My iPhone 4 is Lagging

Have you tried restoring it?

There are other threads similar to this one that I have posted in. Make sure that everything is closed out of your multitasking dock. It frees up ram which will increase performance and give you better battery life. There are a lot of people that will agree and disagree with me but I know it works.

Teeko said:

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

If you reboot the phone, then it turns off during the process, which means all of the programs running stop running.

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Not true. Words with friends and other apps still "freeze" in background using RAM which causes performance to lack. I've run many of my own tests using my girlfriend's, mom's, sisters' and brother's iPhones as well as my own since the iPhone 4 came out. Keeping things open in the dock will no matter what cause performance to decrease.

Teeko said:

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

No, they save where they were at when you closed them. Only the clock and things like that are constantly running when the power is off. Your phone always has a little bit of reserve battery running in the background so that it can keep the time and a couple of other things, so you don't have to reset it every time you turn it on.

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Like I said before when they save they use RAM and a lot of it. Real Racing 2 uses over 150MB of RAM to save its state. When you get a lot of apps doing this it will eat up the 512MB in a heartbeat and your phone will suffer from lagging when trying to do the simplest tasks like opening up settings. When you do a reboot on your phone the application in "freeze" mode does not reset. It only resets when you close it out of the dock.

If you close everything in your dock and reset your phone it will run much faster trust me.

If you don't want to believe me more power to you but I've helped dozens of people I know at work and school that have severe lagging issues by doing everything that I have described. Even members on this forum and others.

Maybe it's just me, but with every iPhone/iOS update I got, performance generally got worse..

My old iPhone 3G worked a charm and was pretty responsive, then through each update, it just got worse. iPhone OS 3.0 onwards was significantly worse. iOS 4 just killed it..

My iPhone 4 was really speedy, but is going the same route. iOS 4.3 really killed the responsiveness. I'm guessing iOS 5 will just be the end of my iPhone 4..

I find this hard to believe...

How many apps did you have open when the iPhone started "lagging like crap"?

The naysayers on this topic are enough to make you take a drill to your head, honestly.

Lag IS an issue on iOS 4.3 and 4.3.1, if some can't notice it then hooray for them. Opening an app, mainly third party (yes, all 4.3 compatible), will not show the launch animation on first launch. Once the app is loaded into the system RAM it will close and open with all animations.

My iPhone 4 was far quicker on iOS 4.0 and 4.1 (and even on 4.2 compared to 4.3), and with only Messages, Phone, Facebook, and Settings in the background it lags a little.

Even stock apps, like Messages, Mail, and Photos can display a stutter in their launch/close animations from time to time. There are numerous jumps and skips in the OS, like when going back pages in the Settings app previous to posting, I noticed it skip a frame. When Apple take pride in the "polish" of iOS, I find this ridiculous. I'd like to think it's a bug, but after the iPhone 3G debacle I'm somewhat cynical.

I've restored via iTunes, restored via DFU, switched off Ping, Push on email, and Spotlight ... same. Hell, I had my phone replaced at the Genius Bar on Saturday and got a new phone (82 serial like the one I took in) and this has 4.3, which I find a little better than 4.3.1.

When I got this phone I set it up as new, and loaded on apps one at a time. No music or video has been synced yet, so right now I've got 8.4GB free on my 16GB iPhone 4. Still there's lag.

It's iOS 4.3 that's the issue, not our eyes. I know this isn't the same experience as even 4.2, I feel it in my day to day use of the phone. Oddly enough, I'm not experiencing battery issues, but then I run my phone from 100% in the morning and come home with 30-35% remaining. But that's not for this thread.

Mlrollin91 said:

Like I said before when they save they use RAM and a lot of it. Real Racing 2 uses over 150MB of RAM to save its state. When you get a lot of apps doing this it will eat up the 512MB in a heartbeat and your phone will suffer from lagging when trying to do the simplest tasks like opening up settings. When you do a reboot on your phone the application in "freeze" mode does not reset. It only resets when you close it out of the dock.

If you close everything in your dock and reset your phone it will run much faster trust me.

If you don't want to believe me more power to you but I've helped dozens of people I know at work and school that have severe lagging issues by doing everything that I have described. Even members on this forum and others.

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This is very easy to see using iStat. When the iPhone gets laggy use iStat to see how much available RAM you have. Then go into the dock and close out of all the programs that it has listed (notice I didn't say running). Then open up iStat and check your available RAM again.

@WeegieMac I do not have any lag whatsoever. I have very sensitive eyes, part of a health condition I have. My eyes are able to notice individual frame rates, even at 24+FPS. Yes that sounds weird, but it is 100% true, have been to many, many eye doctors and they cannot figure out why. That is why I had to return the original iPad because compared to the iPhone 4, the lag was incredible in my eyes.

So with that being said, everything that I have said in this forum is 100% true for me and it has yet to fail me or many others I have helped. Deleting everything in the multitasking bar and restarting the phone will free up everything and make it run much faster. My phone on 4.3.1 is just as fast, if not faster than 4.2.1 and 4.0.

If someone doesn't believe me, I could hardly care less, I'm just trying to help with my own experiences.

blubyu said:

This is very easy to see using iStat. When the iPhone gets laggy use iStat to see how much available RAM you have. Then go into the dock and close out of all the programs that it has listed (notice I didn't say running). Then open up iStat and check your available RAM again.

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I use System and FreeMemory from Recession Apps for both iPhone and my iPad. Works great and never experience any problems with lack of memory.

Mlrollin91 said:

@WeegieMac I do not have any lag whatsoever. I have very sensitive eyes, part of a health condition I have. My eyes are able to notice individual frame rates, even at 24+FPS. Yes that sounds weird, but it is 100% true, have been to many, many eye doctors and they cannot figure out why. That is why I had to return the original iPad because compared to the iPhone 4, the lag was incredible in my eyes.

So with that being said, everything that I have said in this forum is 100% true for me and it has yet to fail me or many others I have helped. Deleting everything in the multitasking bar and restarting the phone will free up everything and make it run much faster. My phone on 4.3.1 is just as fast, if not faster than 4.2.1 and 4.0.

If someone doesn't believe me, I could hardly care less, I'm just trying to help with my own experiences.

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Mate, I've done everything possible (mentioned above), including shutting everything and restarting.

I'm not posting this stuff to score points, but there are too many complaints here and on the Apple boards for it to not be an issue.

Likewise, if people think we're seeing things then fair dues to those people and their arrogance. Maybe lag is a poor choice of word, I prefer the term skipped frames. ALL my games apps fail to display the launch animation until AFTER they've been launched and only then can you go to/from the home screen with the usual animation. This affected phones at the Apple Store too, but I still took the replacement in hope of getting a phone on 4.2.1 ... and a nice blocky home button.

WeegieMac said:

Mate, I've done everything possible (mentioned above), including shutting everything and restarting.

I'm not posting this stuff to score points, but there are too many complaints here and on the Apple boards for it to not be an issue.

Likewise, if people think we're seeing things then fair dues to those people and their arrogance. Maybe lag is a poor choice of word, I prefer the term skipped frames. ALL my games apps fail to display the launch animation until AFTER they've been launched and only then can you go to/from the home screen with the usual animation. This affected phones at the Apple Store too, but I still took the replacement in hope of getting a phone on 4.2.1 ... and a nice blocky home button.

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I would agree with the term skipped frames for that situation too. I have that problem as well. I don't consider that lag. Lag is when the frame rates stutter a little bit during game play, scrolling through text and things like that.

If that's what the OP actually means my solution will not work. But for everyday tasks that the frame rates hammer a little bit, what I've been saying will do the trick, it has yet to fail me or many others. With re-reading the opening post, it seems to be lag in everyday tasks, which is mainly caused by low memory.

Mlrollin91 said:

@WeegieMac I do not have any lag whatsoever. I have very sensitive eyes, part of a health condition I have. My eyes are able to notice individual frame rates, even at 24+FPS. Yes that sounds weird, but it is 100% true, have been to many, many eye doctors and they cannot figure out why. That is why I had to return the original iPad because compared to the iPhone 4, the lag was incredible in my eyes.

So with that being said, everything that I have said in this forum is 100% true for me and it has yet to fail me or many others I have helped. Deleting everything in the multitasking bar and restarting the phone will free up everything and make it run much faster. My phone on 4.3.1 is just as fast, if not faster than 4.2.1 and 4.0.

If someone doesn't believe me, I could hardly care less, I'm just trying to help with my own experiences.

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What keeps amazing me is that you think you are teaching anyone new information. Closing out your apps is known by even the most computer illiterate person. Trust me, you arent educating anyone on this board.

Also, restarting the phone does indeed clear the apps out of memory. They are still listed in the multitasking tray, but they are not running, and are not in a saved state. Try opening one of the apps in the tray after restaring the phone, and it will start over, not resume. I promise you this is the case.

With all that said, there is definitely extreme lag with 4.3.1. I had to go back to 4.0. It really is amazing how much smoother 4.0 is.

kre62 said:

What keeps amazing me is that you think you are teching anyone new information. Closing out your apps is known by even the most computer illiterate person. Trust me, you arent educating anyone on this board.

Also, restarting the phone does indeed clear the apps out of memory. They are still listed in the multitasking tray, but they are not running, and are not in a saved state. Try opening one of the apps in the tray after restaring the phone, and it will start over, not resume. I promise you this is the case.

With all that said, there is definitely extreme lag with 4.3.1. I had to go back to 4.0. It really is amazing how much smoother 4.0 is.

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Just because you think everyone knows about it does not mean everyone actually knows about it. I have 2 dozen people I work with that are extremely tech savvy who couldn't figure out why their phones were lagging so much. I told them to close everything on the dock and everything was fine for them, no matter what version they were running. If someone already knows this information good for them, but I can still try to help the best way I can because it has yet to fail me.

Common knowledge for one person is not common knowledge for another. Some people are too busy to fully grasp the entire concept. With that being said, I have helped others on the board with the same information.

Mlrollin91 said:

I would agree with the term skipped frames for that situation too. I have that problem as well. I don't consider that lag. Lag is when the frame rates stutter a little bit during game play, scrolling through text and things like that.

If that's what the OP actually means my solution will not work. But for everyday tasks that the frame rates hammer a little bit, what I've been saying will do the trick, it has yet to fail me or many others. With re-reading the opening post, it seems to be lag in everyday tasks, which is mainly caused by low memory.

Click to expand...

So there we have it, a definition of terms helps this discussion. Skipped frames is what I experience, but I definitely didn't have them in 4.0 to 4.2. ...

Performance in games is fine, no issues there.

Maybe I'm going crazy but when I press the home button from being in an app, there is more of a delay to the home screen appearing.

I have an iphone 4 jailbroken ios 5 ,it is lagging a little bit and the facebook app laggs too much but when i check the available memory it always around about 150 to 170 mb when the facebook app is opened ,i wanted to know tht why does it laggs when alot of memory is available.