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My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1

By | August 30, 2010, 2:30pm PDT

Summary: We put iOS 4.1 on an iPhone 3G and found it to be a great performer. Why didn’t iOS 4 work so good to begin with?

We reported last week that iOS 4.1 was rumored to fix the iPhone 3G’s issues with iOS 4.0. Well, after some testing this weekend, I can confirm that the iPhone 3G is now usable with iOS 4.

Since iOS 4.1 is not yet shipping, we had to install it on a developer phone. That said, the developer phone should function exactly the same way as the final OS, with the final working even better since this is still beta 3 of iOS 4.1.

As for what works now, we specifically tested sending and receiving e-mails in the background, while performing some other tasks, like browsing the web. We also used multiple browser windows, searched and installed from the App Store, and set up a new Exchange account (with Google Sync instead). Basically, we tried to configure the iPhone 3G exactly the same way that we use the iPhone 4. I’m happy to report that after using it for an extended amount of time, I can say with confidence that Apple has fixed iOS 4.1 to run great on the iPhone 3G.

I was actually surprised by how well the iPhone 3G performed with iOS 4.1. In some tests I found it to be more reactive than the iPhone 3G was when running 3.1.3. Most people were led to believe that the Spotlight Search indexing was probably the biggest culprit. With that in mind, I navigated to the Spotlight Search settings and to my surprise, it was fully enabled. By the way, if you’re running iOS 4.0 on your iPhone 3G, there was some misunderstanding as to how to get at the Spotlight Search settings. You click on Settings > General > and then the Home Button. From there you can customize what parts are being indexed.

In summary, it looks like Apple finally fixed the issues that iOS 4 was having while running on the iPhone 3G. Now the bigger, unanswered question is how did the iPhone iOS 4 / iPhone 3G version ever get shipped? It was definitely a marketing move to push this one out, given that they wanted to say it was compatible. Apparently, the people in charge didn’t think that people would actually want to use it.

If you have not yet brought your iPhone 3G into the Apple Store to have it swapped for one running 3.1.3, you might as well hold off. I’m hopeful that iOS 4.1 will ship this week, moments after Apple’s announcement on Wednesday. We won’t know for sure until Wednesday, though. In the interim, feel relieved that Apple appears to have fixed
iOS 4.1 to run beautifully on the iPhone 3G.

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Topics

Apple iPhone, Apple iPhone 3G, 3G, Smart Phones, Cellular Phones, Wireless And Mobility, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Joel Evans

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 20 Talkback(s)

  • Apple screwups
    All electronic and software companies screw up. It is impossible to make complicated software perfect. Just look at the example Vista.

    What separates companies is the fixing of their problems. In this regard, Apple comes out on top. Mature Apple software is the most trouble free of any I have used.

    It just works. And they take the shortest time getting there.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    zdnetbtg
    30th Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @zdnetbtg
    I agree with your observation that Apple Corporation tends to correct software/firmware issues quickly.

    I couldn't help but notice that our ZDNet bloggers tend to express amazement over current Apple correction efforts. Its as if they can't believe these open issues can be solved in such short time periods .. as if they were accustomed to computers issues remaining "issues" for extended periods of time.

    There is another point to be made regarding the subject matter Joel Evans wrote about in his blog. At least it touches upon my following comment.

    It has been opinionated by some ZDNet readers that the current first generation iPad would not be able to function in a adequate multitasking manner due to its current 256 Mb Ram design. Most readers that commented pointed to the iPhone 4 having 512 Mb of RAM to support their opinions.

    However, Mr. Evans believes that his iPhone 3G should do multitasking "just fine" when Apple releases the 4.1 update.

    I therefore suspect that when Apple updates the iPad iOS for multitasking support, the first generation model will multitask "just fine" as well.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kenosha77a
    30th Aug 2010
  • Sheesh. Lighten up. iOS 4 on the 3G wasn't THAT bad.
    nt
    ZDNet Gravatar
    frgough
    30th Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @frgough
    It was bad, it would lockup when you get a call sometimes and that is very bad for any phone, one area that you need to have no issues with.

    4.1 has made it accept calls with zero issues and is much better in performance, but it is showing it's age and never be like it was with 2.0, but dose well, mutitasking is ok on 3G as long you don't have too many apps left running, so Apple did the correct thing in disabling that on iPhone 3G as most users would just keep on letting them mount up.

    September 1st download 4.1 and FaceTime with iPod Touch via e-mail
    ZDNet Gravatar
    XArt
    30th Aug 2010
  • Oh, YES IT IS!
    @frgough The performance hit from 3.x to 4.0x is HUGE. Since my upgrade my iPhone has been essentially unusable. I reboot it 3-4 times a day, sit and wait while it performs the most basic of tasks, and curse at it far more often than I did in May. The only saving grace is threaded conversations in mail.app. That only makes my phone almost usable.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    matthew_maurice
    30th Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @frgough Perhaps the issues were exaggerated but not by much. I temporarily went back to the stock iOS - killing my jailbreak - and it ran slow.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Pete "athynz" Athens
    31st Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @zdnetbtg -- except for when Apple denies there even is a problem.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    PB_z
    30th Aug 2010
  • Message has been deleted.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    fghkjk
    31st Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @zdnetbtg What are you talking about, Microsoft fixed Windows Vista....it's called Windows 7 but you have to pay for it...Microsoft doesn't care if you were stupid enough to actually buy Vista on a PC marked Vista Capable but it wasn't.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    cyberslammer
    30th Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @cyberslammer Vista wasn't "computer capable".

    Fool me once (Windows Me), shame on me.
    Foole me twice (Windows Me, then Vista), shame on Microsoft.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bbneo
    31st Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    @cyberslammer

    That is the best short comment on Microsoft that I have seen in a long time. This attitude seems to infect most everything they do. .... "Its about the money.. stupid" - sound of chair crashing. happy
    Just a thought,
    en
    ZDNet Gravatar
    eldernorm
    13th Sep 2010
  • My request in an update is...
    the ability to search on photo name. There have been many times I needed a certain type photo. It would be wonderful if I could do a search by photo name pull up the photo seeing if it fits the concept discussed rather than hunt for it in the albums or events. While carrying a few thousands photo on the iPhone that search feature is important.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    BubbaJones_
    30th Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    hi guys,
    os4 wasnt terrible on my 3g, it just made the user experience much less pleasant. ie email took approx 10 secs to attach a picture and allow you to enter sender name - plus some apps could take similar time to load etc. so generally just too slow

    so really hoping 4.1 can sort that a bit as dont really want to have to shell out for 4g just so it runs at a decent speed sad
    maybe they will throw in background pics too wink
    cheers
    dan
    ZDNet Gravatar
    danx55
    30th Aug 2010
  • RE: My iPhone 3G is alive again, thanks to iOS 4.1
    My 3g is awful with 4. Huge pauses and apps exiting randomly. I'm lucky I haven't smashed it yet. I am thinking it depends on use if some think it's ok. Having the slider pause when unlocking to answer a call is pretty frustrating (As the call goes to voicemail!)

    No way they tested 3g to any depth, and the fix IMO is not very fast.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ricklabanca
    30th Aug 2010
  • I love this topic
    my question is where I can download IOS 4.1 even Beta?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    indarsin
    31st Aug 2010
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