With iOS 9, Apple has made “under-the-hood refinements [to] bring you more responsive performance” and apps take advantage of Apple’s Metal API to make more efficient use of the CPU and GPU to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation, and better overall performance.

In tests, iOS 9 beta 5 has outperformed iOS 8.4 in several areas, including booting up, launching common apps such as Maps, YouTube, App Store, and Weather, as well as CPU performance in Geekbench Testing.

Despite Apple’s best efforts, how fast iOS runs on a device can and will be negatively impacted by unnecessary files, processes and apps – especially if you’ve installed iOS 9 on an older iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

So, if you find iOS 9 is running slow, follow the steps below to speed up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

If you’ve tried these and iOS 9 is still running slow, here are three more tips to help speed up iOS 9 on older iPhones and iPads.

Close all unused apps and games

Switching between apps and games often leaves them running in the background ready for you to pick up where you left off. This takes up valuable resources and can slow down your iOS 9 device. To close all unused apps and games, double-click the Home button to bring up a list of active apps and games. Simply slide to close them and free up memory for other tasks.

Delete unused apps and games

We are all guilty of downloading the latest app or game everyone is talking about, only to use it once and never again. Often we don’t uninstall these apps and games and they take up valuable storage and CPU resources in the background, slowing down the device.

To delete unused apps and games, press and hold the app icon until it wiggles and then tap the “X” in the top left corner of the app. Or, go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage, then select and delete unused apps and games.

Delete large files to free up storage space

If your device is running out of storage space, this could slow down iOS 9. Identify which apps or files are taking up the most space and delete unnecessary apps and move files off your device.

Media files, like songs, videos, photos and audio messages tend to use up lots of storage. In addition, “other” data such as app junk files, caches, cookies, etc. can also take up unnecessary space.

If you didn’t do it before updating to iOS 9, follow our guide on how to free up space on your iPhone for the iOS 9 update in 5 easy steps.

Turn off background app refresh and auto-updates

Apps refreshing or auto-updating in the background will often slow down your device. If you are happy to sacrifice a little bit of app freshness and to manually update apps when it’s convenient to gain performance, then turning these features off will work for you.

To stop apps from refreshing in the background, go to Settings > General > Usage > Background App Refresh and toggle the option off.

To prevent apps from auto-updating, go to Settings > iTunes & App Store > Automatic Downloads and toggle the option off.

Restart or Force Restart your device

A simple restart or forced restart will clear all temporary processes started by iOS apps, which often speeds up your device.

To restart you device, hold the Sleep/Wake button, then Slide to power off. Turn it back on by holding the Sleep/Wake button again.

Force restart your device by simultaneously pressing and holding the Home and Sleep/Wake button for at least 10 seconds.

Perform a factory reset

Sometimes a clean slate is the only option. For this, you’ll to return your device to its factory state, meaning as it came out of the box. Since this will wipe everything off your device, make sure you have made a backup using iTunes.

To reset your device, go to Settings > General > Reset, and select Erase All Content and Settings. A popup will ask you to confirm your choice. Tap Erase iPhone. Enter your Apple ID password to confirm the action and the device will delete everything and display the setup screen.

Sources: iMobie; MacWorld; iGeeksBlog; HowToiSolve

Image credit: johnthescone via Flickr