Q: How do I turn off 3G on the iPhone 4S?

Feedback from Paris. 3G coverage is pretty good all over the city but there are areas where the 3G signal is weak. My iPhone 4S then switches to Edge on its own. Indeed, there is no option to disable 3G, only Cellular data. I too used to turn off 3G on my previous iPhone 4 in the belief that it helped save battery (which I found to be true after some testing) and also because it seemed to me that Edge was more reliable (I use the Orange network). Also, of course, I had little use for the extra 3G speeds on the go and I use wifi at work and home. 

So yes, I would appreciate if Apple gave us back the option to disable 3G.

As far as the Siri issue is concerned (tal1971's interesting argument is that Siri is thus forced to use the fastest cellular connection available), I would be OK with the disable 3G option not being available when Siri is turned on, but why not make it possible to turn 3G off when Siri is off too?

I also live in the UK -- the Orange & O2 masts are within 1/2mile of my house and both transmit at regular strength according to the Ofcom website, yet the 3G signal for both networks is terrible, especially the further back you move in the house.

As you know, the battery drains faster when the phone is constantly searching for a stronger signal. When set to Edge only, the signal on the phone gets much stronger, and this applies to all the networks that my family subscribe to. On my 3GS, I could turn off 3G and the battery would last all day long, not so when 3G turned on. Being on the combined Orange+T-Mobile network meant that I always received the stronger signal, and I could see the network switching in the upper-left corner of my screen -- I haven't seen this on the iPhone 4S yet.

A strong cell signal can be a lifeline for some people and could literally mean the difference between life & death -- I carry my phone with me all the time, even in the house in case I collapse downstairs whilst the rest of the family is upstairs: the kitchen/bathroom extension have poor signal and calls are dropped all the time. I was offered a very decent price for my 3GS (pristine condition) but have decided to keep it for the time being and carry it around with me all the time because I know that when the 4S has 1-bar signal, the 3GS will have at least 3-bars.

It used to be (is) in the Settings=>general=>network. I guess it is not an iOS5 issue as I have a 4 upgraded to iOS5 and the ability to turn off 3G is still there...

And it specifically says to turn off 3G in order to save battery power...

Well my battery life has diminished compared to my iphone 4, this is so annoying. I want to be able to turn off 3g, it drains my battery no matter what they say.

3G does drain the battery.  But, I have found another issue that drains my battery very quickly after every major OS upgrade.  Look at your usage versus standy time under the general settings.  If they are identical since the last charge (or very close), you likely had a corrupted restore from your backup.  The only solution I have found was to setup the phone as a new iphone.  This is clearly a pain, since you need to setup all of your apps again, select what to sync, and you lose historical texts and voicemails older than one month.  Having said that, I restored mine as a new iphone yesterday and it doesn't drain as fast, but it does drain a good bit.

As for call quality and dropped calls, I have not had a dropped call yet and have spent all day in a place where I normally get dropped calls.  I wonder if it's the two attennas that are helping or if Apple has boosted the power up, which would help the dropped calls but also drain the battery faster.

I've read elsewhere regarding restoring as a new phone can help or sort out battery issues. Like you say a pain, but sometimes it happens, probably the corruption comes from something from the backup been on iOS 4 perhaps.

I've also read a lot of good about the new dual antenna, from people who had the iPhone 4 previously and dropped calls to getting the 4S and then not dropping calls.

A review I watched mentioned that the dual antenna from his testing 4S, showed that the 4S he had on the same network as the iPhone 4, was picking up a stronger 3G signal in the same location. He placed the two iPhones side by side and you could see the 4S was showing full 3G signal, whereas the iPhone 4 was not.

Slightly off topic, but updating from my point I mentioned in my last post re the 4S picking up a stronger signal than the iPhone 4.

I decided to try this for myself.

I popped into my local car phone warehouse, they have a 4S on a demo stand. The 4S was on O2. I placed my iPhone 4 next to it, and my iPhone 4 showed 2 bars off of maximum, the iPhone 4S showed a stronger signal than my iPhone 4. I expect this is due to the dual antenna on the 4S, interesting never the less I found.

I have a 3GS & 4S. I set up the 4S as a NEW phone, using the 3GS as a guide for installing m apps and getting them all in the right folders. I try to be consistent so that I can almost locate any app in any folder without looking at the screen.

As a family (extended to include my own kids, my siblings, nephews & nieces) we have a lot of iPhones and I support all of them. With every OS update, i have always set up each phone as NEW, never restored from a backup, simply because features are added/removed with each update, however minor.

Setting up an iPhone as NEW makes no diference in my opinion after updating 50+ handsets -- backgroung processing does and I for one am glad Apple has intro'd iMessage as WhatsApp seem to be a big drain on the battery -- there may be others and I am trying to work through nearly 100 apps (uninstall for a couple of hours, then re-install) on my 4S but it is tedious and depends on my health.

I still believe that being able to force the iPhone into 2G mode will make a big difference as I have only seen the "E" once when turning the WiFi ON/OFF. Yesterday, I turned the WiFi ON and didn't get any signal bars until I turned ON/OFF the Mobile Data option -- I was less than 3-feet away from my Apple Extreme! -- I'm thinking maybe Apple should have stuck to separate handsets for UMTS and CDMA.

my wife had a 3gs last week, has a 4s this week and now can't get pandora in her poor reception office. she used to turn off 3g w/ 3GS to be able to get pandora, now she can't turn off 3g.  please bring back the 3g switch in preferences or make it work getter to switch over to 2g/Edge so she can get services she got on her 3gs!

transientattack wrote:

 

my wife had a 3gs last week, has a 4s this week and now can't get pandora in her poor reception office. she used to turn off 3g w/ 3GS to be able to get pandora, now she can't turn off 3g.  please bring back the 3g switch in preferences or make it work getter to switch over to 2g/Edge so she can get services she got on her 3gs!

The 4S should switch over to an alternative connection method in that location, EDGE, GPRS. This is what the 3GS would have done, if your wife had the 3G switched on. So I cannot understand why your wife's 4S doesnt switch to an alternative connection method.

Basically, once the signal drops off on 3G to a low enough level, the iPhone switches to an alternative method, well in the UK it does, and I would expect it to do the same worldwide.

I can see the option to disable 3G is a needed thing for some people, but I cannot understand why their iPhones do not switch over to an alternative connection method when the 3G signal isnt there/is poor ??

i think maybe my wife gets a tiny bit of 3g coverage in her office, but is poor and very slow, and it's not enough to play music on pandora and text messages take 15 min - 30 min to go through. perhaps becuase that 3g is there, it doesn't switch over to alternate method of  Edge which was fast enough to play music on pandora/ send texts through faster.

Well when I went to Setting > General > Network, there was no option for this as well. However, I believe it is automatic switching now. Because I remember in some certain area where I live have a dead spot for 3G and does not for Edge so it automatically connects to Edge network. So clearly, Edge does work on iPhone 4S, but no option in Network settings to turn 3G on or off.

Hi, I'm in the UK and travel a lot. I only received my 4S today and have noticed that this option has been removed on the 4S but not on the 4. Removing the option to disable 3G is a huge mistake. Battery life is an issue and one of the main reasons I upgraded. This decision now seems to be counter intuitive.

PLEASE PUT THE OPTION BACK!! LET THE USER DECIDE.

I was afraid this might happen to me as I had an older iPhone and needed to switch 3G off at work to get calls or send texts etc, but I figured, hey this fancy new 4S should handle this automatically and life will be great.  Well, that was the wrong answer. I cannot receive phone calls at my desk at work for the same reason.  I need to have the switch back or my phone is useless at least 9hrs a day.

Long story short, I am screwed without the switch, Apple, I beg you to please add the switch back in so that I can keep my iPhone!

I returned my iPhone 4S because I couldn't turn 3G on/off when I wanted to. I have the same issues. I hope Apple will bring this function back. If not I'll keep my iPhone 4 and not buy the iPhone 4S.