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iOS 4.2.1 - Started Out Quick - Now Getting Choppy and Slow

R

robotfist

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 7, 2007
141
277
As far as the on-screen animations, I have noticed that iOS 4.2.1 on my iPhone 4 is now running a bit slow and choppy. When I installed iOS 4.2.1, I reinstalled the phone to its base factory settings, so it was a clean install. I also restart my phone almost every day. The phone started out fine, but after a week and a half of use, I've come to the conclusion that iOS 4.2 just isn't as fluid as 4.1, which sucks. It's the only problem I have with the OS, as everything else is just peachy. Unfortunately, I HATE choppy animations on what is supposed to be one of the fastest smart phones on the market. iOS 4.2 is making my brand new iPhone 4 seem antiquated.

This post in the Apple forums seems to have people with similar experiences. Although I disagree with the arguments that it is unstable (mine has been extremely stable) I do agree that the OS is now very choppy when opening icons, pinching and zooming, and swiping.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2663348&start=0&tstart=0

To me, iOS 4 needs another update. Ughh.
 
No problems here, either on my iPhone or on my iPad.

Future updates are already in the works, one may come around or shortly after the holidays.
 
Last edited:
Albeit, the problems on mine are slight, the iPhone definitely seems choppier. Perhaps I need to just reinstall everything again?

If I reinstall and the iPhone is still behaving in the same way, I will shoot a video highlighting what I'm talking about and upload it.

Also, if you google "4.2.1 Slower" it seems there a lot of people experiencing this, mostly with the iPad though.
 
iPhone 4 here. Installed as new phone setup, not a restore. Been running 4.2.1 since its release. Its just as smooth and solid as day 1 for me.
 
4.0.2 was perfect for me, then 4.1 made some animations choppy and my home button is spurattic (sic?) and is the same with 4.2.1. What a shame. I really dont like this phone very much but I'm stuck with it.
 
John Lennon has a little message for you OP:

Yeah we're playing those mind games forever,

Projecting our images in space and in time,

Yes is the answer and you know that for sure,

Yes is the surrender you got to let it, you got to let it go,
 
I have noticed the same problem. I just shut mine off for a couple of minutes and turned it back on and it seems fine now. Also, maybe try double clicking the home button and turn off all of the "on" apps.
 
iP4 here with a straight update from 4.2GM/4.2.1 GM/4.2.1 Official and i haven't had this problem and i even recently stressed my phone a lot but it coped well.

That said it seems Apple altered some animations in 4.2 as others have observed and may need a wee bit more tweaking. Working 99% smooth for me though.
 
Mine has been funny acting ever since the update. I have wipped it out and reinstalled everything and its still funny acting. I love some of the features, but I think there are more negatives than positives. I am ready for the next update for sure.
 
I updated mine as a clean install and have not experienced any choppiness. Maybe retry the install and make sure to not restore from backup.

I would also try re-downloading the IPSW, so delete it from iTunes before restoring.
 
I don't think it's any different from the previous build. I just think that once you start "noticing" a difference, then you just make it look worse than it really is.
 
I feel like its a bit sloppy now as well.. I did a fresh install of 4.2.1 when it came out and it just seems animations are a little off every now and then
 
ios 4.2.1

Since updating my iPhone 4 is slow and laggy, ive tried restore reboot everything i can possiblie do but still the same. This is the only problem ive ever had with ios
 
Two hard resets and still no real luck. I am not complaining in the least bit. It really doesnt matter at the end of the day. I have better things to worry about. iPhone 4 still functions perfect :cool:
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I have the same problem on my iphone4. The issue has to do with memory use. If I close apps that are running in the background memory is freed up and my phone runs fine for a little while.

I have an app that shows memory use so I can see how much is used. The phone is not freeing up memory the way it is supposed to.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I have the same problem on my iphone4. The issue has to do with memory use. If I close apps that are running in the background memory is freed up and my phone runs fine for a little while.

I have an app that shows memory use so I can see how much is used. The phone is not freeing up memory the way it is supposed to.
 
Sluggish and hot and poor battery

I have an iPhone 4 bought around launch time. For month it has worked flawlessly.

About a month ago the trouble began.

I got a lot less battery life, the phone was hot even when off and mail acted weird. For example, I have 8 accounts on the phone. 1 of them is exchange, 2 Mobile me, 2 Gmail, 2 Yahoo and an AOL. My previous phones never had a problem with this, nor did this phone at first.

First mail symptom. It would jump out of the 'All Inboxes' and into the master account every few seconds. Annoying, but manageable.

Outlook email woudl show the preview but fail to download message from server. Solution was to stop mail from multitasking, and restart it. It would work for a bit.

I decided to cut my losses and I did a full restore and rebuilt my phone app by app. I did not use the back up. All was good for a week to 10 days. Then same issues. Plus now the speed and battery life.

Every app has MASSIVE delay. Like worse than my 3G on iOS4 kind of sluggishness. Typing an email is impossible. Home button is nearly unresponsive. Battery life is hours. I unplug a full charge and never even turn on the screen and it is down to 88% in 2 hours.

I did a reset all settings. Nothing worked. I did another full restore from scratch. Nothing.

I do not think it is hardware as much as some sort of conflict. I do not ever run the location aware apps in the background, but I have downloaded a few new apps lately.

My questions are has anyone else experienced similar issues? Is it possible for a bad app to cause corruption to the system? I thought Apple checked these things. I have never jail broken this phone. I am up to date on all apps and iOS.

I will do another refresh and take it to the Appel store, but I suspect they will tell me it is a conflict of some sort. I did casually ask a few weeks ago and the Genius stated some games are known to do this.

I do not want to jhave to go app by app and keep testing configurations like the old OS9 Conflict Catcher days, but I need my phone to work again.

Other useful info:

It is connected to myc ar via bluetooth, this is also super slow and laggy. I have tried airplane mode, turning off push, rebotting, resetting all, resetting network, turning off notifications, disabling email accounts, etc.

The best performance I got was yesterday. With no Bluetooth, no Exchange email, no Push, manual check of mail, and no notifications, the battery lasted 4 hours and the phone was super sluggish still.

Using Sys Info I have no out of place errant processes I can see:

User memory 60 MB
System 69
Nice 77
Inactive 223
That is typical.

CPU load, inactive about 52% when freshly rebooted. As for process, most seem 'normal' iphone iOS related. Things like Kernal_task, launchd, syslog, lockdownd, mediaserverd, locationd, fairplay.N90, SpringBoard, BTServer, notifyd, apsd, lsd, MobilePhone,iapd, securityd, MobileMail, ReportCrash.

I am not sure if there are any other fixes I can do via iTunes or on the phone itself.

Any thoughst anyone?
 
At this point i think we just have to wait for the next update. As i had said my problem it seems is with memory not being freed up. If i stop the "running" apps my speed is fine.

I did do a reboot twice in a row and that seemed to keep it running smoother for longer then just stopping the running apps.
 
nippyjun said:
At this point i think we just have to wait for the next update. As i had said my problem it seems is with memory not being freed up. If i stop the "running" apps my speed is fine.

I did do a reboot twice in a row and that seemed to keep it running smoother for longer then just stopping the running apps.
Click to expand...

Or hopefully app updates.. it appears to be some apps causing this. I almost want to say facebook causes this. Does everyone on here use the facebook app?
 
iphone3gs16gb said:
John Lennon has a little message for you OP:

Yeah we're playing those mind games forever,

Projecting our images in space and in time,

Yes is the answer and you know that for sure,

Yes is the surrender you got to let it, you got to let it go,
Click to expand...
Wow. You're really deep.
 
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