If your performance on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max suddenly drops, you should be able to fix the problem on your own.
Apple’s flagships have received excellent reviews, but they’re not perfect. iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max adopters have been complaining of various issues, including strange battery drain and various performance issues.
Crashes, freezes, reboots, and other performance issues plague some iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices, and we expect complaints to increase as more people adopt Apple’s new devices in 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 problem before it gets to that point.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to fix the most common iPhone XS performance issues. These fixes worked for us and they have a good chance for you too.
Restart your iPhone
If you start noticing reboots, freezes, crashes, or lags, the first thing you’ll want to try is a simple reboot. Turn off your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max, wait a minute, and then turn it back on.
Update Your Phone
If you are using an older version of iOS 12, you will want to upgrade to the latest version. Upgrade can improve the performance of your device.
Browse Your Storage
If you restored from a backup, you probably brought a bunch of files/data from your old phone. If you’re not good at managing your device’s storage, you may have a lot of clutter in your storage.
Clutter can slow down your iPhone, so it’s important to review 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 look:
This screen will give you a detailed look at the files taking up space on your device. Do some research and see if you can’t find some files to delete.
If you don’t know where to start, the operating system will give you some suggestions. For example, if you have a ton of apps that you don’t use, your device will tell you to “Offload Unused Apps”.
You also get a list of apps that are taking up the most space on your device. Tap an app and you’ll get a storage breakdown and personalized recommendations for your device.
Update Your Apps
If your apps start working on your device, you’ll want to check the App Store for the latest versions.
The developers are offering a stream of iOS 12 and iPhone XS support updates, and these updates should stabilize third-party apps on your device.
Before downloading the latest version, be sure to read reviews from other iPhone XS/iOS 12 users. There is always the possibility that an update will do more harm than good.
Stop Automatic Downloads
The auto-download feature on your iPhone is handy if you’re bad at keeping apps up to date. However, if it is constantly updating apps in the background, it can hinder your device’s performance.
If you don’t mind updating your apps manually, try disabling automatic downloads on your iPhone and see if that helps boost your device’s speed. Here’s how to do this:
You may also want to turn off Music, Apps & Books and Audiobooks.
Clear Browser Cookies and Data
Clearing your browser’s cookies and data frees up memory and can have a significant impact on the overall performance of your device.
If you’re using Apple’s Safari browser:
Tapping this will remove your browsing history, cookies and other data from Safari. Your history will also be cleared from all devices signed into your iCloud account.
If you are using Google’s Chrome browser:
Reduce Your Animations
If you’re seeing a lot of stuttering or lag, you may want to reduce the animations on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max.
To reduce animations on your device:
You may also want to reduce the transparency and blur effects on your phone. Here’s how to do this:
Kill Background Refresh
With Background Refresh enabled on your device, your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max will work to keep your apps up to date with new data. It can be a resource hog and turning it off can have a positive effect on your phone’s performance.
To turn off Background Refresh:
If you don’t want to turn the feature off completely, you can go to your apps list and whitelist the apps you want to refresh in the background.
Disable Widgets
Widgets are useful, but if you’re not using them, you might want to turn them off and see if it improves your device’s performance.
Swipe right on your home screen. Here you will have your active widgets list. While on this screen, scroll all the way down until you see a circular Edit button.
Tap this button and you will see a list of services and applications. These are active and inactive tools on your iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max. To disable a widget on your phone, tap the red circle with the white line, then tap Uninstall. Remove widgets you don’t use.
reset all settings
You can also try to reset all settings of your device.
To do this you need to:
The process will take a few seconds to complete. Once complete, your settings will return to their factory defaults. Make sure you have your Wi-Fi passwords handy as this will cause your device to forget known networks.
Fresh Start
If things get really bad, you should try restoring the device from a backup. You can do this through iTunes or iCloud.
