If you skipped iOS 16.1.1, you'll get its security patches when you upgrade. You can learn more about them right here.

If you missed the iOS 16.1 update, it brought 19 security patches to the iPhone and you can learn about the particulars of those over on Apple's website.

If you failed to download iOS 16.0.3, it had one security patch on board, a fix for a potential exploit within the Mail app. For more about the fix, check out Apple's security site.

If you're still running iOS 15 your iPhone, you'll get a bunch of other patches when you upgrade.

iOS 16.0 brought a ton of security patches to the iPhone. If you're interested in the exact nature of these improvements, you can read about them over on Apple's security website.

In addition to those patches, iOS 16 brings some additional enhancements to privacy and security including Safety Check which, according to Apple, will help "people in domestic or intimate partner violence situations review and reset the access they’ve granted others."

The feature also resets system privacy permissions for apps and restricts Messages and FaceTime to the device on hand.

Apple's also made some improvements to Passkeys in Safari. iOS 16 brings a brand new sign-in method that's end-to-end encrypted and safe from phishing and data leaks.