Iphone 3GS slow after update to iOS 5

I too posted some premature remarks about solving my 3GS / iOS5 problems here a few days ago. Whilst it is true that most of the problems seem to have been cured, one persists - the WiFi continually fails. It says it is connected but it is not. It is necessary to turn WiFi on and off (or phone into Airplane mode and out again). The link will stay up for about three minutes, so it is effectively useless.

But wait, it gets worse...

I also have an iPad2. thinking that the problem with iOS5 was 3GS specific I (foolishly) also up(?)graded the iPad to iOS5. And, guess what?... exactly the same WiFi problem.

I have tweaked about every possible parameter on my (Netcomm NP740N) router and there is no improvement.

So, here's my tentative analysis... if you are on a WiFi network and have this problem and have lots of notifications and connected stuff running, then all these apps will be trying to communicate over a link which is actually down but which the phone thinks is OK. Thus effectively freezing the phone.

Do you know when the 5.0.1 will be avalible to upgrade to, and did they give you any idea of when the beta will be ready for all?

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Unfortunatly, it seems these fixes are only momenary. I've disabled iCloud and Notification Center, and a bunch of other settings, which did increase the phone's memory, and drop the cpu a bit. I then did a software restore, which helped make it run good as new. However, problems have come back within a day.

I did not restore to "new device" as does this entail losing all your information?

Please keep posting what you all find, it's very helpful!

With a fusion of enthusiasm i updated my os to 5 and now started regretting my decision as i should have waited for some reviews...the new **** update had taken my 3gs to a new level of laggyness..thank you apple..

same here, very slow now on my 3GS, I was a happy bunny before ugrading... I regret having even upgraded to ios4... my phone was so nice and fast before... every upgrade made it slower... not something that makes me want to buy another iphone....

facebook now takes ages to load, even longer to update, and my newspapers are so slow... before it was a bliss, now its a pain...

My 3gs also was working perfectly fine and stood out well above all competition. Now using it is actually less fun then drowning... since this is apparently not the first time an older model suffers the latest ios update, my deciding to get another iphone when my contract ends greatly depends on if and how apple is going to fix this quite shamefull issue.

Same here. iPhone worked perfectly, upgraded to ios 5 and now I go to bring up messages, or a web page, etc and it just hangs forever, then kicks me out to the main screen. Have to click on it again and wait... and finally I can read the text message someone sent me. Of course if I want to reply I have to accept that the first couple key presses I make will be ignored while the UI catches up. Absolutely horrible.

Hey David, where can you see what % the system is using at any given time? Appreciate the post and am personally trying to turn iCloud off to get this working, will see how it goes....

That agrees with my observation that turning off the WiFi seems to eliminate the slowdowns.

Hi B.O.C., I downloaded a couple of utilities, SysStatsMon and System Status. Both are roughly the same and give the current CPU usage. I would make changes to the settings and then launch one of these and let it run for a minute or so to see what effect the change had.

For me, turning off Calendar Notifications resolved the high CPU usage, and therefore the sluggishness and poor battery life.

I have the same problem after 'upgrading' to OS 5. I have a 30 GB iPhone 3, and it is very slow to go through my music library. In fact, some times it even freezes and can't be used until I sync it with iTunes from my computer. Big problem when I spend 5 hours per day on the bus without music. I can't say how many times I have had to power off-on the phone already. And this even with iCLoud sync off.

I definately want to revert back to the previous iPhone OS, the sooner the better. How can I do this?

I have Time Machine for my backups, but I don't know if the iphone's OS is kept there. What about downloading previous versions from Apple?

Thanks

Just to let you know that, since my post I found and downloaded an IPSW file of the previous iPhone software version I wanted, and then checked out the instructions from

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/specs/apple-iphone-3g-s-specs.html

I'm in the process doing to the Restore and syning. I expect it to work, eventhough it will take some time for my 30 GB to sync.

It looks like I'm OK. Thanks for the opportunity for asking assistance in this forum.

I have exactly the same symptoms.

I was an apple fan until this. Three ios updates and all was well until this one.

apple needs to get a clue and realize they've lost their shiny newness now that droid has caught up on performance and apps. att has already lost my confidence, as soon as I can I'm switching to Verizon, I may go to a droid device in the same move unless this gets sorted out really fast.

Even after I disabled ICloud stuff mine was still slower than it was originally. I have found an app which seems to be really good and has basically made mine as fast as it ever was. it's called Cleaner Pro. Unfortunately it's not free. But it does seem to clean up your memory and it's fast again. Obviously I will have to use it now and then when I see that the phone is slowing down again. Shame Apple hasn't built in something like this!

I restored my iphone 3GS before installing the latest iOS 5 software and the phone now is RIDICULOUSLY slow and not fit for purpose. It's completely unusable, and that's not an exaggeration.

If someone calls me, the person calling will hear a ringing tone, but my phone won't actually ring until at least 25 seconds after they hear the ringing tone on their end.

The keyboard doesn't work. It appears, but no keys can be pressed.

Slide to unlock takes about 30 seconds to open onto the home screen.

The screen freezes on any app, and I have to restart the ohone.

Oh, and there's no way to call anyone, as when I press the green phone app, nothing but a blank screen appears.

WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?

iTunes brought me a update to iOS 5.0.1 on my iPhone today. It does not fix my problem with sync'ing my address book with the cloud.

The phone does seem to be performing a little better. Perhaps some other issues noted on this list are resolved.