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What's wrong with my iPhone 3G???

I was a happy owner of my original iphone and ever since I switched to iPhone 3G, I am so frustrated with iphone 3G. First, the battery really *****. That we all know, and it seems nothing we can do about it. But what about the constant crashed that happened so often? It's been a couple of times that when I tried to launch an application (even apple's own one), the iphone reset! I also got the "No Music" in ipod error once in a while, and this absolutely seems to be related to the software. And the only "temporary" fix of this error is to restore the iphone. When I used original iPhone for 7+ months, I only restored it once. And this iphone 3G I already restored it more than 10 times. And I don't know what's going on but each restore takes at least 2 hours User uploaded file What's wrong? Moreover, whenever I connect my iphone to itunes, it will go backup, and backup will take an hour almost every time!!

So now I am with a phone that once in a while will suddenly got no music in ipod to play and need a 2 hours restoration. This is simply HORRIBLE! I tried to search online and it seems this error got no fix yet and maybe related to some applications. But still, those applications we paid and Apple got a commission from it. So even it's 3rd party, Apple should still be kind of pay a closer attention to it.
I am so sick of the restoration process. And each restoration takes so long also makes no sense, and my iphone 3g became so hot after each long restoration. There are even a couple of times the iphone just hanged and frozen during the restoration (I waited over night). And I have to unplug it (even it says not to) and reset the iphone, luckily the phone still functions. But I mean, what the heck? Buying something like this makes me so angry and frustrated. Don't get me wrong though, I have been a loyal Apple customer for almost 10 years now, owned more than 5 laptops and 2 iMacs and a couple of iPods and original iphone, but iPhone 3G is really the worst! I mean it got excellent potential, but all will be wasted if I need to keep restoring and backing up and run out of batteries so fast.

The most frustrated part come from when I went to "genius bar" at Century City, CA, the "genius" there was so impatient, every single question I brought up, he was like that's normal, that's right, that's what happened. So he admitted iPhone 3G battery *****, 3G reception is spotty, and the software got glitches. I was like, so what the heck are you selling this to me? So frustrated.

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Macbook Pro 2.4 Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Sep 3, 2008 5:13 PM

Reply
7 replies

Nov 22, 2008 12:16 PM in response to kartchen

What do you do to that phone that causes you to have to restore 10 times?

I've NEVER restored. Seriously, I'd like to know what it is you do that
I don't (so I can avoid doing that).

Are you using music you downloaded off the web (other than iTunes)? I'm wondering if there is some DRM software in the phone that is detecting pirated music or something.

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Nov 22, 2008 12:16 PM in response to icebike

I am not exactly sure what you mean. Maybe you mean which application I used? Well, I got around 30 applications on my iphone constantly and all of them I got from iTunes app store. I don't have the list but all of them got good reviews (at least 4 stars and above) so I seriously doubt if any of them is the problem that caused constantly crashing and restoration. I usually use the phone to listen to music and use some applications. Also surf internet when I needed to. And as I said, I almost never restore my original iphone either.
ABout the music, nope, I didn't pirate. All the music are either from itunes or from my CDs. I do have 2 itunes accounts to buy music though. But all the songs should be already authorized before I put on my phone. Plus, the no music in ipod error often comes after a crash or unexpected reset of iphone.
It is so frustrating.

Nov 22, 2008 12:16 PM in response to kartchen

Two accounts?

I wonder if that's related? Does Iphone even support two?

I have one account, and that's all I use. I purchased exactly ONE song from Itunes, and ripped my own CDs for the rest using the iTunes software. I have
a few apps, (16) but quite frankly I don't use many of them very often.

I download most apps direct to the phone over wifi. Never thru 3G, Never thru iTunes software.

This phone has been utterly reliable for me. I'm in a Edge area.

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Nov 22, 2008 12:16 PM in response to kartchen

Hi Kartchen no problems here . I have had my 3G since July 11 and Have not had to restore once. Have about 5 pages of Apps , used to have 7 but cut a bunch out and use quite a few of them frequently. Running 3g all of the time with no dropped calls . I guess I am one of the lucky ones.

Good luck to you.
Rob
Also the majority of my apps are of the free variety.

Nov 22, 2008 12:17 PM in response to kartchen

The long backups seem to be related to the size of the apps you installed, not the number. That's why some people with multiple pages of apps experience fast backups. There does seem to be a bug with the current firmware that can cause a crash when doing app uploads and syncs. This bug seems to be exacerbated by having large and many apps.

I was experiencing frequent crashes, but have no more - even with 70 apps installed - some of them large like the American Heritage Dictionary which is several hundred megabytes. I did the following:

1. I set iTunes to NOT do autosyncs every time I plug in. This setting is in the Itunes preferences.

2. I disabled the autobackups in iTunes for the iphone. I figured that if it did crash and it was going to take 2 hours to restore, why not just reload. The instructions are readily found using google search; it involves a command line setting. Anyway, the phone doesn't crash anymore since doing this.

3. I no longer install apps using the iPhone. I first install the app in iTunes and the I manually sync it to the iphone. I avoid doing multiple installs at once; at least for the large apps. Right click on each app and get its info from within itunes. If it is large, it is going to take time to backup.

4. I always first shut off the iphone and restart it before installing any apps in itunes. This clears any memory issues left behind from use.

I am going to continue to do these procedures until Apple releases a fix for the bugs relating to the apps.

As noted, since I took these steps, I have had no crashes. I was crashing at least once every 1-2 days before with the same or less number of apps. I too was a first gen iPhone user and was very frustrated with the 3G experience. Since doing the above, I am once again a very happy and productive iPhone 3G user. I know its a pain to do this, but the bugs will get fixed at some point. I would never go back to my old phones - they were just phones.

Nov 22, 2008 12:17 PM in response to kartchen

There are steps you can take to reduce battery life..
It's mostly to do with brightness + push/fetch email.

A tip for you on the restoring-- I have a lighter version of the problem, where I restart my phone and the 3rd party apps crash (and sometimes iTunes content is gone, but memory is still used).

Try to remove and reinstall one application. It works for me, it's a temporary fix, but it takes a couple seconds rather than a couple hours.

Follow the person's tip above me regarding backups.

And, if you really do have to restore, turn your brightness all the way down (auto brightness off too). Then you won't have to worry about your iPhone overheating.

Hope my tips help.

What's wrong with my iPhone 3G???

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