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Sir Ruben

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 3, 2010
1,885
1,200
UK
What network are you on? On Three in the UK, you can't switch to 2G any more

Orange, and on my iPhone 4 it was an option (kept it off most of the time to save battery).

One theory I have is that the option dissapears if you have Siri turned on. Havent had the chance to test that theory yet though.

It may be the case that with Siri on 3G is auto selected which may account for the reduced battery standby time on the 4S?
 

Sir Ruben

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 3, 2010
1,885
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UK
It is in settings under general then network you will see something for. 3G network

Yeah thats where it always was on my IP4, on my 4S 'cellular data' is the first option, 3G option is just not there!
 

sullez

macrumors 6502
Sep 4, 2011
315
0
Well how do we know what will fit if we are ordering online? I ordered a speck candy shell by speck and idk if it will fit .
 

Sir Ruben

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 3, 2010
1,885
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UK
It was removed from the iPad 2 earlier this year as well.

Really?? This was always a handy tip for people wanting to improve battery life and I personally found it to make a noticable difference.

Plus I am always connected to wifi at work and home so rarely have any need for 3G at all, so in my case all it does is give me a shorter battery life, great!
 

mikethebigo

macrumors 68020
May 25, 2009
2,281
1,128
Really?? This was always a handy tip for people wanting to improve battery life and I personally found it to make a noticable difference.

Plus I am always connected to wifi at work and home so rarely have any need for 3G at all, so in my case all it does is give me a shorter battery life, great!

They've made some pretty big strides with the cellular technology. The 3G chip will lay dormant if you're on wifi, and won't use much battery at all.

That being said, I'll miss the option too, sometimes if 3G was congested I could drop down to EDGE to get a call through.
 

icanhasiphone?

macrumors regular
Mar 17, 2008
123
0
San Diego, CA
They've made some pretty big strides with the cellular technology. The 3G chip will lay dormant if you're on wifi, and won't use much battery at all.

That being said, I'll miss the option too, sometimes if 3G was congested I could drop down to EDGE to get a call through.

So does mean you wont be able to use the 4S unlocked on T-Mobile USA?? For it to work on their network you have to turn off 3g... :(
 

mikethebigo

macrumors 68020
May 25, 2009
2,281
1,128
So does mean you wont be able to use the 4S unlocked on T-Mobile USA?? For it to work on their network you have to turn off 3g... :(

The phone is still capable of 2G, you just can't force the phone to use it if you have 3G available.

If you put a T-Mobile SIM in, it will connect to the only network available, the EDGE network.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I don't have an iPhone 4S yet. I'm basing this off of conjecture. I don't know for sure the turn off 3G option has been removed.
 

JulianL

macrumors 68000
Feb 2, 2010
1,657
654
London, UK
It was removed from the iPad 2 earlier this year as well.

It's a concern for me since I also keep my iPhone 4 locked to 2G to extend battery life but if this is how it is now then I suppose that I'll just have to adjust. I'll let my iPhone 4 use 3G from now on so that I get used to the lower battery life and then I won't be so bothered when I upgrade, either to a 4S when the launch frenzy has subsided but more likely to a 5 when it arrives next year.

This might also confirm my theory about another debate going on in these forums - why has the quoted standby time of the 4S reduced by a full third vs the iPhone 4? The iPhone 4 specs quote 300 hour standby time and the iPhone 4S quotes 200 hours; that's a big difference. One of my theories was that Apple have moved from specifing the standby figure for a 2G connection to specifying it for a 3G connection and if the option to lock to 2G is now removed then that would make sense.

- Julian
 

Sir Ruben

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 3, 2010
1,885
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UK
This might also confirm my theory about another debate going on in these forums - why has the quoted standby time of the 4S reduced by a full third vs the iPhone 4? The iPhone 4 specs quote 300 hour standby time and the iPhone 4S quotes 200 hours; that's a big difference. One of my theories was that Apple have moved from specifing the standby figure for a 2G connection to specifying it for a 3G connection and if the option to lock to 2G is now removed then that would make sense.

- Julian

I agree, OR it maybe an issue at my end that a restore might resolve. It could also be provider specific, but i dont think so as the sim came directly out of my iPhone 4 which did show the option.

It could be a ploy so that Siri works as well and as often as possible (because it requires a decent speed of data connection).
 

imac9556

macrumors 6502a
Jul 12, 2004
574
43
I agree, OR it maybe an issue at my end that a restore might resolve. It could also be provider specific, but i dont think so as the sim came directly out of my iPhone 4 which did show the option.

It could be a ploy so that Siri works as well and as often as possible (because it requires a decent speed of data connection).

Try resetting the network settings under General -> Reset?
 

nebo1ss

macrumors 68030
Jun 2, 2010
2,903
1,695
So does mean you wont be able to use the 4S unlocked on T-Mobile USA?? For it to work on their network you have to turn off 3g... :(

Turning off 3g to use T-Mobile has always been unnecessary. It will help find the 2G network faster but it will eventually find the 2g network and lock on it going forward.
 

Applejuiced

macrumors Westmere
Apr 16, 2008
40,672
6,533
At the iPhone hacks section.
Turning off 3g to use T-Mobile has always been unnecessary. It will help find the 2G network faster but it will eventually find the 2g network and lock on it going forward.

That is false.
If you leave 3G on your signal will flunctuate from 1 to 5 bars to zero and many times just searching.
There's a reason they tell you to turn off 3G if you're using it on Tmobile USA.
 

notjustgc

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2009
271
0
This is really a serious problem. My parents live in an area where there is just enough of a shade of 3G to keep their iPhones from auto-switching to EDGE. So now they're stuck with two dead iPhones, all the time. :mad:
 

Saileshbreaker

macrumors regular
Aug 13, 2011
190
4
This is why Apple increased the 3G usage time

Imo, when you turn off data usage on the 4S, it automatically switches to 2G. as apple says the following on its website : Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G, up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM) , so if its always on 3G, then the 2G is fake?
 
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No1Chris

macrumors newbie
Oct 18, 2011
1
0
-_-

They've made some pretty big strides with the cellular technology. The 3G chip will lay dormant if you're on wifi, and won't use much battery at all.

That being said, I'll miss the option too, sometimes if 3G was congested I could drop down to EDGE to get a call through.

Just got off the phone with orange they say because I live in a place were there is 2G and 3G the iPhone 4s gets confused between the two and I keep losing connection -_- I'm sending it back, apparently its just the network so i might try Three.

Macbook pro 17'', Intel i7 2nd gen 2.2ghz 4gb ram , amd 6750m 1gb vram

And HP pavilon dv6 15.5'', Intel i3 2nd gen 2.1ghz 4gb ram ,amd 6480m 1gb vram, Beats Audio. :apple:
 

Jcrd

macrumors newbie
Dec 2, 2011
1
0
Why did apple decide to remove it in the first place????
So stupid!
I'd like them to give us the answer to that question...:confused:
 

scaredpoet

macrumors 604
Apr 6, 2007
6,627
342
Why did apple decide to remove it in the first place????
So stupid!
I'd like them to give us the answer to that question...:confused:

The claim that I've heard from a few Apple Reps is that it has to do with the different 3G chipset in the iPhone 4S. It's a multimode system that will let them use the same system for either a CDMA or a GSM network. The bad news is, there is (supposedly) no software method to manually control whether you're on UMTS or EDGE.

That's the claim from Apple. I don't know if it's true or not. They've certainly told/suggested a few fibs in the past (the original iPad can't support mirrored video out, for instance. Or that the iPhone 4 doesn't have the hardware oomph to support SIRI.).
 

orgazmo

macrumors newbie
Aug 6, 2007
16
1
The 4 has the option with the current software, but the 4s does not. Siri does not matter, its still not there. The problem here is that sometimes when you travel internationally, 2g works better than 3g. Very annoying.
 
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