I'm super happy with the update so far on my 6s. I did a comparison with a family member running iOS 11 and the difference is huge, particularly for camera apps.
My only sore spot with iOS now is the Music app's horrible UX. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year.
"I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year"
That's great to hear. I used to be one of those people who got every new iPhone release (or at most every 2nd release), but I've been keeping my trusty old iPhone 6 going for a couple of years now and I have very little interest in getting a new phone any time soon. My 6 is getting a bit slow, so if performance is better on iOS 12 that's great news
Literally same situation here except with a 6 Plus. Upgraded this morning and the speedup and faster animations are pretty damn noticeable. Camera used to sometimes take 6-7 seconds to open which is now cut to about 1-2s. Definitely recommend the update, the new features are also pretty convenient, I especially like the new Do Not Disturb and Screentime provides some interesting stats. Now it's just battery life getting awful, but I've been putting off getting the battery replaced because spending a week+ without a smartphone is borderline impossible and I have no backup device.
Your old battery might be causing your slowness. Replace it for $30 in the store, too; you don’t have to be without it for more than an hour if they have the parts in stock. My iPhone 6a is super quick. Camera opens in under a second.
I'm on a 6+, and the performance is a significant step up (more so than going from a degraded battery to a new battery sometime after the iOS 11 thing). It wedges me somewhat between a rock and a hard place; I'm getting the grey bar of death (https://ifixit.org/blog/8309/iphone-6-plus-gray-flicker-touc...), so really want to replace the phone... but the performance is back to where I wouldn't otherwise bother. Bugger.
I got tired of Apple forcing their music streaming service down my throat, while making the music app worse every year. I finally stopped syncing music to my phone entirely and just stream from my home server with the Plex app.
The best part is, I haven't had to open iTunes in over a year.
I've decided to look into using alternate Music apps at this point (some have pretty good reviews) because the "Apple Music" pop-up I get nearly EVERY time I launch the Music app causes me problems. If I don't happen to have a connection (say on an iPod) the screen sometimes freezes and I can't even get to the music stored on the device. They really ruined the Music app.
My only sore spot with iOS now is the Music app's horrible UX. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty confident my phone will last me another year.