Iphone 3G slow after update to IOS4

I can confirm what exq0867 is saying. I ran an "update" on my iphone 3g and it slowed way down. It bogged down constantly. I was still usable, but not at all pleasant, since it use to be much snappier. I read a few placed to try and "restore" my phone, and it worked. Now I don't notice much difference between 3.1.3 and 4.0. 4.0 is probably still a little bit slower due to the increase in the operating system size, but not enough to notice and cause great aggregation.

I was skeptical at first since I thought that an update basically did the same thing as a restore on the iphone, but apparently not. My only guess is that an update works somethings like a linux update where some libraries and other system files that are shared are left, unneeded ones are deleted, and new ones are put on, leaving the operating system bloated. A "Restore" completely cleans off the iphone, and installs only the new operating system leaving only what was designed to be there instead of a merging of two operating systems. Then you can use a backup to put all of your music, apps, etc back just as they were. The concept of how apple does their updates sounds a little sketchy to me (and I'm the one who wrote it, but its my only guess), but fact stands; my iphone was much faster after a "restore" compared to the "update."

I too had the same issue but I dont think you have to go through all of that, most non-apple(except iphone) users do not know tricks for the apple products.

The reset trick seems to have fixed my speed/lag issues, which were pretty bad, I would reply to a text then I would hear my phone receive their reply text without mine being sent.

The simple reset was pointed out earlier, just hold down the top and home buttons until the apple appears, after it comes back(it will take a few minutes, be patient) the phone will be faster. At least that fixed my issue, I was shocked when I talked to apple support yesterday when they acted like there was no reports of the phones being slow, all I had to do was google it and found a ton of people that were upset.

Try doing two "hard resets" to your phones.

http://www.cultofmac.com/speed-up-iphone-3g-ios4-with-a-hard-reset/48070

Got it from there, worked great. I'm still trying some things but so far after doing that my phone is now fast and speedy like it used to be 🙂

David J. Downs wrote:
It's very frustrating that so few people actually seem to read these threads. Instead of posting "me, too" after "me, too" reply, you would know that completing a double hard reset fixes the problem.

After conducting two hard resets of my 3G, the only sluggishness I experienced was when I activated the phone from standby. There would be a delay and occasionally the pass code lock keyboard wouldn't appear unless I went back into standby and woke the phone again.

This problem was caused by memory use. The new OS takes up significantly more memory than the OS 3. My 8GB phone was maxed out after the upgrade. I went into iTunes and deleted about 1GB of songs to provide the OS with some headroom.

The phone is now working flawlessly. My wifi kicks in after standby much faster than before. Swiping through screens of apps is much snappier than with 3.1.3. The folders have allowed me to consolidate seven or eight screens worth of apps down to two pages (one with my frequently used apps, and one with folders containing all the rest). I can live without digital camera zoom; digital zoom always looks terrible.

I too was frustrated immediately after installing the new OS. But your upgrade isn't finished after the installation. Do a double hard reset of the phone and carve out a little free memory. If this still doesn't work, you have issues with your phone or installation unrelated to iOS 4.

It's great to hear that you are not having problems with the upgrade. What's not so great to hear is that you are assuming that because the hard resets worked for you, that they work for everyone. They don't.

I have tried hard resets, and it didn't fix the slow downs I have after installing OS4, so *hard resets are not a definitive fix*.

Go to this link and follow the instructions. Takes about an hour and you do have to rebuild your data unless you can extract an old backup file from Time Machine. Definitely worth it though as iOS 4 on a 3G is a waste of time.

http://lifehacker.com/5572003/how-to-downgrade-your-iphone-3g%5Bs%5D%20-from-ios -4-to-ios-313

The key seems to be to setup your phone as a new phone. I did a restore and didn't choose new phone first and had the same problem. Second time I set up as a new phone and it's snappy again (at least, as good as ever)

Best of luck to anyone else with the issue!

I was having the same slow down problems with iOS 4 on my 3G as others here are reporting. Last night I performed a 'restore' and set up as a new phone. After I re-synced speed is back to normal. Looks like upgrading over the old OS and restoring was causing the slow down problem.

Love the new iOS 4 on my 3G now.

-Greg

I've had my iPhone 3G for 18 months, and have been having these issues for the last few firmware updates. Here's what finally fixed it for me.

Basically, when you close Safari it doesn't get unloaded from memory - it just hides itself. This leaves my phone with only 12Mb of free memory.

To make Safari actually unload itself, you have to leave it with no open web page.

I have put instructions here for people who aren't sure what I mean!
http://www.andrewstechnology.co.uk/reference/tips/38-iphone-3g-lag-fix.html

This lets my phone run normally, although the keyboard still lags for a short while the first time I re-open Safari.

Hope that helps!

As suggested by Andrews Tech, I did the Safari close-out thing and disabled the Spotlight Search (which I never used anyway), and my 3G seems much faster...

And then in an effort to extend battery life, I turned off Push by navigating to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tapping Fetch New Data and turned off Push. I then set my fetch to "every 30 minutes".

The phone seems much better now, but I know I'm just trying these measures out to see if they help as a temporary fix, to make my 3G tolerable, as clearly my 3G is now an obsolete OS. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but such is technology.

I guess I am now just waiting for the iPhone 4 rush to die down...$199 seems like a reasonable expense to get the latest technology and OS...

Thanks to all for posting their experiences here...

J-G

I performed a backup, did a factory restore of the OS and then restored my Iphone 3G with the backup. After I did two Hard Resets as suggested below and so far my Iphone 3G seems to be running faster than when I did the initial upgrade from 3.1.3 to 4.0. So far so good...

@Chifte,
Could you try opening a few web pages with Safari, and leave them open. Then use your iPhone for other things and see how it responds over the next day. There is some evidence that the open web pages consume the limited free memory (the RAM) in the 3G, and that this leads to the slowdowns others have been experiencing.

Thanks.

I found a fix for slow 3G's with the 4.0 upgrade. Mine was painfully slow. I took the advice of someone else in this thread about restoring the phone. I have MobileMe, so I wasn't worried about losing contacts, etc. I restored the phone, chose "set up new phone" rather than restoring the previous backup (this is halfway through the restore process), then let the phone sync up to MobileMe during it's setup process.

Now the phone works like it's supposed to. It has extra features that actually work (ability to create folders is one), and no loss of speed. I should also add that I chose to sync far fewer apps this time. Only the ones I really use. I do not think it would matter, however. The phone seems like it's working properly.

Christopher John Hunter wrote:

BTW, when we looked in the iTunes folder on our host laptop, for iPhone OS backups, the only one we found there was for iOS4, so presumably previous ones are overwritten ... (?)

The iOS 4 installer moved the 3.1.3 OS software package into your Trash. If you haven't emptied it, the file may still be there:
iPhone1,2 3.1.3_7E18Restore.ipsw

If you can't find it, you can download it from various places, as per the recipes for downgrading to 3.1.3 that have been published here in previous postings.

The old V3 backups that iTunes made of your iPhone data (your settings, your prefs, your data...) may well be gone, unless you've been backing your system up regularly. I found mine in my Time Machine backups:
~/Application Support/MobileSync/Backups

Just have to throw in my 2 cents here.

After updating to iOS 4 my iPhone 3G was practically unusable - opening the Messages app took 20 seconds. The iPod app would crash at least once before opening. If I tried to download a podcast in the iTunes app the whole phone would lock up for minutes, etc.

I restored it this afternoon to factory settings then reloaded it with all my content. Takes a few hours but I noticed a HUGE difference. It's much snappier, about the same speed as it was under iOS 3. I know this isn't working for many but it's worth a try!!

Message was edited by: Jamesurama

I'm back running a smooth and speedy 3.1.3. Followed the instructions for the downgrade on Livehacker. I had only an old backup from last year on 3.1.3, so I lost all SMS and stuff. But: All reconfiguring seems better than keeping an iOS 4 that's simply incompatible with "old-fashioned" hardware. A very sad story from Apple. My "magic device" was turned into a Zombie-Phone.

The ugly: You have to check now before any App-Update, if 3.X is still supported. Two of my apps (Mobile Butler and Mariner Calc) seem to only compatible with iOS 4. Burnt money!

And: No word from Apple to this! Disappointing.