Jobs: Software Update to Address iOS 4 Performance Issues on iPhone 3G 'Coming Soon'

[celticpride678]

i dont know what your talking about. my ipod touch 2g sucks. im thinking about downgrading to 3.1.3 and using backgrounder for multitasking. the ability to multitask isnt worth this slowness.

That's probably because the 2nd generation iPod touch doesn't support multitasking and you enabled it anyways.

Most of the people complaining about performance issues are probably jailbroken and don't realize that their devices aren't made for some of the features of iOS 4.

That being said, battery life on iOS 4 is absolutely terrible.

 

[kntgsp]

Sure. That must be why iPhone 4 is selling at record numbers.

Ever realize iPhone is on 2 year upgrade cycle?

For the US maybe. Most people in Europe can buy them unlocked and a good portion of those in Germany just buy them across the border in Switzerland, France, etc. or online from eBay UK.

So we can sell and purchase our phones legally whenever we damn please.

That said, I downgraded my 3G back to 3.1.3

iOS4 is a joke on the iPhone3G.

 

[miah]

I don't know what people are complaining about. I have a 2G iPod Touch and it runs iOS4 just fine. 2G iPod isn't any faster than the 3G iPhone.

My 2G iPod Touch is MUCH slower with iOS 4. I hope the slated update addresses the Touch too.

 

[Porco]

This is great news if it actually works. Updates for older phones should just be security updates if the hardware can't handle new features.

My 2G iPod Touch is MUCH slower with iOS 4. I hope the slated update addresses the Touch too.

Yeah, mine too. Turning off Spotlight helped a tiny bit, but it's still noticeably slower than pre iOS4. Again, if I just had the security updates I wouldn't care about the limited new features.

 

[valkraider]

I don't agree with how slow the 3G got at the minimal gain of features. Trying to run the iPod while browsing Safari simply isn't possible without the music skipping - or when I missed a call due to the slide to answer UI not appearing for the duration of the ringing. That I cannot forgive no matter the company.

Lets see how the update fixes things before we judge. iOS 4 has been in the wild 2 months tomorrow. Only two months. During that time I have seen several beta versions of 4.1 come across the pipe.

An update is coming. But there is a reason why MANY MANY people always unquestionably avoid .zero releases. .zero releases tend to have bugs. I don't avoid them because I like to find the bugs, I document them, and I report them. Usually bugs I report end up being duplicate bugs since other people find them too. However, for the first time ever - with iOS 4.0 I was able to report a bug that mine was the first report. As a geek, I was pretty darn excited. And that bug is listed as fixed in 4.1 betas.

Now - if the performance issue is not at least addressed enough to make the older phones usable after the update? Then there is a legitimate complaint.

But as it stands, Apple released iOS 4, it had some bugs and they are working on iOS 4.1.

I swear some times people think that Apple engineers just sit around on piles of money drinking champagne and cackling madly while watching YouTube videos of people with software problems.

Apple engineers are working hard at fixing problems just like any other team. They have bosses and deadlines and performance reviews. Their kids have summer camps and swim meets just like regular people. Their cars get flats on the way to work and their trains and busses get full with people jabbering on cell phones about their parole officer - just like other commuters. They have copier jams, and annoying coworkers, and people bringing smelly thai food in for lunch...

I hope everyone who complains has always met every single deadline, deliverable, contract, specification, or job duty - with 100% success and perfection on the first try every time.

I can't even get every waiter/waitress/cooks to get dinner orders right. Sometimes life is a complex thing. Patience is a virtue. Understanding also goes a long way. Of course we want Apple to fix things, and make things right. But it has been a lousy 2 months - lets see what happens!

 

[acslater017]

Terse? Didn't sound overly terse to me. Straight and to the point perhaps, but far from terse.

It is however too bad that Apple didn't take enough time "field testing" the iPhone 3 units running IOS4. Surely they knew people would take the plunge and update their previous gen phones.

In my book, if it's a sentence fragment, it's terse. Not that it's unusual for Steve Jobs to be terse.

In any case, this is good news. I thought I lost my iPhone 3G, so I remotely wiped it clean. When I found it, I re-synced everything and it ran a lot faster! Then, the next day, my iPhone 4 came in the mail

 

[Digital Dude]

Sure. That must be why iPhone 4 is selling at record numbers.

Ever realize iPhone is on 2 year upgrade cycle?

Once again, I agree with prop-heads like you. The Apple ecosystem and the iPhone-4 is very good, despite the cascading issues. Folks like’ us who hang-out on forums like this are 'typically' more in tune with technology than your average wal-mart shopper. So yes, many people are buying the iPhone-4 with happy faces. I almost purchased one too! If Steve Jobs can get his staff from making blunder after blunder I may well end up with one at some point.

As for the two-year lifecycle vs. software match, I also agree. Many folks simply feel the iOS4 should not have been ported for download on the iPhone-3G. Usually, Apple has been pretty good in this regard, but not this time.

 

[paul4339]

best fix: upgrade your phone, the 3G is pretty outdated.

that's what i did. I was holding out for a white phone initially, considered getting an Android, then settled with upgrading to an ip4.


P.

 

[Starflyer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B5097d Safari/6531.22.7)

how many MAJOR software updates to android phones get?

Froyo just came out. I'd call that a major update.

How many Android phones support it?

 

[Starflyer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B5097d Safari/6531.22.7)

I've switched to Verizon / Android and my wife has gone back to using her old iPhone 1G.

We have two unused iPhone 3G phones now... oh well, on the plus side I've not had buyer's remorse over my Droid X yet...

May still go for the iPad for myself in the future.

I'll take your 3G's. Pm me.

 

[Graeme43]

I run 4.1b3 on my iPhone 3G and have no speed issues at all! I have ran 4 on my phone since april and all the OS4 betas were fine but the 4 final was so slow it was frustrating! sliding the unlock took like 5+ seconds, now on 4.1B3 its instant. In the settings app you could press something and it took like 10 seconds and loading sms was slow as crap as well.

Now with 4.1b3 my phone is usable again! It used to be like the videos on youtube but it sure is better now. I actually was going to buy a new phone but now I dont have to as its fast again

 

[LegendKillerUK]

Lets see how the update fixes things before we judge. iOS 4 has been in the wild 2 months tomorrow. Only two months. During that time I have seen several beta versions of 4.1 come across the pipe.

An update is coming. But there is a reason why MANY MANY people always unquestionably avoid .zero releases. .zero releases tend to have bugs. I don't avoid them because I like to find the bugs, I document them, and I report them. Usually bugs I report end up being duplicate bugs since other people find them too. However, for the first time ever - with iOS 4.0 I was able to report a bug that mine was the first report. As a geek, I was pretty darn excited. And that bug is listed as fixed in 4.1 betas.

Now - if the performance issue is not at least addressed enough to make the older phones usable after the update? Then there is a legitimate complaint.

But as it stands, Apple released iOS 4, it had some bugs and they are working on iOS 4.1.

I swear some times people think that Apple engineers just sit around on piles of money drinking champagne and cackling madly while watching YouTube videos of people with software problems.

Apple engineers are working hard at fixing problems just like any other team. They have bosses and deadlines and performance reviews. Their kids have summer camps and swim meets just like regular people. Their cars get flats on the way to work and their trains and busses get full with people jabbering on cell phones about their parole officer - just like other commuters. They have copier jams, and annoying coworkers, and people bringing smelly thai food in for lunch...

I hope everyone who complains has always met every single deadline, deliverable, contract, specification, or job duty - with 100% success and perfection on the first try every time.

I can't even get every waiter/waitress/cooks to get dinner orders right. Sometimes life is a complex thing. Patience is a virtue. Understanding also goes a long way. Of course we want Apple to fix things, and make things right. But it has been a lousy 2 months - lets see what happens!

I have no issue waiting, I have tried all 4.1 betas to date and none have gotten any kind of speed improvement that makes the phone usable again.

btw, I disable spotlights indexing, never restore from backup and restore from DFU. So I'm always on a blank canvas when I try.

 

[Graeme43]

My phone is totally usable I can provide a video if anyone wants me to. I have a 16GB 3G and its snappy again after using 4.1 b3. I updated and never restored from 4.0

 

[Merthyrboy]

Doesn't the iPhone 3G have the same processor and RAM that the original iPhone have? Could have run iOS 4 on that as well but it would still have problems with speed I guess

 

[Graeme43]

Doesn't the iPhone 3G have the same processor and RAM that the original iPhone have? Could have run iOS 4 on that as well but it would still have problems with speed I guess

Yes but when 4.0 came out the owners were happy they had 3.x cuz of the speed drop on 4.x but now OS4 is smooth since I applied 4.1b3 on my phone. I did have a friend say 4.0.2 helped his.

I can upload a video of my 3G but i have nowhere to stick it

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B5097d Safari/6531.22.7)



How many Android phones support it?

I'm unsure of that (are we talking official updates or homebuilt roms?) but Android phones that run Froyo generally perform better than their previous version.

 

[rkw0211]

For those of you flaming Apple, you have to look a this from Apple's perspective. It's a bit of a Catch-22 for Apple. They either release software that doesn't run very well on the phone and people get pissed or they don't release the software for the phone and people get equally pissed. At least you have the choice to run it if you want to.

 

[DotCom2]

If Apple is gonna pull this CRA* then they should not allow it on older phones or at least allow an *EASY* way to drop back to a previous version if a user so wants to!

 

[kevinmmccormick]

The upcoming update won't matter much. This is just how Apple operates.

This reminds me a little of how Apple treated the original iBook's graphics card when OS X (or maybe it was Jaguar?) came out. OS X ran awfully on it! Videos were completely unplayable because the graphics weren't accelerated.

Several months later they released an update that enabled accelerated graphics for the iBook, but at that point 99% of the users had already 100% given up on Mac OS X or had bought new Macs.

 

[Luis Ortega]

A friend of mine was so fed up, she went ahead and purchased the iphone 4.
Good work Apple! ---not

This is exactly why apple users will be forever getting screwed.
If I had a crap iphone that didn't work, my next phone would be an android, not another iphone.

 

[Digital Dude]

that's what i did. I was holding out for a white phone initially, considered getting an Android, then settled with upgrading to an ip4.

P.

I was with you on that! But then I saw a demo of next month's Nokia N8. Since I travel internationally and the phone will be sold as 'unlocked' I just have to wait to see some user reviews.

 

[3583582]

This is exactly why apple users will be forever getting screwed.
If I had a crap iphone that didn't work, my next phone would be an android, not another iphone.

Then you'd be out of luck everywhere though. There is not a single company that never screwed up on of their products slightly.

 

[paul4339]

Name one piece of software - ever - that was issued 100% bug free and never had an update or a patch?
.

I see where you are coming from, but i partially disagree.

I think the antennae design issue was more of bug... it affects a small minority and small percentage of time.

The iOS on the 3G broke a simple concept that made Apple successful: "it just works" ... it was the biggest complaint from iPhone users ... not the antenna.

The reason why people pay a premium for Apple products, is because you can trust things _generally_ works well. Sure there are exceptions but they have a good track record in releasing quality products.

in my opinion, iOS4 on the 3G generally doesn't "just work". There was no warning about performance, and no Apple approved way to go back (downgrade to Os 3.x).

Maybe because they were distracted with the iP4 antenna issue, but I'm mixed on how the communications were really handled. Apple told the Wall St Journal (last month) that it's working on the problem; and we see that Jobs emailed a user "Software update coming soon.".... I don't consider that "official" or great communication - esp since they released two minor updates already.

I don't want to be overly critical, but my 3G with iOS4 was just too frustrating to use. (no prob, though, I just upgraded!)



P.

 

[badcrumble]

Does iOS 4.1 fix the issue with the proximity sensor on iPhone 4?

 

[DotCom2]

The upcoming update won't matter much. This is just how Apple operates.

This reminds me a little of how Apple treated the original iBook's graphics card when OS X (or maybe it was Jaguar?) came out. OS X ran awfully on it! Videos were completely unplayable because the graphics weren't accelerated.

Several months later they released an update that enabled accelerated graphics for the iBook, but at that point 99% of the users had already 100% given up on Mac OS X or had bought new Macs.

Oh that's nice!