Things that suddenly started working after I upgraded to an iPhone 15

By PaulMartz, 20 March, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I've had an iPhone SE 2020 since shortly after it came out. Not as nice as the original SE, but still, I loved the home button and the slim and trim iPhone 8 form factor.

Unfortunately, with iOS 17, it started to develop serious problems. One was that back-to-back SIRI requests never worked. Another was that the player controls in the redesigned native Podcasts app could not be found by dragging around the screen. I could swipe right to them, and I could find them with screen recognition, but they were invisible to a default finger drag.

Well I just got a shiny new iPhone 15 from Verizon at a price so heavily discounted it was like they were paying me to own it. And both problems have magically vanished!

the 15 is a little bigger and a little heavier. (Honestly I can't figure out why people like bigger and heavier when lighter and smaller is available. I know, I know. Screen size, Paul.) And there's no home button, either. But I'll get used to this. It's time for me to move into the future.

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Comments

By OldBear on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Ya, I've had bugs and weird iBehavior cured by upgrading to a new phone each time. Makes me wonder if there are flaws in the chips that make each individual phone slightly different as parts of memory start to fill up or something diabolical and gremlin-like in semiconductor form.

By Jo Billard on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

It was so annoying, the problems I was having, until someone told me it was the model of my phone and I eventually switched over. I'm expecting the same thing to happen with this phone soon. When that happens, it will be a load off my mind to realize that it isn't going to be a whole bunch of bugs, but simply a phone that is getting too old.

By Jason White on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Would you achieve the same result if you completely reset the old device, deleting all user data, and then set it up from the beginning as though it were new? The new device may give different results simply because it's newly configured - no opportunities for data corruption in configuration files, internal databases, etc.

By PaulMartz on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Good question Jason White. There were no caveats in the iOS 17 release about back-to-back SIRI requests being unsupported on the 2nd gen SE, and when I mentioned both issues in the iOS 17 forum topic, it was clear I was the only person experiencing them. All signs point to some kind of local corruption on my phone.

Anyhow, it's a done deal, and I have no regrets. The home button was a security blanket that I've outgrown. The SE is on its way back to Apple for a $90 credit. Later this year, when the iPhone 16 comes out, I'll be among the first to order it.

By Tyler on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Out of curiosity, did you set up as new, restore from a backup, or migrate your data directly from your SE to your 15? I've heard from some users over the years that when migrating data from one phone to another or restoring from a backup, problems from their old phone sometimes carry over to their new one, especially when corruption of data is at play. If you didn't set up as new, it's possible other causes besides data corruption were to blame for the unexplained issues on your old phone, or maybe Apple has gotten better at carrying over desired data while avoiding unneeded or problematic files.

By PaulMartz on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

I migrated directly, Tyler. I agree with you, if it were a corruption, it would make sense for the corruption to copy over to the new phone. But it didn't.

The migration was a bit of a SNAFU. For some reason, my Bluetooth pairings didn't migrate, which meant I didn't have my Bluetooth keyboard paired with the new phone when it prompted for my Apple ID password. Consequently, I deferred entering it until later because it's a PITA to enter with the onscreen keyboard, which meant that after the migration was finished, several apps were in iCloud. I had to set up Apple ID then download the apps manually. In the past, I'm certain that Bluetooth pairings migrated and allowed me to enter my password. It's unclear why this didn't happen.

I found a third issue that has suddenly started working correctly. With iOS 17 and my SE 2020, the task switcher seemed to have duplicate instances of the first two apps. If I had three apps open, say Calendar, Messages, and Settings, and if I entered the task switcher with focus on Calendar, and if I swiped left, I would go to Messages, then to Calendar again, then Messages again, then finally to Settings. That problem no longer exists with the iPhone 15.

Am I the only one who has problems like these? Or does everyone else just never mention them? LOL.

By PaulMartz on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

On my iPhone SE running iOS 17, when I asked about the weather, SIRI would do a long pause with a couple of pleasant noises that I interpreted as, "I'm thinking," and then finally reply with, "Something went wrong, please try again later." I would immediately ask the same question a second time, and SIRI would promptly answer as if there were no problem whatsoever. Weather is just an example. I routinely saw this same pattern regardless of the question - long pause followed by, "something went wrong," only to immediately answer after I asked the same question a second time. Many people were complaining about SIRI in iOS 17, but I never heard anyone report this same behavior.

On my iPhone 15 running same iOS, there's no problem whatsoever. SIRI answers the first time, without the pause, and without the "I'm thinking" sounds.

By Kareem Dale on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

I have a iphone SE third generation and experience many of the noted problems with SIRI such as not handling back to back requests well, interrupting itself when trying to do a text message, interrupting itself when telling me the location of a place where I've asked for the address, etc. I also have noted more and more little annoying things generally about the SE's performance even though I have the latest version. I never thought it could be not having the newest phone because it seems like it should be software. I too really don't want to give up my home button but may be forced anyway since all the thoughts are the next SE will not have a home button anyway.

By Siobhan on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Is it the SE then? I would also suspect the 15 has a better chip then the SE2020 however I don't know the exact chip that's in the model. I'm just thinking off the top of my head.

By Tyler on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

The SE 2020 has the A13, the same chip as the iPhone 11, whereas the 15 Pro has the A16, the chip that was originally included in the 14 Pro.

By Holger Fiallo on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

I have the same issue with Siri. Sometimes it happens.

By OldBear on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

So maybe this is a hardware/production issue. And if that's the case, we can report these issues until the gremlins come home, and Apple will never be able to reproduce them on their test hardware...

By Brian on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

During the short time that I owned a 15 pro, I did experience the issue where Siri would interrupt itself when trying to text someone. The software was a transfer for my previous iPhone SE 2020, however. So it is possible that there was a transfer of gremlins during the exchange.

By PaulMartz on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

I'll tell you why I like AppleVis. All the issues I had with the old SE, I can mention them here. And if I don't hear a chorus of, "yeah, me too," then I know it's some quirk specific to my phone and there's little point in emailing Apple.

I don't know why my phone develops these issues over time, and might never know. Hardware? Software? Gremlins is as likely a cause as any. Just from this discussion, though, it's clear to me that everyone's phone develops some kind of quirks. Maybe it's just the price of fast-paced, ever-evolving technology.

By Lee on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Agree Paul. Recently upgraded from 13pro to 15pro and migrated settings. As far as I know I'm the only person possibly in the world lol that has an issue where when opening the locked screen VO hangs for a couple of seconds then plonks me in the status bar rather than the home screen. After a hard reset it works perfectly for say a day then the old issue comes back. Totally baffling.

By Justin Harris on Friday, March 22, 2024 - 15:12

Very interesting. I think a lot of it could be issues with the chips. I’m using an iPhone 13 Pro, and also latest iPad Pro, and have had a problem with both since iOS and iPad OS 17, where the device will totally freeze up, and a forced restart is the only way to get it up and working again. This seems to happen at least once a week. Sometimes I can get Siri to do the restart, and sometimes not, and then have to google the procedure for a forced restart because I never remember it. I have also had the bug where Siri was thinking for a while and couldn’t do what was asked. This especially seems to happen with music recognition, but when I activate music recognition from control center, it works fine. Certainly not deal breakers, butt annoying to say the least. I remember the days of flip phones, or having to pay outrageous amounts of money to get special software that would make some smart phones work, so none of the current bugs will ever be as bad as that.