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Slowed down iPhone 4

Anyone have any idea what is causing this? This kind of makes me nervous, as I am planning on getting an iPhone 4 when it comes to Verizon. Could it be due to a bad app or not enough memory left on the device? Possibly because of being jailbroken? Thoughts?
 
Do you guys close down Apps in the multitasking bar (especially big apps like games)?

Zac7 said:
Anyone have any idea what is causing this? This kind of makes me nervous, as I am planning on getting an iPhone 4 when it comes to Verizon. Could it be due to a bad app or not enough memory left on the device? Possibly because of being jailbroken? Thoughts?
Click to expand...

It can't be the RAM, it has 512MB!
I don't expect it to go any higher than that in the next update.
 
wordoflife said:
Do you guys close down Apps in the multitasking bar (especially big apps like games)?



It can't be the RAM, it has 512MB!
I don't expect it to go any higher than that in the next update.
Click to expand...

I usually dont have a problem with it being slower. I have the option up from SBsettings where it shows the available RAM for this reason alone. I also have the remove backround feature where it closes all open apps. After a reboot the most RAM i ever see is the low 300's. like 310-320 max. Is there a way to get more out of it?
 
wordoflife said:
Do you guys close down Apps in the multitasking bar (especially big apps like games)?
Click to expand...

That's not a multitasking bar. It's a 'recently used' bar.

And games don't multi-task. They freeze their state. That has nothing to do with it.

I have also noticed this slowdown but I know it has nothing to do with apps. It's the same right after a re-start when nothing has been run yet, so 'being out of RAM' isn't the culprit. Is it just the latest OS being sluggish? If so, a restore won't fix it. Is it somehow building up a problem in the system over time? Then maybe a restore will fix it.

I haven't experimented, so I don't know. All I know is that the OP isn't crazy.

(The biggest 'proof' I have is that the camera app now takes about 4-5 seconds to open. I can swear it used to take 1-2 seconds when my phone was new. There are other things, but that's the easiest to measure.)
 
Small White Car said:
(The biggest 'proof' I have is that the camera app now takes about 4-5 seconds to open. I can swear it used to take 1-2 seconds when my phone was new. There are other things, but that's the easiest to measure.)
Click to expand...

I noticed this happening too, so I cleared out the multi-task bar. I know that it SHOULDN'T affect speed, but now the camera launches almost instantly. Obviously the 70+ app I had in there weren't running at once, but something was slowing down the phone.
 
ericg301 said:
I noticed this happening too, so I cleared out the multi-task bar. I know that it SHOULDN'T affect speed, but now the camera launches almost instantly. Obviously the 70+ app I had in there weren't running at once, but something was slowing down the phone.
Click to expand...

I just remembered my mother-in-law got a new i4 last week. It should have the newest software on it. I'll play with it this weekend and compare it to my phone to see if any of this stuff comes from time or if any of it comes from the new OS.
 
wordoflife said:
It can't be the RAM, it has 512MB!
I don't expect it to go any higher than that in the next update.
Click to expand...

It better have more RAM. SBsettings shows me occasionally having gone down to 15 or so MB's of free RAM. That's just with Safari and my theme going. Don't get me wrong I'm completely pleased with the phone but when comparing it to the Motorola Thunderbolt... 1GB of RAM? I'd hope Apple would at least up the iPhone to 768MB's.
 
Goldinboy17 said:
It better have more RAM. SBsettings shows me occasionally having gone down to 15 or so MB's of free RAM. That's just with Safari and my theme going. Don't get me wrong I'm completely pleased with the phone but when comparing it to the Motorola Thunderbolt... 1GB of RAM? I'd hope Apple would at least up the iPhone to 768MB's.
Click to expand...
Wow, haha!.
I go down to 70MB's of RAM on my 3GS.

Small White Car said:
That's not a multitasking bar. It's a 'recently used' bar.)
Click to expand...

I know, but I'm just calling it out as I see it.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/multitasking.html

And closing apps in the bar make my phone faster. Once you keep filling it, the speed takes a dip.

Just checked how fast the camera takes to open on my 3GS. 3 seconds if its not in the multitasking bar, and 2 seconds if it is.
 
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I've noticed the same thing lately, and was contemplating starting a subject about it....

a friend of mine just got her first iPhone, I was using it and was a lot faster than mine. Starting up the camera, switching between camera and video mode, switching between front and rear camera, its all just so.....slow

could it be all the stuff I have on it? Such as music, all my emails on gmail (over 8,000), movies, etc? That must have something to do with it, I've actually restored it recently with no luck.
 
ericg301 said:
I noticed this happening too, so I cleared out the multi-task bar. I know that it SHOULDN'T affect speed, but now the camera launches almost instantly. Obviously the 70+ app I had in there weren't running at once, but something was slowing down the phone.
Click to expand...

wordoflife said:
And closing apps in the bar make my phone faster. Once you keep filling it, the speed takes a dip.

Just checked how fast the camera takes to open on my 3GS. 3 seconds if its not in the multitasking bar, and 2 seconds if it is.
Click to expand...

ok... so I know the multitasking bar shouldn't really affect things... but I just tried it. The camera app took several seconds (maybe 4) to open previously. After I cleared out all 100 apps (yes that's the max, I counted just yesterday) and now the camera app takes more like 2 seconds to open. definitely seems to be an observable difference. I suggest others try this... Try to use a timer while multitasking bar is full and empty (addionally u should try if the camera app is in the multitasking bar or not)

additionally I'm not convinced that my iphone 4 is back up to the speed it should be at, but it did seem to have an effect.

Steve Jobs, I guess you failed ("if you need to have a task manager u have failed" -stevie)
 
Mad Mac Maniac said:
ok... so I know the multitasking bar shouldn't really affect things... but I just tried it. The camera app took several seconds (maybe 4) to open previously. After I cleared out all 100 apps (yes that's the max, I counted just yesterday) and now the camera app takes more like 2 seconds to open. definitely seems to be an observable difference. I suggest others try this... Try to use a timer while multitasking bar is full and empty (addionally u should try if the camera app is in the multitasking bar or not)

additionally I'm not convinced that my iphone 4 is back up to the speed it should be at, but it did seem to have an effect.

Steve Jobs, I guess you failed ("if you need to have a task manager u have failed" -stevie)
Click to expand...

yep, I've noticed the same thing and I reckon it's a cumulative effect of memory leaks from Apps, and I've found that closing them all down from the multitasking UI and restarting the phone does bring some performance back. In XCode if you connect an iPhone you get an option to look at 'Device Logs' which note 'crashes' and 'low memory' situations and lists which Apps are involved.
 
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Small White Car said:
That's not a multitasking bar. It's a 'recently used' bar.

And games don't multi-task. They freeze their state. That has nothing to do with it.
Click to expand...

Actually, it is called the 'Multitasking UI' and regarding multitasking in general...

"in iOS 4 and later, the quitting app transitions to the background, where it may or may not continue running. This feature, called multitasking, allows apps to remain in the background until they are launched again or until they are terminated. Most apps enter a suspended state when they transition to the background. Suspended apps are displayed in the multitasking UI, which provides an effective way to find recently used apps. When people restart a suspended app, it can instantly resume running from the point where it quit, without having to reload its user interface. "

From iOS human interface guidelines
 
My 3GS had a gradual slowdown overtime as well. Mostly due to less storage space and too much media and too many apps on my phone. It was never that noticable or anything that took away from the experience of using the phone

palmerc2 said:
I've noticed the same thing lately, and was contemplating starting a subject about it....

a friend of mine just got her first iPhone, I was using it and was a lot faster than mine. Starting up the camera, switching between camera and video mode, switching between front and rear camera, its all just so.....slow

could it be all the stuff I have on it? Such as music, all my emails on gmail (over 8,000), movies, etc? That must have something to do with it, I've actually restored it recently with no luck.
Click to expand...

My camera app has always had a litte bit of a lag from the day I got the phone till now. Hard to say if there is more of a lag now. I always remember it taking the longest to open. All I know is that iTunes app, and App Store open just as fast as I remember them opening when I got the phone. All other apps seem to open just as they used to.
 
I've also noticed slow downs on my iPhone 4 and find myself rebooting it every so often. Just the other day, I played with one of those Windows 7 phones and damn were they SMOOOOOOOOTH compared to my laggy iPhone 4.
 
Mad Mac Maniac said:
ok... so I know the multitasking bar shouldn't really affect things... but I just tried it. The camera app took several seconds (maybe 4) to open previously. After I cleared out all 100 apps (yes that's the max, I counted just yesterday) and now the camera app takes more like 2 seconds to open. definitely seems to be an observable difference
Click to expand...

Ok, yeah, but I opened my camera and it was slow. Then I waited a minute and opened it and it was fast.

So really it's just 'cause it's the most recently used thing and it still has stuff in RAM, I guess?

In other words you can get that same result without closing all the apps.


prestomusic said:
Actually, it is called the 'Multitasking UI' and regarding multitasking in general...

"in iOS 4 and later, the quitting app transitions to the background, where it may or may not continue running."
Click to expand...

That says it all: "it may or may not continue running."

I know what Apple calls it, but for the purposes of this conversation people want to know if those apps are causing problems by running in the background. When I essentially said "they're not all running" that's really all I meant.

It's nice that Apple calls it a Multitasking UI, but their own language backs up my point.

My point = Not everything in that bar is running.
Apple's site = Not everything in the Multitasking UI is running.

So it's funny that they use those words, but it's still the exact same thing I said.
 
It's fine if you and others feel more comfortable referring to it as the 'recently used apps bar'. Regardless of your definition of multitasking, and without getting into semantics, Apple calls it the multitasking UI. So considering we are talking about the iPhone, I just didn't see the point of 'correcting' the poster over the use of what is actually correct terminology. It is the 'multitasking bar'.

The 7th, and last, of the services that Apple considers 'multitasking' is 'fast app switching' and this is achieved by saving the state (save state) of the app and holing it in RAM cache, so that when a user reopens a suspended app, it loads from where it left off without having to reload the whole app from the start. Many Apps use this functionality.

So even if an App is frozen and not performing background tasks such as audio or location services, it is still multitasking in the context of iOS, and it is using resources, and it may well be the cause of the problem that people are experiencing.
 
I've noticed this as well, when I use AppSwitch (App Store app) to check my RAM usage I notice the phone is slow when I had it on for a few days and the RAM is down to 10-15MB free a restart fixes it for me though which is strange since it doesn't for the OP. But I would not say it feels as slow as the iPhone 3G on the 3.0 software.
 
Even though games and applications are in "Freeze mode" they can take up a serious amount of RAM. Real Racing 2 on average takes up about 100MB of RAM, Messages App even takes up 15MB, X-Plane takes up about 75MB and NFS Shift takes up about 55MB.

So if you have those 4 apps running in the background, 300MB becomes like 55MB free. I've done a lot of experimenting with this, and I have found clearing out the "multitasking bar" before I go to sleep speeds my phone up to original performance. So yes, if you have a lot of applications open in "freeze mode" it will end up taking a hit on the performance of your iPhone.
 
prestomusic said:
I just didn't see the point of 'correcting' the poster over the use of what is actually correct terminology. It is the 'multitasking bar'.
Click to expand...

The point is that the OP is not looking for terminology or dictionay definitions. He's looking for actual solutions to a problem.

When troubleshooting, you need to know what the things you are doing are actually doing behind the scenes.

So it's very useful to know, for example, that not everything in the multitasking tray is multitasking. I consider that to be very important information for the OP. If you don't know things like that you can end up chasing your tail in circles as you try things and yet don't understand the things you're trying.

I see no reason to not explain that. He's asking for information so we should give him as much as we can. You ask that I keep secrets from him? Let him figure it out on his own? I don't see the reasoning behind that. He asked for info, I try to provide it.
 
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