Is there any reason to put iOS6 on the iPhone 4?

[stoneland]

When I had the 4 I updated to 6 just because of the new emoji

[himanshupant]

Originally Posted by avanpelt

Before I upgraded to the iPhone 5, I used iOS 6 on an iPhone 4 for a few days. I personally didn't notice the battery life taking a hit. My wife has run iOS 6 for the past month and a half on her iPhone 4 and hasn't complained about battery life. She has, however, complained about the lack of accuracy with Apple Maps.

The main reason I wanted iOS 6 on my iPhone 4 was for the Do Not Disturb feature. On an iPhone 4, you basically get revamped Privacy settings, Passbook, and Do Not Disturb. You don't get Siri or the "Flyover" stuff or turn-by-turn directions with Apple Maps. If none of the things iOS 6 gives you on an iPhone 4 are compelling to you, I'd say stay with 5.x and keep the traditional Google Maps app.

Perhaps you can wait for the Google maps app under production and once that is rolled out and checked out by ppl , you can move over to iOS6. Atleast that is my plan for my iPhone 4S

[Kukulcan]

Originally Posted by saberahul

...privacy options are worth the upgrade for me.

This!

I am not paranoid, I don't care about Apple knowing where I am etc. But I never used contacts/address book as every app had access to it resulting in me being responsible for my friends and family being possibly spammed.

Now with iOS6 I actually have contacts, which is a great plus.

[canesalato]

Originally Posted by Beeplance

Your concerns are all very legit, the most important one being the lack of google maps, as well as the possibility of a decline in performance, no matter what ppl say.

I'd say stay on 5.1.1 on your iPhone 4 as long as possible. Stay away from iOS 6, the benefits of upgrading to it are very minute & not really that important.

I agree.
iOS6 is very buggy. Wait at least for 6.1 and a google maps app (but try maps+ on ios5, it could be enough)

[bushido]

Originally Posted by Kukulcan

This!

But I never used contacts/address book

Now with iOS6 I actually have contacts, which is a great plus.

how

[quietstormSD]

I'd probably just wait until the new Google Maps is in the app store.

Also you don't get facebook integration if your into that service.

[Kurios]

Originally Posted by IJBrekke

I'm trying to discern why I would want to "upgrade" at all.

I gain very few (if any) features, I lose Google Maps, my battery life may get worse, the phone may become laggy/slower (which definitely happened when I upgraded to iOS5)...I just don't get it.

The current drawback of 5.1.1 is that I cannot restore my phone without upgrading, so the first time I have a problem I will be stuck. Also, OTA updates has downloaded iOS6 onto my device and is currently taking up 800mb of space.

So am I missing something here? Why upgrade?

Don't upgrade to 6, because it created several problems for my iPhone 4. It runs slow, drops wifi, crashes when viewing Purchased in App Store, smooth scrolling is gone in email and in App Store. You don't expect these problems when you update and it was mainly for the 5. I thought I'd get Panorama and more. Just a horrible update for 4 users.

[Kukulcan]

Originally Posted by bushido

how

How what?

They just closed one of the biggest leaks in their OS restoring restoring my faith in using it. Most didn't seem to care, but I always found it a great plus using an OS that successfully forbids viruses or other bad behaviour of software/apps.

[bushido]

Originally Posted by Kukulcan

How what?

They just closed one of the biggest leaks in their OS restoring restoring my faith in using it. Most didn't seem to care, but I always found it a great plus using an OS that successfully forbids viruses or other bad behaviour of software/apps.

no, like how does one not use a contact app. u must have a photographic memory to remember them all

[Kukulcan]

Originally Posted by bushido

no, like how does one not use a contact app. u must have a photographic memory to remember them all

I have not many friends and usually communicate through emails. The few calls I made were using the recent calls list. Now I use contacts mostly for Maps as I use TBT even if I know where I have to go.

[pommie82]

Going off the subject here a bit i have 4s since i have upgraded to OS6 i have noticed that its a lot slower then running on OS5.I have just recently bought the iPad mini and it running on OS6 and working fine and very fast really enjoy using at the moment and it was well worth the money.

I have come to the conclusion now what ever handset or iPad you have then which operating system it has when it came out of the box is the best on to stick with i wont be upgraded to OS7 when it comes out next october because it would just work to slow.I really like the fast browsering and the use of apps so i'am going to be sticking with OS6 the upgrade isn't worth the bother in my eyes oh well each to there on what we like.

[noteple]

Originally Posted by pommie82

I have come to the conclusion now what ever handset or iPad you have then which operating system it has when it came out of the box is the best on to stick with i wont be upgraded to OS7 when it comes out next october because it would just work to slow.I really like the fast browsering and the use of apps so i'am going to be sticking with OS6 the upgrade isn't worth the bother in my eyes oh well each to there on what we like.

Every new release comes with features, bugs fixes, and tradeoffs.

If you we're happy with it right out of the box there is no reason to change unless you are tempted by a new feature or it resolves some show stopper bug.

[Sedrick]

Originally Posted by bripab007

If you're happy with 5.1 and you can live without any of these features and all the associated security patches...: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_ver...istory#iOS_6.x

Half these 'security' updates kill Jailbreaking and the rest... I doubt anyone would really notice in the real world, so I wouldn't use it as a selling point.

[bripab007]

Originally Posted by Sedrick

Half these 'security' updates kill Jailbreaking and the rest... I doubt anyone would really notice in the real world, so I wouldn't use it as a selling point.

Depending on what kind of data is on the device and where it'll be used, security updates are absolutely a selling point. Being permitted to connect to or corporate network vs. not being allowed to might be important for some.

[sers]

I'm still debating whether I should install iOS 6 on my iPhone 4. I find 5.1.1 lags a bit sometimes so I'm wondering if iOS 6 would be any better.

[TacticalDesire]

You shouldn't notice a huge difference in performance. My biggest gripe about iOS 6 is the new App Store. It's awful. They made it much more of a chore to find apps.

[Coasterfanryan]

Passbook and Do Not Disturb we're big selling points for me.

[IJBrekke]

Originally Posted by sers

I'm still debating whether I should install iOS 6 on my iPhone 4. I find 5.1.1 lags a bit sometimes so I'm wondering if iOS 6 would be any better.

Please let me know if you decide to upgrade, I am curious as to what happens here.

I've had a very similar experience with 5.1.1, it actually lags a bit more than 5.1 did. I'm considering trying to set up my phone as new with 5.1.1 to see if it runs any better, though I have no idea how to do so.

[gotluck]

Originally Posted by IJBrekke

Please let me know if you decide to upgrade, I am curious as to what happens here.

I've had a very similar experience with 5.1.1, it actually lags a bit more than 5.1 did. I'm considering trying to set up my phone as new with 5.1.1 to see if it runs any better, though I have no idea how to do so.

Won't be able to set up as new (restore)without saved shsh blobs which you likely don't have unless you are a jailbreaker

You could potentially do a reset, found in settings, but I have no experience with that function - I restore instead.

Personally, I'm not upgrading my iPhone 4 until Google maps and a jailbreak is released.

I lose too many features with ios6.

[touchipods]

Originally Posted by IJBrekke

Please let me know if you decide to upgrade, I am curious as to what happens here.

I've had a very similar experience with 5.1.1, it actually lags a bit more than 5.1 did. I'm considering trying to set up my phone as new with 5.1.1 to see if it runs any better, though I have no idea how to do so.

I have a touch 4g (similar to iPhone 4 except it has 256MB RAM) and 5.1 seemed more smooth compared to 5.1.1 firmware. I believe 5.1.1 introduced memory leaks.

Regarding bolded point, I also had this question. See thread I made here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1483045

Just make sure you backup before doing so as it will erase everything. If you do this, please reply back if 5.1.1 became smoother than before.

[NathanA]

Originally Posted by IJBrekke

I'm trying to discern why I would want to "upgrade" at all.

People who are using iPhones that are a couple (or more) generations old always have to ask this question every time an iOS upgrade comes out that still happens to support their device, because most of the new features are turned off for the old phone models. For example, turn-by-turn navigation was supposed to be THE new compelling feature of Apple Maps...but if you have an iPhone 4, you don't get to use turn-by-turn, OR Flyover. From that perspective, Apple Maps is truly a "downgrade" for iPhone 4 users: you get all of the downsides with none of the supposed new benefits.

However, there is always one somewhat compelling reason to upgrade to every new iOS release that you can:

You can run apps that require iOS 6.

App developers have a tendency to require close to whatever the latest version of iOS happens to be at the time of their app's release. And updates to existing apps will quite often ratchet up the minimum iOS version requirement compared to earlier versions of the same app, so if you don't upgrade iOS, you won't be able to upgrade some of your apps.

Marco Arment's The Magazine is a perfect example of this: it is, in essence, just a reader app, and is not CPU, GPU, or memory-hungry by any stretch and will run perfectly fine on a 3GS, but it makes use of APIs that are only available in iOS 6, so if you want to subscribe to and read The Magazine, you have to be on iOS 6.

If you are going to upgrade, though, you should think LONG and HARD about that decision. Because unless you took some very specific steps BEFORE iOS 6 was released by Apple, once you upgrade, you will NOT be allowed to go back. Apple actively blocks iOS software downgrades on iOS devices, which I think is completely awful of them.

(...and which reminds me of another good reason NOT to upgrade: if you don't use an "Apple-approved" carrier, your life on iOS 6 will suck.)

Originally Posted by Idefix

As for being able to restore, you've got it unlocked from ATT, right? (*if you're on ATT?)

If so, jailbreak it, get your blobs set aside from Tiny Umbrella, you should be able to restore to 5.1.

Whoa, whoa, whoa...you are confused about a great many things here.

First, unlocking (at least in the context of official, sanctioned unlocks) and jailbreaking really have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. You can do one without doing the other, and accomplishing one does not make accomplishing the other any easier.

Second, you can only "get the blobs" for your device for whatever the CURRENT version of iOS is at the time you try to get them. When you "get your blobs", you are not ripping them from your device, so the version of iOS that your device is running right this second has nothing to do with anything whatsoever. You are downloading your blobs from a server that lives at Apple.

This means that unless you already "got your blobs" BEFORE iOS 6 came out, you can't get iOS 5.0/5.0.1/5.1/5.1.1 blobs for your device, because Apple's servers aren't handing them out to anyone anymore. That ship has sailed, and you weren't on it. Thus, downgrading is not possible.

And, yes: it is a terrible and draconian system.

-- Nathan

[Abazigal]

Safari does come with a few nifty feature like (true)reading list, full-landscape screen and cloud tabs. It also seems noticeably faster.

Do not disturb and improved call-decline features (didn't actually prove as useful as I thought it would be though). Passbook still has no support for me here in Singapore.

Also, it is a shame that features like facetime-over-3G and panorama aren't applicable on an iphone4, even though they are available as jailbreak options.

All in all, you don't really lose or gain that much whether you opt to upgrade or not (unless maps is that big a dealbreaker for you). A rather lukewarm update, IMO, and a blatant attempt to get iphone4 owners to upgrade to the iphone5.

[takeshi74]

Originally Posted by IJBrekke

So am I missing something here? Why upgrade?

Doesn't sound like it. It's a subjective matter. If it doesn't sound like a good fit then don't upgrade. I've had no problems with IOS6 on my 4. Keeping Google Maps wasn't a priority for me. Do what works for you.