To jailbreak or no?

[gedansky]

My iPad 1 is only slightly over a year old, and on Apple Care. In October, I updated to 5.0, so I could have that split keyboard for thumb typing. but, iOS 5 slowed my device down to a crawl, hurt screen responsiveness, created so much lag I could type and wait several seconds before the words appeared on screen, and went from easily 4-7 days on a single battery charge, down to 2 max. I discovered that there was no way to go back to 4.3.5, and I was not considering jailbreak options, so I end up reducing my iPad usage.

When 5.1.1 came out, it made a big difference in performance and some improvement in battery life, but I still had to carefully manage my open apps carefully to keep it running passably.

A week ago, I had to get my iPad replaced under Apple Care, for a bad digitizer and poor battery performance, so I now have a new iPad 1 running 4.3.5 and it seems to be running much faster and leaner. But, the truth is, it could still be better, and, of course there, are things I have to live without, including any new app that requires iOS 5.1.1.
.
So the question is... Do I stay stock at 4.3.5, enjoy the better performance, and longer battery life, and just live with the limitations, or do I upgrade to IOS 5.1.1 and jailbreak to Absinthe?

I need to know that there are things i can do under absinthe to really optimize performance (I.e., over clock, increase/improve screen sensitivity/response, increase battery life back to v4) without hurting stability. I jail broke briefly, over a year ago, but it made the device unstable and it rebooted at least once per day (a common occurrence, I have heard), so I put it back.

Any insight? Can I trick this thing out to be better, faster, with more battery life, without creating a spontaneously rebooting mess?

Thanks!

 

[gedansky]

My iPad 1 is only slightly over a year old, and on Apple Care. In October, I updated to 5.0, so I could have that split keyboard for thumb typing. but, iOS 5 slowed my device down to a crawl, hurt screen responsiveness, created so much lag I could type and wait several seconds before the words appeared on screen, and went from easily 4-7 days on a single battery charge, down to 2 max. I discovered that there was no way to go back to 4.3.5, and I was not considering jailbreak options, so I end up reducing my iPad usage.

When 5.1.1 came out, it made a big difference in performance and some improvement in battery life, but I still had to carefully manage my open apps carefully to keep it running passably.

A week ago, I had to get my iPad replaced under Apple Care, for a bad digitizer and poor battery performance, so I now have a new iPad 1 running 4.3.5 and it seems to be running much faster and leaner. But, the truth is, it could still be better, and, of course there, are things I have to live without, including any new app that requires iOS 5.1.1.
.
So the question is... Do I stay stock at 4.3.5, enjoy the better performance, and longer battery life, and just live with the limitations, or do I upgrade to IOS 5.1.1 and jailbreak to Absinthe?

I need to know that there are things i can do under absinthe to really optimize performance (I.e., over clock, increase/improve screen sensitivity/response, increase battery life back to v4) without hurting stability. I jail broke briefly, over a year ago, but it made the device unstable and it rebooted at least once per day (a common occurrence, I have heard), so I put it back.

Any insight? Can I trick this thing out to be better, faster, with more battery life, without creating a spontaneously rebooting mess?

Thanks!

Nobody?

 

[KevinJS]

Hang fire. Some of the best answers you will receive concerning jail breaking will come from the UK, and it's 2:30am there, so nothing is likely to be forthcoming for several hours.

From what I've read 5.1.1 is an ideal OS to use, jail broken or not. I use it (stock) on my iPad, without problems.

Sent from my iPhone using iPF

 

[Mickey330]

So the question is... Do I stay stock at 4.3.5, enjoy the better performance, and longer battery life, and just live with the limitations, or do I upgrade to IOS 5.1.1 and jailbreak to Absinthe?

I need to know that there are things i can do under absinthe to really optimize performance (I.e., over clock, increase/improve screen sensitivity/response, increase battery life back to v4) without hurting stability. I jail broke briefly, over a year ago, but it made the device unstable and it rebooted at least once per day (a common occurrence, I have heard), so I put it back.

Any insight? Can I trick this thing out to be better, faster, with more battery life, without creating a spontaneously rebooting mess?

Thanks!

Unfortunately, only you are the one who can decide. What I can do is tell you that jail breaking will not be the panacea you hope for. There is no tweak to overlock the iPad (you can make it look as if it is working faster - but that's only GUI surface changes). And, there is no tweak that I am aware of that will increase/improve screen sensitivity or response.

The core thing is that the ipad1 has 256K of RAM. It is going to have problems no matter what you do. But - a lot of people say that ios 5.1.1 is a pretty good iOS on the iPad1. And, I've not heard/read of people having "spontaneous reboot" issues on a jail broken iPad1.

Good luck with your decision.

Marilyn

P.S. I deleted your other thread you started today on this same topic. Making more than one post not only fragments the conversation and makes it hard to follow - it's against the forum rules. Please keep any follow-ups or updates on this topic to this thread; do not start another. Thanks for your understanding.

 

[moe0000001]

I'd have to disagree with Marilyn. I've got an iPad 1 and I haven't had any problems with it (knock on wood).
As for the JB, I'd say it's worth it just to unleash more potential out of your device. Apple manufactures a massively powerful device yet they keep it leashed so that they can release "updates" every now and then and pat each other on the back while they stand around the water cooler.
I jail broke my iPad about a year ago now and never went back. So, I had folders before the system update "allowed" it. I had an endless bar of icons at the bottom of the screen. I used my iPad as a phone even for a while. Apple can allow the whole cydia store (just like androids have like 10 different market stores) but they are too greedy to share the pie.

Enough whining about Apple. Like Marilyn said, only you can decide wether to JB or not. Like I said, I've had my iPad 1 jail broken for a year plus and I've never had any issues with it. It does this reboot only when I run multiple large programs without shutting them down from the background (this is your whole problem by the way, just close apps running in the background and clear up cookies and the sort).
I'm running 4.3.3 and it's doing its job. Battery us good for about 6 hours of streaming on 3G which is impressive considering I've had it for a year and a half now. Screen responsiveness, this I think goes back to you not shutting down apps in the background which DRASTICALLY effects the responsiveness of the app you are running in the front. There's another thread on the forum about how to clear up more memory/speed up iPad so check it out and give your iPad a try.

 

[gedansky]

Unfortunately, only you are the one who can decide. What I can do is tell you that jail breaking will not be the panacea you hope for. There is no tweak to overlock the iPad (you can make it look as if it is working faster - but that's only GUI surface changes). And, there is no tweak that I am aware of that will increase/improve screen sensitivity or response.

The core thing is that the ipad1 has 256K of RAM. It is going to have problems no matter what you do. But - a lot of people say that ios 5.1.1 is a pretty good iOS on the iPad1. And, I've not heard/read of people having "spontaneous reboot" issues on a jail broken iPad1.

Good luck with your decision.

Marilyn

P.S. I deleted your other thread you started today on this same topic. Making more than one post not only fragments the conversation and makes it hard to follow - it's against the forum rules. Please keep any follow-ups or updates on this topic to this thread; do not start another. Thanks for your understanding.

Marilyn,

Thank you for your reply. I had hoped for some complex over clocking as i had with the way my Palm Pre, which I took from a base, under clocked 500mhz, to a full 1.1ghz, complete with battery and processor temperature monitoring and automatic down throttling to 500mhz when charging or when the temperature ran too high.

My hope was, at I could compensate for the notable slowdown caused by 5.1.1, with over clocking back up to faster speeds. I had also hoped there would be some kind of battery power management to improve the battery life at seems to be cut in half going from 4.3.5 to 5.1.1.

I had also hoped for some kind of virtual memory utility that would use some of my 64g storage memory to compensate for the 256mb of RAM, as can be done in PC world.

Honestly, I would happily stay at 4.3.5, but many apps I am encountering (some pretty basic stuff such as Kobo reader) are asking me to update to 5.1.1. So, I fear I will be forced to go there soon no matter what, or lose much functionality.

If you have any additional insight, I would appreciate it.

thank you,

lee

Ps. To Moe... I appreciate the comments about jail breaking. If I do, in will probably go to 5.1.1, so I will be asking a lot more of the iPad 1 than it might be capable of without showing signs of age.

 

[Rperez414]

Processor power is not the problem. You could swap in an A5 and with 256 mb of memory you are still gonna suffer the same amount of crashes and stuttering.

And didn't virtual memory use the hard drive to mimic ram? So with no hard drive...

Now if someone could do a how-to on how to upgrade the memory chip, we'd really be on to something. Could it be that difficult?

 

[gedansky]

Processor power is not the problem. You could swap in an A5 and with 256 mb of memory you are still gonna suffer the same amount of crashes and stuttering.

And didn't virtual memory use the hard drive to mimic ram? So with no hard drive...

Now if someone could do a how-to on how to upgrade the memory chip, we'd really be on to something. Could it be that difficult?

Yes, virtual memory used the hard drive to mimic RAM. So, if the "hard drive" on the iPad is actually RAM, then it should be just a matter of partitioning. In old Windows Mobile PDA's, you could adjust how much RAM was partitioned as RAM bs storage in the system settings. I still have a perfectly functioning HP iPAC that does this, so, why not an iOS device?

And, speaking further of the old days... Back when the Palm V came out, it had 4mb of storage and was a sealed unit (unlike earlier Palm Pilots, which were actually RAM upgradable). There were plenty of folks on eBay who would take your device, upgrade the RAM for a song, and give you several months to a year warranty on their work. I did it and my Palm V8, as we used to call them, worked for years until I sold it. There were other Palm and Windows devices that were 3rd party upgradable like this. You just needed a person or company willing to do it. So, it makes sense that the iPad would be, and for a lot less than the cost of a new one. In fact, you can buy replacement cameras and webcams to install, in case yours dies. Since the light sensor on the iPad 1 is in the same position as the camera of the iPad 2, theoretically you should be able to buy and install a webcam.

But, I would settle for a jailbreak hack that let's me partition off some of my 64gb as RAM, and maybe drivers for an external webcam. Someone really should care enough to write this. There has to be millions of iPad 1s still floating around in use that folks would prefer to update than upgrade.

 

[Rperez414]

But, I would settle for a jailbreak hack that let's me partition off some of my 64gb as RAM, and maybe drivers for an external webcam. Someone really should care enough to write this. There has to be millions of iPad 1s still floating around in use that folks would prefer to update than upgrade.

I'd be willing to pay up to $100 to double my memory.