Iphone 3G slow after update to IOS4

I had similar issues to what a lot of you here also did after moving to iOS4. Slooooow response time, calendar practically unusable, sync not working for a while, etc. I almost got to the point of looking at a Droid. I'm convinced Apple will announce another carrier in Verizon by year end, so I'm not about to re-up another two years with an iPhone and AT&T (horrible!) now, but this phone got so ridiculously slow that I was contemplating doing something.

Well, I did. I put OS 3.1.3 back on and life is good again. It made me realize how slow iOS4 actually made my 3G. There weren't any deal breaker features of iOS4 that I really wanted/needed, so I'm OK with it.

my 3G is very sluggish since upgrade. did full restore and still slow performance. thinking about downgrading.

I've been reading through the posts now for two days, and want to post my experience for someone else to get through the update. READ THROUGH THE THREADS AND YOU WILL TROUBLESHOOT YOUR OWN PROBLEM.

I upgraded my 3G to 4.0 over the weekend, and didn't seem to have any big issues so I went in and started configuring all of the new apps and re-arranging everything--WHAT GREAT NEW FEATURES APPLE!! Unfortunately (not long after that) for me, I then dumped my phone in the toilet. After much "freaking out," I dried it off and hoped for the best. Mind you, the phone sunk to the bottom of the toilet and I was flinging water out of it as I shook it back and forth to remove the water. This was a full dunking! A little cool hair dryer air and then some outside sun...

A few hours later I was surprised to see that it came back on, but it was locking up after sleep mode and I couldn't get it to unfreeze. Thinking this was all related to the toilet incident, I completely forgot to check on the update. As I continually worked with the phone, trying to turn it on and off, I found that the more I synched it up the more it seemed to help, but it was slow and un-responsive and it loooked like this was going to be a continual problem. As I now thought all was lost, my husband felt so bad for my loss that he actually paid for an upgrade to the new iphone for me, so I went ahead and took the opportunity to get it ordered.

I'm now in to my problem about 48 hours and I'm feeling good about upgrading to the new phone, so I sync the phone up one last time to remove everything from it and go pick a gophone until my new phone arrives. My husband offers to destroy it for me, but I said "no," I said, "let's keep it for awhile and I'll go ahead and clean everything off via the computer." Before doing that, I just happened to hit the forums and started seeing the hundreds of posts regarding issues like mine from the upgrade. I didn't think there could be anyway my problems were all related to the upgrade and NOT the water? But, it was. Post after post indicated several steps that led to me saving my phone from the recycle bin, so please read below because this might help you....

1. When I first went to update I had some issue with the "update" button, so I read that using the "restore" button instead was the way to go so I did that adn it worked seemlessly.

2. Many resets (i.e. holding the sleep button and the home button. My phone wouldn't come out of sleep on it's own without synching to the computer until I deleted a bunch of stuff. Like mentioned above, I have the 8gb, so my memory was basically gone after the upgrade which was another detail that caused me problems. Delete your music, photos, apps, whatever is taking up space. The new software is really, really fast, but you can't overload it with too much stuff until you get things running smooothly.

3. Take out your sim card, clean it off and replace it. Sync again if you need to. I had to repeat these steps a few times, but every time I took care of something it sped up and started responding.

4. Finally, RESET ALL SETTINGS IN YOUR PHONE! Go to settings, rest, reset all settings. Yes, it's a bit scary, but that reset is there for when you are having issues like this. Just make sure your phone has been through repeated back ups. Sync again and again.

5. This was the end of the road for my issues....my voice mail page dissapeared on my phone and when I hit the icon to review my voice mails, it rang my mailbox. Since I haven't every remembered calling my voice mail, this surprised me but I followed it through, followed the prompts and reset my password and VOILLIAH!!!...not only am I getting a new iphone, but my husband got a smokin 3G with the new 4.0 upgrade! IT'S SUPER FAST!! And, oh, the toilet incident?? No damage. I had never removed my sim card unti after this happened, so it was so tight, I don't think anything was damaged. THANK YOU APPLE FOR SUCH A FANTASTIC PRODUCT!! And, the new software--awesomme!!

...if you have an 8GB, MAKE SURE YOU GIVE THE NEW SOFTWARE ROOM TO BREATHE! DELETE SOME OF YOUR MEMORY--IT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

FINAL BIT OF ADVICE...read through the threads first, during AND AFTER your updates and BE PATIENT! If I hadn't spent hours and hours trying to bring mine back to life, I would have lost the opportunity to pass this phone to my husband--of course, not to mention, the new one coming for me. Can't wait to get my hands on that new iphone.....good luck!

Message was edited by: kcenter

I seriously think its an issue wiht the wifi/3g inetrnet connection. I have a game (Racing live) that EVERY time I open it up, it says "you must have an internet connection to play this game"...then a second or two (or seven) it works. I believe that if something uses the internet, that the connection is slower, thus making things lag. I.E. message, phone, push notification for home screens....

could it be the volume of new phones and data being moved?

AT&T better get things moving...literally

I concur with all here. My iPhone 3G is nearly unusable at times because of the decrease in speed. I feel as though Apple has not been kind to their legacy customers. iPhone did not receive the update, and the iPhone 3G has been handicapped.

If the lack of features and the reduction in speed is a ploy to motivate me to buy a iPhone 4, I think they missed their mark.

If you put the iPhone in Airplane Mode (and wait 2 minutes) do response times improve? There is evidence that when an update (instead of a cold install) is done the process "touches" all the Contacts and Calendar entries and, if your IMAP is out of sync, it rebuilds the mail box from the server.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11783786&tstart=0

If your iPhone 3G is doing all this using the new "background processing" feature. it might account for some of the experiences being reported.

The multitasking feature introduced in iOS4 does not run on a 3G phone.

Here is what I think. Apple isn't going to release an update for us 3G owners, because they want us to buy their new hardware. Much like how they left their non-Intel Mac users basically forced to buy an Intel Mac if they wanted to use most new software released for the Mac. So I wouldn't hold your breath. I have tried dang near every solution in these forums for my 3G and none of them have done anything to resolve the issue. Coming from a company that tells people that the way they are holding their phone is causing their reception problem and not bad design decisions tells me that there is little hope for a real solution from them. I bet this post gets deleted.

I agree, after I did the update I could definetly tell that my phone was slower. Also while streaming podcasts in itunes I can't do anything in the background like surf the net or anything. I was able to do that before the update and now when I go to the home screen it stops playing, it's really annoying. Anyone else having that problem? I thought this freaking update was supposed to improve ur **** phone. They could have done this on purpose to make ppl go buy the new one.

Fully agree, it's called an UPdate, not a DOWNdate. It should ADD functionality, not remove it! BTW, started a group on Facebook, just look up iOS4 ***, join and vent!

I'm kind of tired of reading the junk on here about conspiracy theories by Apple to "juke" its customers into buying new hardware....really? Come on guys. Does anyone really think that they want to make an inferior product to get you to buy a new, different one? One that will have an entirely new set of issues? That, they will then have to support you in?

Face it. The phone is outdated. Its a bummer, but it is. Anything under $500 is considered "throw away" technology now days. Heck, I bought my laptop 2 years ago, and Bill Gates tells me that my operating system will be outdated this year and no longer supported unless I upgrade. I'm a marketing person and I'm not that cynical to think Apple would purposely sabotage our phones...please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Buy a blackberry if you're not happy.

I'm thrilled to be able to afford to support such creative, talented minds. So I encounter a day or two in repair mode. Big deal. Can't wait for the new iphone.

True, but MobileMe updates occur in the background and have since the .Mac rebranding in 2008.

I totally agree with you. An OS must be prepared to work fine with the intended hardware, in this case the iPhone 3G. I had to downgrade to IOS 3.1.3 and was surprised with the 'new' speed.
Thank you for the instructions to downgrade.

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!