Apple

How to Fix Bad iPhone XS Performance

Published

5 years ago

02/27/2019

If your performance on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max suddenly takes a hit, you should be able to fix the issue on your own.

Apple’s flagships have received excellent reviews, but they aren’t perfect. Those who have adopted the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are complaining about a variety of issues including weird battery drain and various performance issues.

Lockups, freezes, reboots, and other performance issues are plaguing some iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices and we expect complaints to pickup as more people adopt Apple’s new devices throughout 2019 and beyond.

If you start noticing performance issues on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max, you don’t need to make an appointment at your local Apple Store just yet. You should be able to fix your issue before it comes to that.

In this guide we’ll show you how to fix the most common iPhone XS performance issues. These fixes have worked for us and there’s a good chance they’ll for you.

Restart Your iPhone

If you start noticing reboots, freezes, lockups, or lag the first thing you’ll want to try is a simple restart. Power your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max down, wait a minute, and then power it back on.

Update Your Phone

If you’re running an older version of iOS 12, you’ll want to upgrade to the latest version. Upgrading could improve your device’s performance.

Keep an Eye Your Storage

If you restored from a backup, you probably brought a ton of files/data over from your old phone. If you aren’t good about managing your device’s storage, you might a ton of clutter taking up valuable space on your storage.

Clutter can slow down your iPhone so it’s important to sift through your data and delete files, apps, songs, videos, and photos you no longer need.

Apple makes it easy to view the data you store on your internal storage. Here’s how to take a look:

Head into your Settings.
Tap General.
Tap on iPhone Storage.

This screen will give you detailed look at the files taking up space on your device. Poke around and see if you can’t find some files to delete.

If you don’t know where to start, the operating system will provide you with some recommendations. For instance, if you have a ton of apps you don’t use, your device will tell you to “Offload Unused Apps.”

You’ll also get a list of the applications taking up the most space on your device. Tap on an app and you’ll get a storage breakdown and personalized recommendations for your device.

Update Your Apps

If your apps start acting up on your device you’ll want to check the App Store for the latest versions.

Developers are rolling out a stream of iOS 12 and iPhone XS support updates and these updates should stabilize the third party applications on your device.

Before you download the latest version, make sure you read reviews from fellow iPhone XS/iOS 12 users. There’s always a chance an update does more harm than good.

Stop Auto Downloads

The auto download feature on your iPhone is handy if you’re bad about keeping apps updated. That said, it can hinder your device’s performance if it’s constantly updating apps in the background.

If you don’t mind manually updating your applications, try disabling automatic downloads on your iPhone and see if that helps improve your device’s speed. Here’s how to do that:

Head into your Settings app.
Go to iTunes & App Store.
Once there, toggle Updates, located in the Automatic Downloads section, off.

You also might want to toggle Music, Apps, and Books & Audiobooks off as well.

Clear Browser Cookies & Data

Clearing your browser’s cookies and data will free up memory and that could have a significant impact on your device’s overall performance.

If you use Apple’s Safari browser:

Go into your Settings.
Go to Safari.
Scroll down to where it says Clear History and Website Data and tap it.
Tap Clear History and Data again.

Tapping this will remove your browsing history, cookies, and other data from Safari. Your history will also be cleared from any devices signed into your iCloud account.

If you’re using Google’s Chrome browser:

Launch Chrome.
Tap the three horizontal circles in the bottom right corner. (They’re in the top right corner if you haven’t updated to the new design.)
Tap Settings.
Tap Privacy.
Tap Clear Browsing Data.
Select what you wish to delete, or if you want to start fresh, select them all.
Tap Clear Browsing Data.

Reduce Your Animations

If you are seeing a lot of stuttering or lag, you might want to reduce animations on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max.

To reduce the animations on your device:

Go into the Settings app.
Tap General.
Tap Accessibility.
Toggle Reduce Motion to on.

You might also want to reduce the transparency and blur effects on your phone. Here’s how to do that:

Head into Settings.
Tap General.
Tap Accessibility.
Tap Increase Contrast.
Toggle Reduce Transparency to on.

Kill Background Refresh

When Background Refresh is enabled on your device, your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max will work to keep your apps updated with fresh data. It can be a resource hog and turning it off could have a positive impact on your phone’s performance.

To turn Background Refresh off:

Head into Settings.
Tap General.
Tap Background App Refresh.
Toggle Background Refresh off.

If you don’t want to turn the feature off completely, you can go down your list of applications and whitelist the apps you want to refresh in the background.

Disable Widgets

Widgets are useful, but if you don’t use them you might want to turn them off and see if it improves your device’s performance.

While you’re on your home screen, swipe to the right. Here you’ll your list of active widgets. Once you’re on this screen scroll all the way down until you see a circular Edit button.

Tap that button and you’ll see a list of services and apps. These are the widgets that are active, and inactive, on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max. To disable a widget on your phone, tap the red circle with the white line and tap Remove. Remove the widgets you don’t use.

Reset All Settings

You can also try resetting all of your device’s settings.

To do this you need to:

Head to Settings.
Tap General.
Tap Reset.
Tap Reset All Settings and then enter your passcode if you have one enabled.

The process will take a few seconds to finish up. Once it finishes, your settings will be back to their factory defaults. Make sure you have your Wi-Fi passwords handy because this will cause your device to forget known networks.

Start Fresh

If things get really bad, you should try restoring the device from a backup. You can do this via iTunes or iCloud.

4 Reasons Not to Install iOS 14.8.1 & 11 Reasons You Should

Install iOS 14.8.1 for Better Security

1 / 16

If security is important to you, think about installing iOS 14.8.1 right away.

The iOS 14.8.1 update brings 12 new security patches to the iPhone. You can read about all of them over on Apple's site.

If you want to better protect your iPhone and its data, you'll want to install the iOS 14.8.1 update in the near future.

If you missed iOS 14.8, you'll get its security patches with your upgrade. You can learn more about them right here.

If you missed iOS 14.7.1, you'll get its patch with your upgrade. If you want to learn more about iOS 14.7.1's security update, check out its support page.

If you missed iOS 14.7, you'll get its 31 security patches with your upgrade. You can learn more about those on Apple's website.

If you skipped iOS 14.6, you'll get the update's 38 security patches with your iOS 14.8.1 update. If you're curious about the particulars, you can read about them right here.

If you skipped iOS 14.5.1, you get the update's two security patches on board. You can read about them over on Apple's website. Both are related to WebKit.

If you missed iOS 14.5 you'll get its patches with your upgrade. You can read more about those changes over on Apple's website.

iOS 14.5 also brought Apple's new App Tracking Transparency which lets you control which apps are allowed to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites for ads or sharing with data brokers.

If you skipped iOS 14.4.2, you get its security patch with iOS 14.8.1. You can learn more about that patch over on Apple's website as well.

If you missed iOS 14.4.1, you get its patch with your upgrade to iOS 14.8.1. You can read about that patch right here.

If you skipped iOS 14.4, you get the update's patches with your upgrade. You can learn more about iOS 14.4's security patches right here.

If you skipped iOS 14.3 you'll get its nine security updates with your upgrade. You can read more about them on its security site.

iOS 14.3 also included a new privacy information section on App Store pages that includes a developer-reported summary of the app’s privacy practices.

If you skipped iOS 14.2, your iOS 14.8.1 update includes 24 additional security patches. You can learn more about the patches on Apple's security website.

If you're still running iOS 13, iOS 14.8.1 includes iOS 14.0's security updates.

iOS 14.0 brought 11 new 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 website.

In addition to those patches, iOS 14 comes with some security and privacy upgrades including improvements to Home/HomeKit and Safari.

For instance in Safari, you can now tap the Privacy Report button to better understand how websites handle your privacy.

With iOS 14 on board you can now get information on the App Store that will help you understand the privacy practices of apps before you download them.

There is also a new recording indicator that will appear at the top of your screen whenever an app is using your microphone or camera. You can see if an app has used them recently in Control Center.

Researchers also discovered that Apple brought a new "BlastDoor" sandbox security system to iOS 14. The system is meant to prevent attacks from occurring via the Messages app.

You can read more about "BlastDoor" right here.