Iphone 3GS slow after update to iOS 5

Well back again, and have found that by disabling iCloud for all except calendar, and disabling Sync over Cellular works very well and the performance is now back to what it was. It seems that everytime you swipe the lock, the iCloud sync must also kick in, making the phone a pig. Disabling all of the above works a treat for me.

I am sure glad that AT&T and apple think that everyone can run right out and buy a new phone before there contract is up. I know that I can't. If Apple & AT&T won't fix the battery & proformance problems with 3GS soon, I will go android and another carrier.

Bang on - I've just found the same thing - turn off all the iCloud stuff and it's pretty much back to performance as it was on 4.3.5. Not quite there, but miles better than it was with iCloud switched on.

I don't think this is anything to do with 'forced obsolescence' - I think it's because Apple is Beta testing iCloud on millions of us!

My iPhone 3GS has become faster with iOS 5.

I still use MobileMe, not iCloud and I disabeld "Find my iPhone".

I have the same problem. iOS5 cripples my iPhone 3GS. At worst, this is an inexcusable way to force customers to upgrade. At best, this is terrible oversight, which is could be understandable, yet it doesn't appear as though Apple is making any effort to fix the issue. Do a Google search on "iphone 3gs ios5 fix" or "iphone 3gs iphone ios5 patch" and nothing comes up.

After the update:

• There is a general stickiness in the navigation. Sometimes, apps don't even load when tapping on them.
• Many, many apps do no work properly. For example, Facebook often doesn't load and often gets stuck while using. Also, my mail app had this really weird "inbox" icon in the nav that looks like the correct button wasn't able to render properly.
• Typing is many times non-functional. I'll tap on a key and nothing will register for 5 seconds or so.
• Bluetooth doesn't work. I've been using my Jawbone icon with very few problems for quite a while now. Now, it looks like it connects (the bluetooth icon is blue), yet I don't actually hear anything. Worse yet, the iPhone says "iphone" (vs. Jawbone) when the blue light is on, but I can't hear anything on the phone either.

This really *****.

Well no **** sherlock. Did you actually think a phone running a 600 MHz processor could keep pace with a new iOS system designed for the new Dual Core A5 processor?

iPhone 3GS vs iPhone 4S specs:

iPhone 3GS- a 600 MHz processor (underclocked from 833 MHz by Apple) with 256 MB RAM

iPhone 4S- a 800 MHz dual core processor A5 chip (underclocked from 1 GHz by Apple) with 512 MB RAM

I noticed my 3GS was extremely sluggish after the iOS 5 update but the real problem started a few days ago when the battery starting draining very quickly. Before the update I could usually get through my waking hours without a recharge. In the last few days I was lucky to get 8 hours, mostly on standby, before I had to plug it in. Not good.

I tried a number of suggestions found in this thread and others, including removing email accounts, resetting the network, adding accounts back in. I'm not using iCloud. I tried turning location services off, bluetooth off, even tried turning on airplane mode. I even killed all the apps so the task bar was empty. It was still sluggish and I could see the battery percentage drop.

SysStatsMon and System Status consitently showed CPU use at 90-100% and my 3GS was extremely sluggish.

System Status showed a number of events related to the Calendar (I have 29 calendars, including Exchange, Mobile Me, Google). I turned off Notification Centre for Calendar and the CPU fell WAY down to 5-6%. It stayed at that low level for 20 minutes and the device was quite responsive. I tried enabling Notification Centre for Calendar again and the CPU usage shot back up to 90-100%. I turned it off again and the usage dropped back down.

It sure looks like there's a problem with the new Notification Centre, at least for the Calendar app. I have a few other apps configured to use it and those seem to be okay.

I'd be interested to see if anyone else see the same thing on their phones.

I agree with you caspartheghost. I turned ICloud off and I'm currently back to a respectable speed!

For the record, I'm having the same problem. I have the Passcode feature turned on and it now takes as long as 15 seconds for my phone to respond to my entry. Just to go to the Settings takes 6 or 7 seconds after I touch the settings icon. Like everyone else, my phone worked fine before loading the new software. How about it Apple, are we stuck with this or are you going to fix it?

I had all the same symptoms described in this thread (3GS running hopelessly slowly after IOS5 u/g)... I noticed that calendar notifications were flickering like they were stuck in a loop, turning those off in Notifications gave me back the phone - but now no notifications... :-/

Fix needed please Apple !

I too have found that turning iCloud off and the disabling Sync over Cellular seems to resolve the problem. But this is really a big oversite by Apple. Don't they test these software updates on all the models or do they presume that we all have an iphone 4???

I am having all the same issues. No one tell me to restart, reset, restore, restore. Because that doesn't work. What I need now is to be able to restore back to the previous IOS. And please no comments about 'how did you expect it to work on an old phone.' Because what I expected is that if Apple said it was compatible, then it would work compatibly. If they had said that it might cause some slowing of functions, at least I would have gone into it cautiously.

In addition to the slow processing of the phone itself, when I sync, it seems to get stuck at Step 7 of 7.

Is there a resource to how to uninstall this new operating system and reinstall the previous one?

Hi there, like others have found, simply disable any iCloud rubbish and you will have your iphone back.

Cheers, Glenn

I had a couple of problems when doing the first sync after the upgrade.

One was related to photos. The phone capacity wasn't displayed properly and it failed during the sync. I deselected Sync Photos until the sync ran properly, then I re-enabled it agaiin and it worked.

The second was it apparently getting stuck near the end of the sync. Syncing is done differently with iOS 5 in that it doesn't lock up the phone during the sync. In the background iTunes continues to send info (e.g., apps, music) which can take a long time if you have lots (which I did). I thought something was wrong ("where did all my apps and music go??") but they eventually appeared.

I have disabled all iCloud options. Did not work. I have tried syncing only Contacts. did not work. I have now decided to remove all but three installed apps, kept my music, removed all movies, itunes u, podcasts and photos. I am now 25 minutes into the sync.

This is unacceptable.