Why do iPhones start slowing down after two years?

[LittleGwen]

It's because the OS and apps, etc bog it down. The actual processor is still performing how it did when it was first used. The fact that you restored it and it got better proves that.

Why does the rate of it slowing down get faster and faster? For example, if it took a year for my iPhone to start slowing down, after I reset it, it becomes fast again and then it'll start slowing down after 6 months... and then 4 months.. yada yada..

 

[yeah]

Try doing this to give your iPhone some extra power:
Hold the power button and the home at the same time until the slide to unlock animation appears. Keep holding until the phone shuts down and hold until the logo comes up. This should clear out the cache and memory.

 

[pear21]

This is part of it. All the app downloading and deleting, music, videos, etc all leave little files that accumulate over time. As someone else suggested, do a restore and clean install (set up as a new iPhone, don't restore from a backup). That'll wipe everything and bring it back to how it's supposed to run.

I thought flash storage didn't leave excess data when stuff was deleted. I know for traditional spinning hard drives they get ever so smaller every time you delete something.

 

[wilhub]

I have an over 2 year old 4 and my problem is the Home button is wearing out. Sometimes it takes 4-5 presses to get it to do anything. Will definitely be upgrading when the new iPhone is released.

My home button was driving me crazy too. Sometimes I couldn't get out of apps. I thought about getting a 4s.

I just had my home button replaced for $50 by a local business that does iPhone repair.

My iPhone 4 feels like a new iPhone even though I got it June 2010.

 

[onthecouchagain]

Yet many people will actually believe that....

I know in this instance, Batting was joking, but he does have the tendency to say something outrageous, then backpedal when others call him out on his hypocrisy and inconsistency. He lives in an amazing world.

 

[tennisproha]

I'm not sure all the advice about wiping then doing a clean install to fix your phone is all accurate. That's just a myth at this point. There is no evidence to show that restoring from back-up brings back deleted app data, junk, trash, etc.. If you were running a PC OS like windows/OS X, yeah sure. But the same isn't true for every OS.