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Should I put iOS4 on iPhone 3G?

C

Collected

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 8, 2010
137
3
My iPhone 3G has been happily running iOS 3.1.3 for ages now and everytime I sync iTunes tries to get me to upgrade to iOS 4.

I've always put it off because I fear it will make my phone slower. Quite often with software upgrades if it's old hardware it can make the user experience slower rather than quicker.

Should I just go ahead and upgrade or am I best just sticking on iOS 3?
 
I think you'll incur a performance penalty and depending on your usage, you may see the affects more.

What I mean by this is, that I put iOS 4 on my wife's old 3G and initially didn't really notice a huge performance slow down, but then as I started using it. I felt it being very sluggish, particularly opening up various apps. So if you don't use too many apps, just text, email and web. You may not feel like its too slow.

Most of the slowness that I see on my wife's old 3g is for stuff starting up, that is playing a game takes forever for the game to load but after that performance is adequate.

If I had to do it over again, I'd stick with the older version of the OS and not upgrade.
 
Try whited00r?

Do you want features like Game Center and Folders? Are you a jailbreaker? I've recently flashed my iPhone 2G with a whited00r build. I now have Folders, multitasking and other customization options- may be worth a shot to breathe new life into your phone. If you hate it where its still a 3.1.3 .ipsw you can simply reinstall a stock 3.1.3. I would recommend this before you attempt to use 4.0 on your 3G. Just my 2 cents.
 
Yes that is exactly what I feared might happen. I may continue to skip the upgrade option in that case. It's not like I'm missing out on any huge features and I'm more than happy with what my iPhone does currently. Thanks for the experience report.
 
Don't upgrade! It honestly slows down your device to the point of you wanting a new phone. (Which I think was Apple's plan) My sister regretted updating her phone and now she complains about it all the time. I notice it too when I'm using it. It will just randomly freeze up and then reboot itself. It's horrible.

Save your time and enjoy the operating system that you are currently running. If you want more features, try jailbreaking.
 
Don't get confused by the naysayers...

4.0 bricked the 3G, 4.1 made it useable again albeit still very sluggish but 4.2 was the first (and last) iOS 4.x that did - finally - optimize the 3G experience.

Do a restore and upgrade and you won't regret it. Much snappier feel.
 
alright I have two iphones tucked away for a rainy day.

1. Jailbroken Unlocked 3g 3.1 version
the
2. Straight out of the box 3g 4.2 version

would you unlock the 4.2???
would you upgrade 3.1 to version 4.2 and unlock them???
 
really, is there any other reason then 3.x just being quicker, and not having folders and a few other tid-bits???

did 4.x really screw it up for regular 3g iphones??? (by screwing up, I mean just making that much slower, making that much bigger of a pain in the butt.)
 
Yeah anything 4.XX made iphone 3G much slower and buggier than 3.0. The only benefit i noticed was that you can control which apps have access to location services. Somehow the battery gets drained in 3.0 if you have location services on, even if you're not using any gps related apps. In 4.0, the battery doesn't get drained when location services is on but not actively using any gps apps.

If you upgrade to 4.xx, quite a few apps will never work anymore because they will just crash every time you open them.
 
I have an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.2.1 and i'm gonna emphasize on this.. do NOT upgrade if you know what's best for you. Trust me, i would've have either if i knew how laggy my phone would end up being.
Regardless i'm waiting for the iPhone 5 and then i'm giving this away.
 
i would.

im running a iOS 4 on a 3G. Jailbroken but with no multitasking (that made it way to slow)

i like the folders and the wallpaper. i have sbsettings for rotation lock though.
 
my wife still complains about how slow her 3G is after I upgraded to 4.2.1...not worth the upgrade IMO!
 
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