Q: Iphone 3G slow after update to IOS4

Well, there's always this... http://www.ckslaw.com/class-action-cases/apple/

From the 12th to the 16th to the 24th, will there be further delays in the iOS4.2?

Everyday till we get that iOS4.2, we are left with a slow phone hoping that the next updates speeds it up.

A previous poster pointed out that iOS4 is optimised for the memory capacity of iPhone 4 (there's much less of it on iPhone 3G).


The same poster recommended closing all open pages in Safari and I've found that this has speeded up the performance and responsiveness of my 3G.


Does anyone have any other suggestions for freeing up memory on the 3G as there is no doubt that every little helps?


I don't think it hurts to clear Safari's cache, and a hardboot now and again probably isn't a bad idea either.


Please add any suggestions you might have for freeing up memory on the 3G.


Here's the list so far:

1. Safari - close all pages. To do this first launch Safari then tap icon bottom right of screen and delete pages; the final page will try to open and won't delete so tap New Page at bottom left of screen and you'll be left with only a blank page.

2. Clear Safari cache in Settings

3. Hard boot once in a while. To do this first press and hold the Home button and Sleep/Wake button simultaneously until the Apple icon appears - ignore the Power Off slider, just keep holding until the Apple icon).

4. ?

Message was edited by: Audiodrome

Message was edited by: Audiodrome

Message was edited by: Audiodrome

maybe the most effective way to speed the 3G is to make sure Apple know how we feel about it - ie: give them feedback, short & to the point, so they can readily latch-on to the issue & feed it into their well-established update process - they're set-up to receive feedback here :

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Hi Christopher,

Flogging and dead horse spring to mind.

Not that Apple isn't interested, it's pretty clear they know about the problem. But if it is indeed the case that iOS4 and its apps are more resource hungry, which is likely, and that the limited amount of RAM available to i3G is responsible for the decrease in its performance, which is probable, then you've got a square peg and a round hole, right there.

Have you tried hard-booting and then making sure no Safari pages are open? My 3G was unacceptably slow before, it's quite zippy now. There's still a delay, when Calendar is opened for example, but it's now only fleeting compared to previously, the whole device feels more responsive. Still, even a slight delay is going to be an issue for some people, I can't argue with that, but for me the trade-off is worth it for the enhanced features in iOS4 such as folders, search, camera zoom.

My guess is that if iOS4.2 improves 3G performance it will be because it's been modified to handle RAM more efficiently.

K

I tried disabling Spotlight Searches and MMS, this has certainly sped up my device.

I don't know about the rest of the people posting here, but my wife primary uses her iPhone 3G as phone and texting. When she had 3.1.3, she was the happiest person on the planet. Since, I upgrade her phone to 4.1 everything is slowing down. What was instant on 3.1.3 is now taking 1-2 second to respond, especially texting. Keyboard pops up with delay. Typing characters have delay. Loading Apps is about the same. Over all, 3G is suffering from 4.1 update. I believe Apple is forgetting that they are writing software for "phone". Granted, this is so call "Smartphone", where all your daily life is in. However, update should never stress on device performance. Keep the code efficient and small for older model and add new feature for newer model.
Come on Steve Job and Jonathan Ive. You guys wrote book about this. Get it right please.

you should all give up, its been alonst 6 months.. APPLE DONT CARE ABOUT YOU. if they did they would have at least admitted the problem.
put 3.1.3 back on & be happy & dont update it again....everything still works.

just dont be a fool & buy another one, as thats what they want.companys generally only pay attention when there loosing money. so if you are not happy, go elsewhere. theres plenty of similar products now & most are cheaper too.

or just put 3.1.3 back on & be happy like me.

bk74, I sympathise and yes, it's a work-around which more efficient code or a 3G specific iOS would resolve, but have you tried closing all open pages in Safari and leaving only a single blank page?

It's got to be worth a shot. If you are able to hard boot as well that probably wouldn't be a bad thing but I think we have a RAM issue here and so finding a work-around that frees up RAM seems the logical thing to me.

Come to think of it I wonder if there might already be an Activity Monitor app that displays RAM usage, like on OSX? That way we could test this theory more methodically.

As I mentioned in an earlier post my iPhone 3G was unacceptably slow before, opening apps, launching the keyboard, and unresponsive typing when texting or emailing and with lots of typos. I'm back to being able to type quickly and fairly accurately again.

Using my 3G, even with the work-around, has become a pleasurable experience again, albeit not quite as fast as with iOS3.

K

Hi - yep, have done all that ! Some improvement, for a while ...

'wife's is still on 3.1.3 & when she borrows mine (on 4.1, now) she always throws it back in disgust (too slow & hesitant, doesn't like the folders approach).

She uses hers for 'phone, text, e-mail (her preferred way of receiving & answering them, even over iPad), browsing (Safari), calculations (IP41CX+), dictionaries (Ultralingua), DVD database (DVDDash), notes (Notes), iPod & EyeTV ...

I use mine for less - for 'phone, keeping just an eye on e-mail & stock-market (Stocks & Bloomberg), occasional iPod & EyeTV, calculations (I41CX+), and I avoid browsing & messages as much as I can ... then it's bearable, and I live with it ...

We were going to buy iPhone 4s as soon as it came-out (our 3G contracts ran-out & we moved them to monthly in anticipation of doing so) - but we decided hold-on until Apple had the decency to sort the 3G situation out (*) ...

their behaviour on this one looks to have been a disgrace - we were early adopters, our contract had run its course, so continuing to support it is arguably nice-to-have, but many people will have bought their 3Gs more recently, so continuing support is to be fully-expected ...

why they ever offered iOS4 for 3G is a mystery (simply unnecessary), to then persist in offering it seems ridiculous, and to even now not offer a way back defies belief !

still, SJ alluded to the 3G situation in one of his briefings, the magnitude of response seemingly having particularly struck him ... and since the most direct way of getting a message to Apple is via the feedback node, I posted the link in my previous posting to encourage people to use it !

OTOH, 3Gs, even 3GSs, are minority machines these days - the iPhone 4 selling way way more, it seems ...

(*) our desktop & one of the laptops failed recently, and in the normal course of events we'd have replaced them (they had earned their keep), but instead we had them repaired, just because of this ... they waived the labour charge on the latter, maybe they felt guilty (?)

...

Audiodrome wrote:
Come to think of it I wonder if there might already be an Activity Monitor app that displays RAM usage, like on OSX? That way we could test this theory more methodically.

I use an app call FeeMemory that I open on a regular basis when my phone gets real sluggish. It immediately shows the amount of available RAM which is usually pretty low (single digits) at these sluggish moments. Then the app frees any unused memory which brings the level up into the 30-35 meg area. It seems to me that somehow this unused memory is not being released. If the OS could somehow manage to do this, maybe performance would be helped.

Chris thanks for the reply. It seems to make a difference if even a single page is open in Safari so keep an eye on that.

Cliff I checked out Free Memory at the App Store. The developers point out that it doesn't free any memory but from what you're saying, after running the app your 3G is less sluggish?

There's another app I found called Free Memory Boost. The reviews are a bit of a hoot. It says there are 90 ratings and it has 4 stars, which made me sit up. But the actual reviews, there's only a handful, are unanimously dismissive - except one which is written in an almost identical accent to the developer's Info page.

Heh-heh.

K

we use one called Scan-lite (later renamed Memory Sweep) - freed memory doesn't stay freed for long, though !!

Audiodrome wrote:
Cliff I checked out Free Memory at the App Store. The developers point out that it doesn't free any memory but from what you're saying, after running the app your 3G is less sluggish?

That's interesting, my version does. I did some research and the version they sell now is NOT the same as the one I bought a few months ago.

From their site:

"Apple removed the other free memory apps from the App Store. So we had to release a new app called Memory for iPhone and iPod Touch.
Apple would not allow us to include the Free Memory button or any description about freeing memory within the app."

Excellent. You wouldn't want a user to actually have a way to make the lame OS work better now would you? This stuff ticks me off.

I upgraded to 4.1 two weeks ago. It was seamless and my phone works fine. If anything it is a little faster loading apps. The phone function works fine. The phone has never been hacked or had third party software installed. I know of two other people who have upgraded with no issues. And neither of us did anything but follow Apple's instructions on iTunes. Sorry for your luck.