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The Mobile Gadgeteer

Matthew Miller & Joel Evans

Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4

By | July 26, 2010, 7:09am PDT

Summary: It’s time for Apple to offer a downgrade option to users of iPhone 3G devices who upgraded to the latest OS.

Since iOS4 became available, I’ve been hearing reports of people experiencing terrible performance on their iPhone 3G shortly after upgrading to the latest OS. Problems range from hanging apps and slow swiping to freezing iPhones.

As of this writing, Apple has not officially acknowledged that there’s an issue other than advising users to do a restore and then manually sync everything back. Basically, starting as if your iPhone is brand new. Apple is also stating that

“Not all features are compatible with all devices. For example, multitasking is available only with iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.”

This weekend I heard multiple reports of people bringing their iPhone 3G running iOS4 to the Apple Store and in some cases, having Apple exchange it for an iPhone running 3.1.3. According to reports, you still have to be within the one year warranty of the original purchase date of the iPhone 3G in order to be considered for the exchange.

I should mention that the above is not an officially sanctioned offering from Apple, so there’s no guarantee that you can exchange your iPhone 3G.

If you’re wondering how your iPhone 3G might work after you upgrade it to iOS4, check out the video below (thanks to appadvice)

To be fair, I think it’s OK that Apple has offered up the option to upgrade your iPhone 3G to the latest OS. The only issue I have is that Apple isn’t coming clean with all of the issues that you might experience. If the company mentioned other issues, not just that multitasking doesn’t work, then it would be ok.

Of course, now that there have been widespread complaints from folks who have been dealing with poor performing iPhone 3G devices after upgrading, Apple should offer the ability to restore to an earlier OS again.

Did you upgrade your iPhone 3G? How has your experience been?

UPDATE: Roger sent word that since installing iOS4 on his iPod Touch 3rd Generation, the battery loses power at an alarming rate even when switched off. There’s a discussion thread dedicated to the topic, which as of this writing is 42 pages deep.

UPDATE2: rory sent word that if you turn off “spotlight search” in settings, the iPhone 3G comes back to life. Comment below if that fixed the issue for you.

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Topics

With more than a decade of mobile, Internet and wireless experience, Joel specializes in taking existing brands and technologies into the mobile and wireless space.

Disclosure

Joel Evans

Joel is a serial entrepreneur with his most recent business, CronkSoftware (cronksoftware.com), focusing on consulting and building games and applications for mobile devices. Joel has consulted for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile division and advises other companies on how to incorporate mobile into their existing brands and products. Joel purchases many of his devices and others are sent for review on a 30-day loaner basis and then returned to the supplier. If any devices are provided as “keeper” Joel will clearly disclose this in his reviews.

Biography

Joel Evans

With more than a decade of mobile, Internet and wireless experience, Joel specializes in taking existing brands, technologies and services into the mobile and wireless space. Joel is currently serving as the Managing Director of Cronk Software, Inc., a company he founded to offer full-service, end-to-end mobile strategy, design and development services.

Joel is the former founder and "Chief Geek" of Geek.com, a website praised by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and others as one of world's best sources of information for technology professionals and enthusiasts.

Joel also serves as a technology expert for a number of well-known publications and regularly advises corporations, analysts, journalists and bloggers on what the future of technology will bring. He brings decades of relationships with leading game publishers, online communities and publishers, along with both hardware and software product management and delivery expertise. Joel can be found online as "JoelGeek" and you can follow him on Twitter @JoelGeek.

Talkback Most Recent of 114 Talkback(s)

  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    I did upgrade my 3G, and performance is most definitely slower. On just about everything. It seemed also slightly unstable at times, although that seems to have improved since I installed 4.0.1. Still slow though! Painfully in many cases!
    I would miss the app folders, but I would go back to iOSv3 if someone could show me how.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    rossdav@...
    26th Jul 2010
  • Downgrade to XP!
    @rossdav@...
    Um... I mean downgrade to iOS3!!! happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    NonZealot
    26th Jul 2010
  • You're nothing if not consistent.
    @NonZealot

    All this bad Apple news is making you giddy.

    ~~~~~

    If have a 3G and upgraded to iOS 4, and then 4.0.1. Both upgrades were very difficult and time consuming. In both cases, I had to load the new iOS code as a restore and then re-sync all my stuff back onto the phone. I found that approach on another website, not even on Apple's support site. Like many others, my OS and app performance was terrible.

    After reading this article, I turned off Spotlight Search (see UPDATE2 above) and my performance is back to normal after a full reboot of the phone (albeit without the Spotlight Search functionality). All in all, it's a good trade-off, that will allow me to buy some time to see if iPhone is coming to Verizon before I upgrade.

    Bad on Apple for their handling of this one. They didn't set correct expectations or offer a smooth upgrade experience. I will say, in terms of support and direction for legacy product upgrade paths, Apple could learn something from MS.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    RationalGuy
    27th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @rossdav@...

    It is fairly easy. I have done it. Just google it and I am sure there are some youtube videos about it too.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    third.musketeer
    26th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @rossdav@...
    I've had the exact same experience. iOS 4 was TERRIBLE. iOS 4.0.1 was an improvement but it is still slow.

    I'm ready to turn it in for a new phone. I like how I can get upgrade prices on an iphone4 but not on an HTC Aria.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bgautrea
    26th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @bgautrea

    "I'm ready to turn it in for a new phone. I like how I can get upgrade prices on an iphone4 but not on an HTC Aria"

    thats because you have an iPhone currently and are looking at another iPhone. It is called a promotion for current iPhone owners to allow them to upgrade sooner. You cannot get that price if you do not already have an iPhone.

    Its really not that all hard to comprehend
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    26th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @bobiroc

    uh duhhh wink

    i realize it's a promotion. From apple's standpoint at least. However, I would like a way out of the terrible OS, and on to a phone that doesn't have antenna problems.

    From a consumer's standpoint that's not hard to comprehend either.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bgautrea
    6th Aug 2010
  • Turn off Spotlight Search like UPDATE2 says ...
    @rossdav@...

    If you like the iOS4 features, and can live without Spotlight Search, it's a good trade-off of functionality. It worked well for me.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    RationalGuy
    27th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @RationalGuy

    I turned Spotlight Search back on, and still have great performance. Issue fixed!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    RationalGuy
    27th Jul 2010
  • ZDNet Gravatar
    papyrus100
    28th Jul 2010
  • Would Apple correct the bogus bars on iOS3?
    @rossdav@...

    If they don't take care of such things with iOS3, it would send a very mixed message.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Lester Young
    28th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    Since upgrading to iOS4 my iPhone 3G performance has been awful. Everything is slow, be it an email, searching for contacts or even sending a text message (exactly as the video presents). I tried a soft reset, a hard reset (two times) and leave the phone with the default apps, but neither solved the problem. So it looks like I'll have to wait for iOS 4.1 to see if the problems are solved. Or maybe change to an Android or WP7.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dvm
    26th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @dvm
    Maybe you should use iOS 2 that originally came on the phone, or iOS 3 that you upgraded to for FREE last year, rather than the FREE upgrade to iOS 4, which seems to be beyond the capabilities of the 2+ year old phone. Most other phone don't give the option to upgrade an old phone to the latest, greatest phone OS. iPhone owners have the option. With 2+ year old iPhone 3G, you can choose between latest and greatest features but slow, or last years features, but faster. Most other phones have years-old firmware that never gets updated at all.

    Wait, get this. You could even but a buy a brand-new iPhone4, if you want the greatest latest brand-new cell phone.

    That is if you really have an iPhone. You're not a shill or a troll just trying to bait controversy, are you?

    All of these options would be better than getting a wanna-be iPhone. Android will try to be like the iPhone. Windows have yet to have a decent phone after trying for over 10 years. Good luck with that.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    TrollDetector
    27th Jul 2010
  • I'm not an MS Shill
    @TrollDetector and I've had these same issues with MY iPhone... does that mean I'M trying to bait controversy? Honestly if AT&T had a halfway decent Android device I might be tempted to get one... Does that mean I'm trying to bait controversy? No and no... all I'm doing and presumably all dvm was doing is giving an opinion. Not spreading FUD, not putting down Apple, Google, Microsoft, or whoever... so go elsewhere to detect trolls.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Pete "athynz" Athens
    27th Jul 2010
  • RE: Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4
    @athynz
    I would understand if dvm said he was upset at Apple because they didn't warn him that upgrading his 2-3 year old phone to the newest, greatest feature set, may result in super slow performance. That would make sense.

    I would understand if dvm said he wanted to revert to iOS 3.x.

    I would understand if he said that he wanted to get the new iPhone because his 2-3 year old phone was getting long in the tooth for his taste.

    All of these options make sense. But to skip over all of these options doesn't make sense.

    I would not expect 4.1 to help so much. Apple has performed some optimization miracles in the past, but the earlier phones just don't have a processor that can handle the tasks we are coming to expect of our phones today.

    Then to say that maybe android or windows would solve a problem of having a 2-3 year old phone does not follow logically. These other phones are at best trying to copy the iPhone. If the writer is concerned about processor speed, he would want to consider a new iPhone that has the A4 chip, which is optimized for smartphone/mobile device use. Not only does it use the battery efficiently and prolong battery life, but also gets more juice out of the ARM processors than the standard ARM chips in other mobiles. So logically one would expect the writer to consider the faster iPhone before the other slower smartphones. I'm not saying that he shouldn't consider the iPhone wanna-bes. Competition is good. His logic was just faulty.

    If he wants a faster phone, why not also consider the fastest -- iPhone -- that uses the battery sparingly, and still has more features than the imitating platforms. It didn't make sense for him to skip the better, faster phone among the list of alternative new phones to consider. If had added iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 (with speedy A4 chip) to his list of potential new phones then what he wrote would've made more sense.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    TrollDetector
    27th Jul 2010

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