Slow iPhone 3G after iOS 4

cpavlovec wrote:
I'm somewhat inclined to agree, but keep in mind that the smartphone market is even more volatile than technology in general. Stuff changes so rapidly and new products come to market so often it is, frankly, unreasonable to expect anything else. I purchased my iPhone 3G 16GB in late October 2008 (it had been out for some time even before that!) so I've gotten a good year and a half out of it. I will probably be upgrading to the new iPhone 4 in the near future and turn my old 3G in to an iPod Touch for one of my kids.

To be honest I didn't find performance THAT bad on the 3G with iOS 4. It definitely bogs down at times, but that is to be expected. Think of it this way...does OS X run as good on a Core Solo chip as it does on a Core 2 Duo? Of course not - it runs, but not nearly as well. To expect Apple to extend the life of your product is unreasonable here -- things change. The fact is the 3G still works fine and is QUITE useable with iOS 4. In fact, I have gotten better battery life and have noticed several tasks and applications are FASTER than they were under 3.1.3. I guess every one has a different definition of speed and usability but I find the claims of the phone being completely unusable to be invalid. You've either had issues with the iOS 4 install which are causing system hiccups AND/OR you have an unreasonable expectation of a brand new OS on 2-year old hardware.

Just my two cents worth. YMMV.

Apple were still selling the 3G 8GB phone last month!!!!
Should those users with a brand new phone not expect the new OS to work well?

Ian Parkinson wrote:

cpavlovec wrote:
I'm somewhat inclined to agree, but keep in mind that the smartphone market is even more volatile than technology in general. Stuff changes so rapidly and new products come to market so often it is, frankly, unreasonable to expect anything else. I purchased my iPhone 3G 16GB in late October 2008 (it had been out for some time even before that!) so I've gotten a good year and a half out of it. I will probably be upgrading to the new iPhone 4 in the near future and turn my old 3G in to an iPod Touch for one of my kids.

To be honest I didn't find performance THAT bad on the 3G with iOS 4. It definitely bogs down at times, but that is to be expected. Think of it this way...does OS X run as good on a Core Solo chip as it does on a Core 2 Duo? Of course not - it runs, but not nearly as well. To expect Apple to extend the life of your product is unreasonable here -- things change. The fact is the 3G still works fine and is QUITE useable with iOS 4. In fact, I have gotten better battery life and have noticed several tasks and applications are FASTER than they were under 3.1.3. I guess every one has a different definition of speed and usability but I find the claims of the phone being completely unusable to be invalid. You've either had issues with the iOS 4 install which are causing system hiccups AND/OR you have an unreasonable expectation of a brand new OS on 2-year old hardware.

Just my two cents worth. YMMV.

Apple were still selling the 3G 8GB phone last month!!!!
Should those users with a brand new phone not expect the new OS to work well?

Old computers are still being sold today, some being older than 4 or 5 years. It doesn't mean, though, that they're going to be supported as much from their companies as the newer models.

If I was a company, and I had 2 or more newer models than the one still being sold today, I'd only care about the newer ones. Especially, knowing that people will buy the newest or the newer ones, as they're probably due for an upgrade, anyway.

I think it's fair game, knowing that these updates are FREE and completely voluntary.

My iPhone 3G was very slow and nearly all my apps were constantly crashing despite a few re-boots.

I guessed the automated upgrade from iOS 3 to iOS4 was to blame because the old OS wasn't completely wiped so I did a sync (in order to get a backup of my call-list & SMS) followed by a "restore" and then when the iPhone was recognised, a "backup" in order to retrieve data from the first install.

It works perfectly now and is possible slightly speedier than under iOS 3!

Technically the updates are included in the price of the device, that is why they used GAAP accounting for the iPhone revenue and costs.

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect iOS4 to run as well as the previous version.

Show me some 4 to 5 year old computers that are still on sale by the manufacturer?

Hi people, I am having the same problem. It is so friggin slow I want to throw it across the room. The backup and install took 5 hours. Once completed the back up obviously didn't work right and all my apps were jumbled up. After rearranging them and doing a restore. It is still so slugglishly slow. I've turned it off, on, taking music/pics off, etc. It doesn't help. When I try to open up any app, it gives a white screen for 10 seconds before opening.

Apple really needs to fix this.

I understand I am operating new software on an old (3G is not really that old) phone, but come on Apple, this is not the way to make people buy your new phone. (bad marketing)

All software requires bug fixes....now please release one soon.

I see no problem with speed on my 3G and in some situations (like Mail) it's faster, so we know it's possible to have a decent running 4.0 on a 3G.

Try this - do a restore, but don't reload your apps, music, photos, etc. Just try running with the stock configuration for a while. Perhaps something in your data is corrupting the system software.

If you are seeing a white screen upon opening apps something is wrong, and it's not normal for 4.0

LOL, this just gets better. So now when I try to do a restore again with no apps and just the stock stuff (as you suggested), it starts the process for about 10 min., then it stops and says "can not restore, unknown error occurred". I tried it three times. Lovely. The "delayed app opening white screen" issue is also starting to be posted on other forums around the internet. Looks like this is a software/install glitch. Some users have been lucky and been able to install OS4 perfectly while others are having similar problems.. hmmmm... I'm not an expert, but all I can say is when a phone is working perfectly one minute and after a software install, horrible the next, there is something wrong and apple should look into it asap

Musicris, so sorry to hear about what is happening. I can't believe Apple is happy with issuing a message so ridiculous as "unknown error occurred". Only things I can think of are:

- Trash the OS4 on your disk and re-download (it could have gotten corrupted)
- Trash iTunes and re-install
- Connect the iPhone in DFU mode before the restore

Are you on a Mac or PC?

I agree that this is not handled well. The whole install/upgrade/restore process is brittle and not robust at all.

Totally agree with all you said !! My iPhone is iSlowPhone from yesterday I upgraded to IOS 4. I want to go back to 3.1 because it is really absolutelly useless. Of course I already restarted 10 times but there is no change ... Please help or I am going to crash my iPhone and will never buy any phone device from Apple again ... I am using my iPhone in the work and really need to use it every couple seconds and I am loosing my patience because it is completelly unworkable !!! I cannot wait 5 or 10 seconds to open a new SMS, e-amail or simply to call my boss etc. Any help or idea would be very appreciated.

Frank,

I'm using a Mac. Hmmm. Maybe I will try to reinstall itunes and attempt the restore and backup once again. Right before I did the upgrade, I did download the new itunes. Perhaps it has something to do with that. At this point I am going to try anything....otherwise I will end up being a sucker in line tomorrow for the new phone (which is Apple's best solution I'm sure, haha).

I am having same issues.....arrrrggg

Yeah, I would try those three things (reinstall iTunes, trash your iOS4 file on the Mac, and connect in DFU mode).

Search for the complete way to trash iTunes - it's more than just dragging the executable to the trash. There are other files/prefs, etc that have to be removed.

I think this has to work or else all 3G phones would have this problem.

Yes maybe some general use computer will appear slow when you upgrade to a newer OS but this is expected, the same thing on a phone is somewhat ridiculous considering the iPhone 3G appears to the the only phone that gets that old computer feeling days after it was withdrawn from the market.

This is most likely memory leaks that creep up as times goes, and since the 3G is the most memory limited phone that can run iOS 4 then daily reboot is probably the only solution until Apple fixes all the memory leaks bugs (as well as 3rd party devs).

My iPhone 3G is garbage after the iOS4 update. There has to be a way to go back to OS3. I want to throw it out of my balcony. Even some thumbnails of my Camera Roll photos are gone or corrupted.
I can not even type because it freezes while I do several letters in a row... come on!