Q: iPhone 4S unable to turn off 3G?!

To summarize:-

1. Apple blundered severely by not designing their phone/iOS to offer 2G/3G toggle as score of people are finding their phones unusable with 3G services enabled. (turning off data does not mean that the phone goes to 2G. The phone will stay on 3G voice network till signal fails completely)

2. If Apple is not willing/able to offer the toggle, then the least it should do is acknowledge the mistake and offer full refund for any one wishing to return, irrespective of some carrier or the store policy of not returning (I am facing one).

3. As this acknowledgement and return policy would leave Apple red-faced, this will not happen unless strong public backlash forces Apple to take action.

It is now a matter of building up such a strong public opinion.

Yes, this is stupid. We all got new iPhones at work BECAUSE I LIVE IN THE CITY MY FIRMWARE FIXED PHONE WON'T LAST MORE THAN 8 HOURS BEFORE IT DIES! That's with ZERO CALLS and a single push for EMAIL ONLY once every hour everything else completely turned off and the screen brightness all the way down. EVERYBODY ELSE LIVES OUTSIDE OF TOWN SO THEIR PHONES WILL LAST ALL WEEKEND WITHOUT A CHARGE AND PLENTY OF CALLS!

IF I TURN ON WIFI AND PUSH ALL WITH NOTIFY AND ACTUALLY USE THE PHONE FOR CALLS THEN THE BATTERY DIES FASTER THAN THE CHARGER CAN CHARGE UP THE PHONE!!! RIDICULOUS!!! Even turning on airplane mode and dimming the screen won't stop the drain because it still won't last longer than 24 hours. (Once again I must stress I have upgraded firmware for the battery fix and my phone is new right out of the box.)

APPLE FIX THIS FAST OR MY PHONE IS GOING BACK TOO!!!!

But can you receive calls? I couldn't

Most of the time i Can't when the reception while on 3G is down at one bar. How ever when it does get even worse it switches over to Edge and I then full reception. On our iPhone 4's we solved this at office by disableing 3G and every one has full reception all the time.

I hope you're all using the apple support site, such as express lane and sending them suggestions about this issue. Not just posting here.

I don't think they even look at the support formum.

I think this discussion is now nearing its end, lets face it, the iphone 4S does not have the ability to disable 3G (and from the various posts it would appear it never will have) and I have a feeling that apple had better prepare themselves for a serious drop in sales figures when they release their next iphone. I for one have learned a valuable but expensive life lesson here.

I will never buy another apple product on the release date again.

I will never put myself in a position where I hang on in the hope that apple fix a problem only to find that they can't. and by that time I'm outside the return policy date and therefore stuck with it of sell it at a loss.

And I certainly will never purchase an iphone which has all these wonderful features that I cant use without switching other stuff off, cos if I don't then the battery will probably die when I most need it.

Honestly, if apple were a car dealership then they would probably have a sales pitch that says, "A full tank of fuel will last your apple car a lifetime". Small Print: (but only if you don't drive it).

I'm pretty sure if apple offered all those not happy with their 4S a full refund, they would have an awful lot of handsets landing on their door step. I know mine would be there in a heartbeat.

ok thats my rant over for this year

Merry Xmas and a good 2012 to everyone

My sentiments exactly, we should move on from here- either live with this lemon for another year or to explore new universe

Had been in the IOS universe for too long, din realise what I've missed in the Android world.

Got myself a galaxy s2 as a temp phone to tie over this saga and ended up liking it.

Every new things esp gadgets require an adaption period- I had my fair share of complains initially - but realise that I am nitpicking in the end.

Man, a bigger screen makes a **** lotta difference.

Plus the Android OS is not as bad as I thought.

Ice Cream Sandwich - the latest iteration of the Android OS is out and its just as smooth as IOS- if not better.

Please give it a try

totally agree, was seriously thinking of cutting my losses and looking into a samsung nexus. like the curved screen and Android seems to be the way ahead unless Apple get their head out of the sand and their finger out their *** and try listening to their bread and butter customers for a change.

Free upgrade on my mobile contract feb 2012, so I think the switch to samsung is looking pretty good.

I received my iPhone 4S for Christmas, and after the first 5 minutes playing with it, I opened up the Settings app to dig around for the button to toggle off 3G data. To my sad surprise, I have discovered what you already know; the feature to disable 3G (and thus greatly enhance battery life) is not available on the 4S.

I actually wanted a Samsung Galaxy Nexus for Christmas, but I clearly stipulated beforehand if that was too expensive then I'd be very happy with a 4S. I was wrong.

The way I see it, us 4S users have 2 options:

1) Donate to and Support the JaiIbreak community, or

2) Swith to the latest Android ICS phone you can afford

Two of my friends have already called to rave about their new Galaxy Nexus phones. Thanks Apple for this wonderful Christmas blow to the groin. I'll keep the 4S, but only to save my relationship...

You can support the jailbreak community if you choose but as far as I can tell no one has come up with a way to actually manually toggle between 3G and EDGE. Some have managed to cosmetically add back this feature to the 4s but it does not actually toggle the mode. If you read through here it lends credence to the fact that the Qualcomm chip may not provide that option. You might check with your friends to see if they have access to such a feature.

The good news is the volume bug in the GSM chip has been fixed, the bad news is the signal problem with Verizon has not as of yet.

Iphone 4S uses Qualcomm RTR8605 chip for 2G/3G networks.

The same one used in Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5). On Nokia there is an option to turn off 3G. So, this is just the software issue, not the hardware problem. The 3G can be swicthed off even on I4s.

But for some reason apple don't want it to...

Unless I'm looking at the wrong specs, the Nokia Lumia 800 is a GSM phone only - it is not a combination CDMA/GSM phone as the iPhone 4S.

SKIF. wrote:

 

Iphone 4S uses Qualcomm RTR8605 chip for 2G/3G networks.

The same one used in Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5). On Nokia there is an option to turn off 3G. So, this is just the software issue, not the hardware problem. The 3G can be swicthed off even on I4s.

But for some reason apple don't want it to...

More Qualcomm RTR8605 Information here

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4S-Teardown/6610/2

SKIF,

     Thanks for your information!  Are you sure it can disable 3G but still work in EDGE mode for data ? ( If you plugged a 3G Supported SIM Card )

     I heard someone already mentioned it is a hardware limitation and it use Qualcomm M6620, let's discuss further on Qualcomm RTR8650 & the announcement of apple for the 3G Toggle off not able to support.

Snowboyken wrote:

 

More Qualcomm RTR8605 Information here

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4S-Teardown/6610/2

 

SKIF,

 

     Thanks for your information!  Are you sure it can disable 3G but still work in EDGE mode for data ? ( If you plugged a 3G Supported SIM Card )

 

     I heard someone already mentioned it is a hardware limitation and it use Qualcomm M6620, let's discuss further on Qualcomm RTR8650 & the announcement of apple for the 3G Toggle off not able to support.

Nokia uses the same RTR8650. I am not sure if iphone 4s uses the same, but on most photos it is RTR8650.

I used nokia for over a week. Yes, you can switch off 3G and u still have EDGE for data. Also on Nokia there is a switch to turn of all data OFF (the same as on standart Iphone 4).

So, this is not harware problem.
APPLE can return this switch back!

The iPhone 4S includes a combination CDMA/GSM chip, which the Nokia model you specified does not include.

There is no option to turn 3G off with the CDMA iPhone 4 as is available with the GSM iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S is a combination CDMA/GSM phone.

If the option were available with the combination CDMA/GSM chip, it would not have been excluded.