Q: iPhone 4S unable to turn off 3G?!
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Oct 22, 2011 10:58 PMby peelmanG4,Not true. Voice and text are sent over the cellular radio, separate from data. This is quite simple to prove. Turn off cellular data. Your phone will still make a voice call and send texts.
I really want to be nice about this, so its taking everything I have not to type this in all caps in standard, I'm-Angry internet form, but:
The iPhone has but two radios: one for WiFi, one for cellular data. You turning off data with the switch in preferences is the local equivilent to AT&T (or Vzw, or Sprint) turning off "data" to your phone on their end. The only reason it is there (in theory) is so that people on limited plans can ENSURE that no data is being transmitted that they might be billed for. That and saving battery life by ensuring that no notifications get sent, and no apps can communicate with a network so they will fail silently rather than initiating power-hungry network calls.
ONE radio. That cannot be made clear enough. Your voice data is all digital now. Its being turned into 1s and 0s on the phone, and shipped out over the same network protocols used to relay HTTP requests and iMessages. If you don't believe me, dig up recordings made from old analog phones (or travel to a country that still has an analog system in place, and fire up an old Motorola bag phone). The quality and reliability difference is simply stunning.
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Oct 22, 2011 11:32 PMby BlueFlowers,L.A. here too. I switch to EDGE to make and receive phone calls. If I do not, calls are garbled and dropped. I literally cannot have phone conversations on 3G. I still have my iPhone 4 and there is a 30 day return policy on the 4s. I will wait until the 29th day to see if there are any software updates for this and battery life. Otherwise, I will be saying bye-bye to Siri and a better camera.
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Oct 25, 2011 11:03 AMby tscavetti,After calling Apple Care 3 times, I was just informed by a senior advisor that they will NOT be able to change this feature via an update, since it is hardware related. They said that feauture will no longer be available in new phones unless Apple changes its mind and releases a new model with that feature. As of now, if you own a 4s, you will not be getting that feature.
I am pretty upset about this, becuase it means I have to return my 4s and exchange for a 4. My battery drains rapidly and I can't get a good enough signal to make a phone call in my house.
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Oct 25, 2011 12:07 PMby tscavetti,I'd seen a couple other people with the iPhone 4 complain about this - but the strange thing is, my husband, my brother, and my best friend all have a 4 and his 3G toggle did not go away after the IOS 5 update. I wonder why it's happening to some people and not others....
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Oct 25, 2011 12:26 PMby g4vin,http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4203
Looks like there is an official post.
Well this piece of junk can go back.
I'm going to switch to Droid or M$.
RIP Apple you absolute idiots.
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Oct 25, 2011 1:03 PMby Phrogz,Just spoke to support rep who a) had not heard of this issue, but b) mentioned that Sprint and Verizon have moved away from Edge and cannot function without 3G. If true, it would explain why some iPhone 4 users have the option (AT&T) and some do not (other carriers). He also mentioned that the 3GS and 4 both had different hardware for different carriers, but the 4S has one hardware model for all. This might explain why it's off across the board, rather than enabling it per carrier.
I found the tech note interesting, that SMS will still work even with "cellular data" turned off. Perhaps this will be good enough.
