Q: Iphone 3G slow after update to IOS4

I bought my 3G _last week_, my first iPhone. First thing I did was update to iOS 4 as instructed by iTunes. Same hardware as my lovely iPod Touch 2G, which runs fine with iOS 4 so I thought I'd got it covered.

Slow, unresponsive, awful. For months I bleated on about how much I would love an iPhone, now I've got one and it's... er, dreadful! :'(

Modeler wrote:
I bought my 3G _last week_, my first iPhone. First thing I did was update to iOS 4 as instructed by iTunes. Same hardware as my lovely iPod Touch 2G, which runs fine with iOS 4 so I thought I'd got it covered.

Slow, unresponsive, awful. For months I bleated on about how much I would love an iPhone, now I've got one and it's... er, dreadful! :'(

@Modeler,
You're in luck - you're still in warranty. Take it back, get another 3G with version 3 OS, and don't upgrade until Apple acknowledges the issue and optimizes iOSlow to perform acceptably on the 3G. If they never fix it, at least you'll have an iPhone which is not ... er, dreadful. I've had my 3G for almost two years and I've been very happy with it, until this debacle. I only have another year left on my contract

Apple fix my freakin phone!!!!!it was fine before this os4 update now its slow.I dont think im ever coming back to apple im getting a droid!!!!

I own so much apple product! Fix the F@#%## software! Droid is looking pretty good right about now! or aleast give the option to go back to the old software.

Throwing in my two cents...having the exact same problems with my 3G phone ever since the phone was updated to iOS4:
1. Slow response time at unlocking
2. Delayed touchpad response when inputting data for unlocking the phone.
3. Delayed startup of the SMS app.
4. Slower application load times, very sluggish at times.
5. Loss of signal from my carrier - frequent "Carrier Lost" messages throughout the day for no apparent reason. This did not happen prior to the iOS4 update.

Same crap, now slow as molasses, eats the battery twice as fast, can barely answer calls if music is playing. Basically I think they didn't change the OS for the 3G, even though it can't multitask, the processor is still running those processes and timers needed for multitasking.

I deeply regret upgrading to OS4 on my iPhone. Much slower, lag times, horrible battery life and, worst of all, I need to re-boot every day or two. Lame

Now that this issue is being covered by MacRumors maybe we can get some resolve from Apple. iOS 4 on iPhone 3G reminds me of the two years that I had a WIndows Mobile phone. I would rather have back the 3.x.x os than iOS 4. It is a conspiracy to get all 3G owners to upgrade to iPhone 4. I am tired of having to close all the pages in Safari and running FreeMemory to get some performance back.

Just tired of Steve Jobs and his fantastic and wonderful products!!!
Get rid of him and start working on the products so they can work properly!!! Too much energy spent on secrecy than testing!

I beginning to think iOS4 killed my original 3G. After upgrading, my iPhone began shutting down and would not power up for 5 to 45 minutes at a time despite having a full charge. I finally had to take it to an Apple store and they replaced it, but this new one still runs painfully slow on 4.0.1.

I use my iPhone 3G for business... I just want a working phone in the meantime because now is not a good time for me to upgrade to the iPhone 4.

My 3G is barely usable after the iOS4 upgrade. I've tried reinstalling it 4 times.

My 3G is basically a brick now. It has been painfully slow daily since I did the iOS4 upgrade. I've tried the "hard reset" trick and the "disable spotlight search" trick but it's still slow. Silly me, I even thought the 4.01 update might help things. Wrong!

I don't like that Apple doesn't seem to be publicly acknowledging this problem even exists. They seem to care more about the iPhone 4 problem and ignoring the loyal 3G owners. Hello Apple, the 3G owners are the ones who were going to upgrade, remember us?

I have one year left on my cell contract and I'm not replacing my phone yet. Apple **** well better hurry up with a fix or my next phone will not be an iPhone!

I spoke to Apple Support (Australia) today. Was informed by a senior support manager that they are aware of the problem, Engineering is working on a fix which will resolve all 3G speed issues occurred as a result of iOS4 upgrade, this fix will soon be released via iTunes.

Stay tuned!

I have recently started hating my Iphone 3G too. iOS4 has been really pathetic in terms of quality. It started off by outlook not working. I had to install a custom profile from apple. Most of my apps keep crashing on me most of the time. This includes the in built settings app. The phone is crawling most of the time.

Really terrible overall. I am going to try to go back to earlier OS.

Kasaar, I tried your fix on my 3G and it made a huge improvement. I shut off all of the Spotlight Search options, actually, and it's running very quickly and smoothly again. For the record (as I've seen other folks ask this question), I have a 16GB 3G, with 631MB free (55 apps).

Thanks for the very helpful tip.