Program operating very slowly

[SteveK]

First, congratulations and deep thanks to Harry for this superb app. I use Pro on a 3rd generation iPod Touch with the TomTom Car Kit. (I also use Trainer on my iPad.) After some bug fixes last year, Pro has worked flawlessly for several hundred laps. All worked great at Black Hawk Farms on April 25, 2012, using the then most up to date LapTimer and iOS 4.3.5. However, on May 7, 2012, at GingerMan (where I have successfully recorded hundreds of laps in the past) again using the most current LT and the same iOS, the program became very sluggish -- most clearly evidenced by scrolling trough the lap and track lists that lagged 2 to 4 seconds after swiping. On track, the timer started but did not register individual laps. Yesterday (May 8) I updated to LT 15.0.3 and iOS 5.1.1. iPod response has improved but still not back to April 25 responsiveness (lag time after swiping is 1 to 2 second). (By the way, at all times, all my other apps on the iPod worked fine. Also, it is a 32GB iPod with 15GB free.) Any thoughts on what may be slowing down the iPod?

Again, great appreciation to Harry.

[Harry]

I'm aware the Lap List in particular has become slower from 14.x to 15.x Version 16.0 will be much faster here again. The rest is probably the tribute to the continuous addition of features. There are lots of things going on in background and especially earlier iPhones and iPod touches start to get slow...

One thing you can check is availability of main memory (not storage). Although Apple has made the absolutely right decision to not allow applications to run in background (except for some special topics), apps sleeping in background still use up main memory. So if your iPod is up for a long time, main memory is probably very limited for LapTimer and requires constant unloading / reloading of apps.

To free up main memory either reboot your iPod, or install an app like System Activity Monitor which forces apps sleeping i background to close. You will see, this gives a great boost in speed.

- Harry

[SteveK]

Harry, thank you for your prompt reply. I've downloaded System Activity Monitor as suggested. Hope it works.