iPhone 3G better performance on iOS 4.2?

That happened to me too. I tried
1. restarting my iphone
2. restarting my computer
Nothing. But I noticed when I launched iTunes after the computer restart that I got a warning message that disnoted.exe wasn't working, which matters cuz that controls part of iTunes' interface with devices.
So I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes 10 and then restarted my computer again.
This time iTunes picked up my iPhone. It told me I had to restore my iPhone cuz it's in some sort of preservation mode (which is what prompts the USB/iTunes image you have.)
I just did a full restore, using the contact/photos/apps/etc that I backed up this morning and now everything is working fine, iOS4 is installed, and we're good.

Hope some of these ideas help. In the end all I did was reinstall but all the extra info helped me not freak out or worry that I'd lose my contacts/calendar.

After several weeks, all I can say is that 4.2 doesn't help much. My iPhone 3G is still slow -- sometimes slow as molasses (e.g., radio apps, WeatherBug).

I am very unhappy with how my phone has degraded in speed since purchase. My only guess is that Apple is trying to make our phones obsolete so we will buy the new one.... Not a great way to treat your current customers.

iOS 4 = windows XP. Both losers...

Shame on you Apple for foisting this on us.

I agree. . .Ive been a mac user all my life but Apple should give everyone who bought an Iphone 3G a free upgrade to at least a 3GS so that the software works. . Ive almost had it. . looking into verizon and droids

Update:

It's been a couple weeks now, and my experience has been mixed. While I continued to have a faster device in many respects, there were still some things that were dog slow, or didn't work at all. For example, for some reason the icon rearrangement system was glacially slow. If I wanted to move an app I held my finger down on the icon for what seemed like over 10 seconds before all the icons started their little jiggle dance. Then, when I was done it took another 10 seconds at least after pressing the home button before the stopped jiggling and I could use it again.

Also, Maps became completely unusable, often totally frozen, and often crashing, and also had the unfortunate side effect of making other apps unusable, like Mail. After using Maps Mail would crash on startup. It even munged Mail up so bad that it redownloaded all the mails on the Yahoo server. I had to go through and re-delete over a hundred messages.

Finally I decided to restore the phone (i.e. wipe and re-load all the data). This process was easy, albeit long (I have about 13GB of data on a 16GB phone).

Now the device is generally much faster. Nothing is blazing fast, but of course it's only a 3G. But there is nothing that takes forever to do. I suspect that after some time it will slowly freeze up again. It's as if the OS slowly collects grunge and eventually it slows everything down to a crawl.

I wish I had tried the restore sooner.

My verdict so far: the 4.2.1 update, along with a restore, should make the 3G usable again. It's not fast, I have no idea how it compares to 3.x on a 3G, and I suspect that over time it will accumulate cruft and slow down again. I wish Apple would start concentrating on OS robustness, both for their phones and other devices. What we need is the self healing computer! Please Apple, invent the self-healing computer!

Even with 4.2 the overall feeling is quite slow.
But maps which I use very often is a pain in the ***.
Just fired it up and started typing to check again.
The first character appears and the rest of the typed characters appear after a delay of more than a minute!!!!!
Does someone know a way to go back to version 3 without making Steve angry?

Just found out from another tread that closing all pages in Safari frees up RAM and indeed, the phone feels like new all of a sudden.
So: Close as many Safari pages as possible helps (even wen Safari isn't running)
Hans

Hansemans wrote:
Even with 4.2 the overall feeling is quite slow.
But maps which I use very often is a pain in the ***.
Just fired it up and started typing to check again.
The first character appears and the rest of the typed characters appear after a delay of more than a minute!!!!!
Does someone know a way to go back to version 3 without making Steve angry?

Going back to version 3- well, it's easy as I did it after tearing my hair out for a fortnight with the 4.0 release. You don't have to jailbreak the phone, just need a utility to get it out of recovery mode. Google will tell you.

With regard to making Steve angry, I really wouldn't worry about that as a 3G owner, we've been let down.

I reverted my phone back to 3.1.3 and am happy with the performance, but now lots of apps are going iOS 4 only which is making me angry.

Like others I will be looking into Android - although I suspect it's still a backwards step on usability.

I recently bought an iPhone 3G to my girl, and it came with iOS 4.2.1 working just fine. Granted, it was a wiped new iOS, but I can't see anything slow unlike everyone is complaining. Maps, address book, safari and even Spotlight was working flawless. Spotlight is the main advice I could find to make OS4 better since first release up to today, along with few other hints: http://thetechjournal.com/electronics/iphone/how-can-you-make-iphone-3g-on-ios-4 -faster.xhtml

Well, I think multitasking made it slow so just few hours ago I started researching the interwebs for more hints on what could be the "best setup for the 3G".

iPhone 3G processing power is more related to 2G than 3GS. It is much slower than 3GS and being slow is expected. I used to have one, and it was slow as ****, but I pushed it hard with apps back when iOS 4 didn't exist.

I'm really surprised reading so many bad reviews on iOS 4.2 now because this "new" 3G I'm configuring for her and making light turned out to be as fast as I would expect, without any big issue. My advice would be if you're getting slow OS on 3G, do more homework. Break free from whatever you had installed or configured because a fresh install is mostly sure to give a good performance.

Bottom-line, if you don't need any new feature and don't want any new apps, 3.1.3 must be slightly faster than a clean 4.2.1. Just barely.

<Edited by Host>

Downgraded my 3G to 3.1.3 using Lifehacker method, but it still ran verrrrry slow. Faster than when it was "rocking" OS4, but still way slower than before the "upgrade." Also, maps was broken, my GPS routinely put me miles away from where I knew I was actually at.

This was after talking to apple "support" and requesting an exchange for a clean 3G. Not a 3Gs, not a 4, just a plain jane 3G. I was told, after being on hold for 14 minutes, that "there is nothing we can do." I told the gal that Windows Phone 7 just earned another buyer and she laughed at me. Words can't describe how mad I was.

After moving to the DC area I went to an apple store to try again for a straight exchange for a clean 3G. I was told my only option to fix my 3G was to buy an iphone 4. I'm still in contract and I'm out of warranty, and I'm supposed to pay the ETF then buy an out of contract iphone 4 for roughly $500 out of pocket? Or, maybe, if AT&T lets me do an early updgrade, I can just spend $200 to "fix" the problem that apple's latest and greatest OS caused? Get real.

Proud owner of a Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 now. The 3G was the first and only apple purchase I'll ever make, as the first time I needed help with an issue I was told to pound sand. Good game apple. I hope you folks realize that there's only so much a person will put up with before they jump ship. I certainly won't be back.

I should add that in addition to slow running phone and a borked GPS, my battery life was still abysmal after reverting from 4.0 back to 3.1.3. Less than 8 hours before the phone had to be on the charger again. The phone also did its best impression of a hand warmer after a short period of use...

As a iPhone 3G user (since July 2008) I'm frustrated with slowness (especially after 4.x upgrades to iOS, latest being 4.2.1). I tried different options in this thread without any success. Complete restore is the only thing pending. Irrespective of how that goes, I will wait for iPhone on Verizon, then compare that with my iPhone 3G and then decide whether to jump to Verizon, or wait for 5-6 months (for iPhone 5) to make a decision.

That'll be because you hacked it then! 😉

Mine is fine and has had none of the problems you had, but I didn't hack it and kept it up to date, so go figure.

Also, if I have problems with something I take it to the people who 'know', not the people who don't 'know' and certainly not to the people who would like others to think that they do 'know' when they don't.

Entropy only increases, particularly following certain paths (like 'hacking') with any technology, but in my direct personal experience Apple induces less entropy in its products that do many others!

Uh, no. I never hacked my iphone and I kept it "up to date." Keeping it "up to date" was what started the problem: iOS 4 broke my iphone, bottom line. I rolled it back and it became halfway functional again, long enough for me to ditch the iphone altogether.

Just to add, a Samsung Focus fixed every problem I had with all things iphone...

I did a backup and restore for my iPhone 3G (iOS 4.2.1) and so far the performance looks good 🙂