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My iPhone 3G is also extremely slow since upgrading to OS4. Apple really let us down with this one!

Seems like they are forcing 3G owners to buy the iPhone 4. That in itself wouldn't be to bad considering what the iPhone 4 has going for it, but signing a new 2 year contract with AT&T is a huge bust. I had hoped to wait out the upgrade until Verizon got the new iPhone.

How is Apple letting us down by providing us with a better OS? Fatter software will always require more H.P. [sic] to run correctly. It's the same as running the latest version of Photoshop on a G4.
 
Slow

The swipes are sluggish, Apps freeze, games are slow and most normal day to day use has become a dreadful experience. I am sorry to say that I have taken my old Nokia out of retirement and use it quite often (out of desperation), thats how sluggish my phone is.

Apple needs to offer some kind of downgrade for the people that are still waiting to upgrade to 4G or 5G.
We have 2 Iphones 3G, both have problems.

Nearly forgot. Ipod touch (2g) does not seem to suffer as much and is quite usable
 
Download 3.1.3 firmware.

Restore your iPhone 3G in iTunes.

Download RecBoot.

When the error message comes up in iTunes saying the iPhone cannot be restored, open RecBoot and run it. The iPhone will be punted out of Recovery Mode and boot to 3.1.3 and sync as normal.

Job done.
 
JUST DO A HARD RESET!!!!
nothing else.


to FIX the SLOW performance on iPhone 3G with iOS4, just do a Hard Reset: press and hold the lock button and the home button together till the iPhone shutdown. Wait some seconds (15 +-) and then turn it on again.

do it twice.. or even more.
I had to do it 3 times.

It fixes a lot of things on iPhone and my iPhone 3G is running as fast as ever.

=D

wow...this works very well - thanks
 
Download 3.1.3 firmware.

Restore your iPhone 3G in iTunes.

Download RecBoot.

When the error message comes up in iTunes saying the iPhone cannot be restored, open RecBoot and run it. The iPhone will be punted out of Recovery Mode and boot to 3.1.3 and sync as normal.

Job done.

Yes thats the only way to go with the 3G and some 3GS.Very simple task to downgrade.
 
Downgrading to 3.1.3 with UNLOCKED and jailbroken 3g 16gb?

Does anyone think this is advisable? Will the unlock feature be lost? I am currently using my iPhone on Tmobile. Any suggestions? I upgraded to 4.0 and its been running slow as molasses, even when i close out all apps
 
scammed

It seems to me that us 3g users were scammed. Scammed into having to upgrade to remedy our frustrations. Seems like apple is becoming spottier, and spottier with their products. I'm a machead don't get me wrong, but the quality in their products are becoming unsatisfactory.

If you think about it from a business standpoint, they phased out the iPhone, slowly they're phasing out the 3g, which was made a lot cheaper than the original iPhone, just so they could mass produce for the supply and demand factor. Now that we've been scammed into a half ass product, now they give us half ass software to tag alongside the actual hardware which causes nothing, but frustration and either it's a ploy to get you to ditch them, or possibly get you to just upgrade to the iPhone 4.
Which to me seems to be a great move, but what about the backwards compatibility for the devices we already own. I have 4 iPhones that I've accumulated over the years. 2 from contract, 2 from owners who no longer had the ability to use the product, or were just fed up with it.
So when I upgrade I switch about my sim card to process the upgrade.
now the iphone I paid $599 for 3 years ago, that processes things faster than my 3g is going to be pretty much obsolete?

Honestly there should be more of a shelf life left for these things, but apple is steadily, and increasingly updating their products to try to suit the needs of the consumer more so than they are trying to put the heart into it to actual get fixes, and push a decent product.

I mean think about it. The iPhone 4 was obviously tested before they let it out of their labs, and the majority of users are having an antenna issue. Don't you think Apple caught that during their testing phases? Of course they did, but instead of remedying the situation before pushing the product out to the public by changing the make of the actual phone they released a bumper style casing that wraps around the phones antenna to prevent that skin to metal contact. Now I'm not a scientist or the smartest man alive by any means. I am a person with an opinion and in my opinion it took apple 4 tiers of phones to push out their own line of a "case." That to me my friends sounds suspicious, and a little lewd. To think the masses won't catch onto this, but there are some of us out there that put a little thought into things. Of course the spotty AT&T network, and the antenna problem won't be preventing me from purchasing an iPhone 4 eventually, because of my love for all things apple, but I'm just saying... they've been letting us down as of lately.
The bigger the beast the less of a heart.
This is what happened to microsoft. They bigger they got, the less attention they started to pay towards things. It's all about supply and demand. If the consumer demands it, they'll produce and deliver. If they'd take their time to develop these things they'd be a lot better off.
Given I know field testing needs to be involved, but they should have a lot more kinks worked out before pushing these things out to the masses.

Sorry if you don't like my opinion. I'll stand by apple til i'm blue in the face, but I am giving an opinion since I've been seeing a lot of disappointment, and less heart put into it from the start and finish of the first iphone.

Think about it guys.

Peas and apples
bucky
 
I am a person with an opinion and in my opinion it took apple 4 tiers of phones to push out their own line of a "case." That to me my friends sounds suspicious, and a little lewd.
I thought the exact same thing!

There has never been so many negative comments about any of the previous versions of the iPhone, as there has been about the iPhone 4. Yes the iPhone 4 is pretty, but it doesn't work as advertised. It was pushed to market way to soon. Imagine what would have happened had Apple waited until it was done right and then release it when they had a firm contract with Verizon. That move would have crushed AT&T!
 
IT WORKED!!! (Hard Reset)

IT WORKED!!!
Let me preface this with the fact that I am a web developer, was extremely skeptical that it would work, and had already tried a hard reset before, but I dis something VERY DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT.

I REPEAT. I HAD DONE SEVERAL HARD RESETS BEFORE AND NONE HAD WORKED UNTIL I DID THIS:

When doing a hard reset hold both buttons until after it turns off and as the apple appears and it starts to load. When it starts to load after shutting off after the hard reset, WHILE YOU ARE STILL HOLDING DOWN BOTH BUTTONS, it will turn off again (this time for good).

That's it. That's what fixed what was an unusable iPhone 3g and turned it into something halfway between a 3G and a 3GS. =) =)
 
Possible solution?

Hi chaps,

I had exactly the same problem. Loaded iOS4 and things gradually slowed down until they were at a standstill.

I then loaded iSys to see what processes were running. In addition to many of the normal ones you would expect including MobilePhone and MobileMail, I saw that Safari was running all the time (the process was possibly called MobileSafari?).

I then went into the Safari options (Settings -> Safari) and cleared the History, the Cookies and the Cache. This improved things straight away and I am back to normal speed. Furthermore, when I look in iSys I no longer see the Safari process running.

It would be very interesting to see if anyone can repeat this.

Andy
 
I have noticed that erasing all settings and data on iPhone 3GS makes it working noticeably smoother, battery stands longer and (for real) finally the date on calendar's icon changes when it's in a folder. I reccomend you all to erase your settings and data - improvement is really rewarding.
 
How is Apple letting us down by providing us with a better OS? Fatter software will always require more H.P. [sic] to run correctly.
Apple knew exactly how bad OS4 would run on the iPhone 3G, that makes it not a better OS for this phone. So for Apple to allow it on the iPhone 3G is the reason they let us down. Something running this slow should have never been allowed.
 
When doing a hard reset hold both buttons until after it turns off and as the apple appears and it starts to load. When it starts to load after shutting off after the hard reset, WHILE YOU ARE STILL HOLDING DOWN BOTH BUTTONS, it will turn off again (this time for good).

That's it. That's what fixed what was an unusable iPhone 3g and turned it into something halfway between a 3G and a 3GS. =) =)
I tried this and it didn't work, at least not for me.
 
Restore = SOLVED!

My 3G was very sluggish after the upgrade to the new OS 4. After reading online, I followed suggestions and plugged it in to iTunes, clicked on Restore (to factory defaults). After it did the restore, it then restored from backup, and now my phone ROCKS!
 
It's not just that it's slow; apps quit where they never did before (ie. safari browsing MR, viewing or deleting emails), it freezes, and it restarts itself.

Same here—I actually have zero complaints about speed. The UI and typing seem faster, if anything.

But memory seems to be completely logammed: apps quit, or take several tries before launching. Even Mail loads slowly now—which means (I believe) that it exited due to low memory. Worst of all: my iPhone spontaneously reboots itself several times a day.

How is Apple letting us down by providing us with a better OS? Fatter software will always require more H.P. [sic] to run correctly. It's the same as running the latest version of Photoshop on a G4.

I think Apple should have probably not have released iOS 4 for this model (the 3G just can’t handle it—way too little RAM). It’s not like your Photoshop analogy: a Photoshop upgrade isn’t automatic and assumed to be OK, and it doesn’t come from the maker of the computer.

At the very least, in hindsight Apple should displayed a warning in iTunes: “An iOS update is available. However, your device has less than the recommended RAM, and may be unstable. Do you wish to upgrade anyway?”

There’s always hope that some patch will make iOS 4 less RAM hungry... but we all hoped for that in vain with iOS 3 slowed down our 3G’s. (Now that WAS a slowdown. iOS 4 seems no slower than iOS 3, but I remember the first few weeks of my iPhone, with iOS 2, when it was actually fast!)

This doesn’t have me overly upset because (a) when the phone’s not rebooting itself, the folders are really cool :) And (b) my iPhone 4 is coming soon :)

But if I was keeping this 3G, I’d be mad at Apple for pushing out this update with no warnings.

Now, maybe our bad experiences are the exception—in which case, they may go away! But I’m not optimistic right now.

I thought the exact same thing!

There has never been so many negative comments about any of the previous versions of the iPhone, as there has been about the iPhone 4. Yes the iPhone 4 is pretty, but it doesn't work as advertised. It was pushed to market way to soon. Imagine what would have happened had Apple waited until it was done right and then release it when they had a firm contract with Verizon. That move would have crushed AT&T!

To be fair, in truth EVERY Apple product for ten years has been met by howls of pain and rage, and cries that Apple has suddenly lost their high quality. This one’s not especially different from many past instances. What IS changing over the years is that Apple’s huge popularity makes them big news. So the media feeds the fire a lot.

I ordered an iPhone 4 despite these “terrible” problems. Yes, in certain situations (where the signal is already bad) you’ll want to hold the phone a certain way or risk losing the call. But the iPhone 4 gets a better signal—and holds on to a call with a weak signal—better than previous phones. Andandtech tested this pretty well. In other words, the “terrible” new antenna design is, despite the known flaw, STILL better than previous antennas.

As for the proxy sensor, that sounds like software. These things happen. Wait a month before buying a new product (from ANY company) and you’re better off.

And another reason you’ve never heard as many complaints about past iPhones: Apple has never SOLD as many as they have of this model. Double your sales, you double your complaints. Go on any product forum for anything from cars to clothing and you’ll think every product is crap. Forums are were people complain and seek help—they’re not a good way to judge the absolute scale of a problem.

But that’s the iPhone 4. Back on topic, I wish my 3G were able to handle iOS 4! At least make some system process (or Mail, or Safari) quit itself more aggressively when in the background, leaving vital RAM for other apps. It wouldn’t be ideal but it would beat all these reboots.

I’m going to try the “double hard reset” later.
 
My 3G was very sluggish after the upgrade to the new OS 4. After reading online, I followed suggestions and plugged it in to iTunes, clicked on Restore (to factory defaults). After it did the restore, it then restored from backup, and now my phone ROCKS!
When I did the OS4 upgrade, iTunes automatically restored my iPhone 3G from the backup and it is slow as all get out now. So is it the backup restore or the restore to factory default, that works?
 
It was slow before, now it's fine!!!

Those who are having performance issue on Iphone 3G after update to iOS4, please read my story here.

I, too, was having exactly the same issue after updating to iOS4, and I wasn't too surprise to see all these comments everywhere about the performance issue under the same configuration. However, I was still puzzled by those many how claims no such issue exists.

Anyway, just yesterday, I had enough of my iphone 3G /w iOS4, due to its lagginess, and decided to downgrade back to 3.1. Found the article at Lifehacker, and managed to reinstall 3.1.? firmware I already had.

Then I ran into a major problem. I realized I did not have a valid backup of my iphone /w OS 3.1. Well, I had no choice but to reinstall iOS4 and get all data back, copy them by hand if necessary go back to 3.1.

Well, then something surprising occurred. I "restored" iOS4 firmware then "restored" the backed up data, instead of "updating" to iOS4, then I realized it became much faster!

So, those who are having performance issues, try this. Back up your data, "restore" firmware, then "restore" your data.

Some claimed that having "hardware reset" also has the same effect, but I cannot confirm. What I can confirm is that my iphone 3G is running iOS4 and it was nothing like this after initial update to iOS4!
 
Those who are having performance issue on Iphone 3G after update to iOS4, please read my story here.

Well, then something surprising occurred. I "restored" iOS4 firmware then "restored" the backed up data, instead of "updating" to iOS4, then I realized it became much faster!

So, those who are having performance issues, try this. Back up your data, "restore" firmware, then "restore" your data.

Some claimed that having "hardware reset" also has the same effect, but I cannot confirm. What I can confirm is that my iphone 3G is running iOS4 and it was nothing like this after initial update to iOS4!

Sounds like what I did when I upgraded, I downloaded the firmware manually to a folder. Then, shift click Restore and selected the IOS4 firmware then after I selected my 3.1.3 backup (which I did before restoring to IOS4) and it seems to be working fine. Also, I have a lot of pictures etc on my backup and it took the whole night to restore/backup the data......
 
IT WORKED!!!
Let me preface this with the fact that I am a web developer,

Let me prefece this with the fact I am A SOFTWARE DEVELOPER:
A web developer is not a developer at all. :rolleyes:
and a web developer with any good sense would never format thier response like you did.
 
I'm going to upgrade to an Android Nexus One on Monday and avoid upgrading to the iP4 problems.

Cheers.

Email me at jman995x@yahoo.com and let me know what you think about the Nexus One.
I've been eyeing that phone for a little while and am curious what a previous iPhone user thinks.
It's the only phone that could get me to jump ship away from the iPhone.

I'd love to get the new iPhone, but (as at least on previous posted stated), I have a really hard time re-upping with AT&T for another 2 years....not a big fan of them in the New Jersey / Philly corridor....coverage is aweful.

J.
 
I have a 3G with iOS 3.

1. Why would I want to update to iOS4? For the ability to have folders? No thanks.

2. This business of updating, restoring, and resetting reminds me of Windows issues. Reinstall. Close all windows. Restart your computer. Alt+Ctrl+Del.

Ron
 
I did a reset last night on the 3g, and it didn't help at all.

There's got to be an easy way to roll this thing back to OS3 (on a windows PC). Anyone?
 
(most) slowness fixed!!!

My main reason for upgrading a 3G (8Gb) to iOS4 was the combined mail box feature. Its much more efficient to see all mail on the same screen, instead of opening each different mail box account separately. But I also experienced the sluggishness as everyone else.

Various reset attempts and delete Safari cache, etc., seemed to have no effect. However, this worked:

1. Connect your sync cable and sync your data in iTunes.
2. Verify the back-up was successful by opening iTunes / iTunes menu / Preferences / Devices tab, and you should see a list of Device backups with today's date and time. If its there, continue with next step.
3. Hold down both the home button and the on/off button.....continuously for a very long time.

If I remember correctly, this is what happened:
1. iPhone displays the off slider.
2. Shuts down by itself.
3. Restarts by itself.
4. Some type of restore message appeared with a graphic of a synch cable and an arrow, which probably means you should plug in the synch cable. Mine already was.
5. iTunes automatically displayed a message that this iPhone needs to be restored. Now release both buttons and click yes in iTunes.
6. iTunes says "restoring software". Took about 10 minutes.
7. iTunes says something about your data can now be restored and choose either option: "Restore as new" or "Restore from a back-up". Choose "restore from a back-up". Took 4 minutes.
8. iPhone restarts by itself.
9. iPhone syncs by itself. Took about 45 minutes.

Results:
Mail: Appears to be there. Initially, only subject lines appeared, but eventually the text preview appeared.
Voicemail: Still there.
Keyboard speed: seems to pop-up instantly.
Photos: Still there.
Emailing photos: all the animation for preparing to send is much faster.
Music: Still there.
Notes: Still there.
Text messages: Still there.
Safari bookmarks: Still there.
Safari rotate screen from portrait to landscape: Instantly.
Apps: Still there, except my development apps which I can rebuild.
App data: Still there.
Calendar: Well, this now takes "only" 10 seconds to load instead of 12. Since everything else seems faster, maybe there are other reasons for the delay in Calendar. Not sure why yet...
Contacts: Still there.

Hope this helps anyone still looking for a solution.
(Disclaimer: not responsible for any data loss. Make sure you sync first before trying the above. That creates a backup of your data that you'll use to restore from.)
 
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