iPhone 3G slow 4.2.1

downgrading my 3G's iOS to 3.2.1 brought the speed back but it's useless if you use apps like facebook that caters to iphone 4/4S with 4.1/4.2 iOS. the facebook and other app experience is just dreadful

It's what you all say. iPhone 3G unusable with 4.x, although you can get it barely acceptable by turning location services off. But downgrade to 3.1.3 (a bit of a pain but not hard) and all is fine and snappy, a great phone again. But no new apps. The development environment doesn't even support iOS 3 - it is close to impossible to write an app that works on iOS 3 with the current tools (believe me I am trying). The giant issue is that Apple does not allow you to revert to the phone you bought and worked. They break what you bought and you can't get it back (at least not easilty). If there was an normal way for the average user to go back to 3.1.3 it would have been much less of an issue. Old phone can't run new apps, I can understand that, and that would be it. It happens at every iOS release: they break something and you can't undo it.

I used to be an iOS user and developer.

I'm very happy for the lucky owners of later iPhones who had a much better deal and I'm sure they're very happy with their phones. I probably would be too if I'd waited to get a later iPhone.

However iPhone 3g customers got poor support in return for being earlier adopters. That alone made me determined to vote with my purchasing power. I've moved platforms and I'm not coming back.

Some examples:

Very patchy start with buggy iOS 2.x

3.x generally fine on iPhone 3g - in my experience the only version of IOS that was OK.

4.x generally very slow and iPhone 3g users stranded on unusably slow and unreliable iOS 4.2.1 (no support for 4.3)

Apple remain silent and provide no help or tips to ease the terrible performance problems.

iTunes now actively bars downgrade to working 3.x after wiping phone with no explanation or warning.

By contrast lucky iPhone 3gs customers get working support all the way from iOS to iOS 6 (4 properly working versions)

Development tools revved to make it almost impossible to write apps that support original iPhone and iPhone 3g (iOS 4.3 requirement)

No way of downloading working older versions of apps from the app store that support the iPhone 3g (and local iTunes backup hasn't backed them up either)

Can't copy older versions of free apps from other users because of code signing restrictions

I read Steve Job's life and design philosophy. I think there is a contradiction in his quest for excellent design and the need to continuously sell new product. My iPhone 3g is an example of this problem. It's a beautiful product, the construction quality is 1st class, like a Merc, which he admired, and a product made to last a lifetime, not to end up on a Chinese landfill after 3 years. It's not a disposable product.

The problem occurs when the product is no longer supported as Apple seeks to sell more hardware, I don't believe that the newer hardware is an improvement on the previous generation, it's just the software that improves. I cannot bring myself to toss my perfectly good phone in the bin when all it needs is a software upgrade. This tendency is indicative of the need for Apple to expand it's empire indefinitely to satisfy Wall Street.

I fail to see the logic of tossing my phone to keep Apple's share price on a never ending upward trend. I've bought a Sony Xperia and I'm impressed with build quality, but I'm not impressed with Android and find myself conflicted about which way to go.

If there is a solution to this conundrum and some good person has written a decent upgrade to keep my 3G compatible with current apps please drop me a message.

I can add to this:

Apple immediately censors discussion of any alternatives. The last post to this thread (from another user) was summarily deleted without any explanation just after it was posted. The message is clear, if you've got an unsupported device don't expect any help from Apple at all - they will even try to prevent you finding out about workarounds.

Not sure if the iTunes code signing block on downgrading to v3.1.3 is still in force. Barring downgrade to working software without explanation is exactly the kind of action that will drive users to seek alternatives.

At least Apple have recently allowed downloading the last compatible version of an app from the app store. I wonder how long this will last.