Apple 'looking into' poor iOS 4 performance on iPhone 3G
Update: Yes, the 4.1 update seems to resolve most of the performance issues for 3G owners.According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is "looking into" reports of iOS 4's poor performance on the iPhone 3G. Many iPhone 3G users have noted generally slow performance and glitches after installing iOS 4 that have rendered their devices nearly unusable. An Apple spokesperson told the Journal that Apple is aware of the reports and investigating solutions. That Apple is responding to the issue at all is certainly encouraging, but their response has been anything but timely -- it's come only after a month of irate posts on Apple's support forums, parody videos on YouTube, and widespread reporting on the issue (including here at TUAW).
Some blogs, including us, have noted that iOS 4.1 beta provides better performance on the iPhone 3G. I initially experienced better performance under the beta, but only for a couple days after doing a DFU restore to the beta. Around 48 hours after installing the beta, all the old bugs crept back in: slow keyboard performance, glacial application launch times, app crashes, and random system-wide freezes when using Safari. None of the suggested fixes (some of which border on voodoo) have managed to get iOS 4 working properly on my iPhone 3G. I've tried everything short of wiping the phone clean and setting it up as a new phone, mostly because I don't want to lose my application data, which includes 20+ hours of game progress in Final Fantasy and over a year of food and exercise data in Lose It. (Ed: Ouch!) (Update: a couple people have pointed out that Lose It! can restore data to an iPhone independently of iTunes, an awesome feature I had completely forgotten about. Sadly, that's a feature not present in any of the 45 games I have on my iPhone.)
For now, our advice for those lucky few who haven't yet upgraded an iPhone 3G to iOS 4 remains the same: don't do it. For the rest of you iPhone 3G owners, if you're an unlucky member of the "iOS 4 turned my iPhone 3G into an iPhone POS" group, things are looking up for you at last thanks to Apple's official response.
[Via Macrumors]
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Update: Yes, the 4.1 update seems to resolve most of the performance issues for 3G owners. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is...
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Turned off Spotlight indexing - we'll see if ti works. Seems a little faster.
July 29 2010 at 12:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOkay..Here I have an issue, I hold an Itunes Account of India, and I was using iPhone 3G in India since last year... However now I live in Germany and bought a new iphone 4, since last few days I was curious searching for the iPhone 4 Free Case app ...and to my disappointment I never found the app. Same with the iMovie. However, if I change to my iTunes Account info to Germany, everything is displayed then in Deutsch and I could see both the app, but could not download the apps without a proper credit card info of Germany. Do anyone know what should I do, to install both the apps? I presume iphone 4 case app, doesn't show up in India itunes Account because iphone 4 is yet to be released in India. But this is drving me crfazy, that I have the phone and I could not access those apps.
July 29 2010 at 11:55 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIf you haven't seen this clever Apple commercial parody about the 3G and iOS, it's worth a watch. Love it!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdk2cJpSXLg&feature=player_embedded
1. Delete cache in Safari settings.
2. Turn off spotlight indexing
3. Turn off keyboard sounds
Sorted. Works much better. Still a tad slow for my liking.
umm...
rather than whining about your saved game data, why not restore the phone, setup new phone, restore all apps, put it "back to where it is" without the saved data--- RENAME the device, and TEST it to see if the bugs persist, and THEN you can always restore to your old backup!!!
this article is like a journalist not willing to change shirts for an interview or something---
Sorry, but what's the point of your suggested procedure to me as a user?
"Oh look, it works just fine if I wipe all my data off the phone. But I actually need that data. But if I have the data on the phone, the phone is a POS. Ummmmmmmmm…"
no... but, if a clean restore fixes the issue, it is worth noting!
not everyone's livelihood depends on their saved game data :) but your point is valid.
let's hope apple fixes the problem soon. but, then again, this is rather stupid. iphone 3g and the original iphone have the same processor and memory speed. if they can get it running well on the iphone 3g, they should let original iphones install it.
... same deal here with 're-fresh' (NOT!)
in Mail App ;((
If your experiencing a slow phone, and you have jailbroken it, delete the awd_ice2 (might be ice_awd2, not got a 3g on me atm), plist from your LaunchDaemons, restart the phone, and speed is increased
the daemon is designed to keep your phone from doing too much at a time, unfortunatlly its broken, so it thinks awd_ice2 is doing to much and kills it, which makes it restart, and then it gets stuck in a loop
I hope Apple is seriously "looking into" fixing this. If nothing else, providing an easy way to roll back to an earlier OS would be better than what we have now. I have a new Macbook that doesn't have earlier ISPW files stored on it, so I'm basically screwed unless Apple comes through with a fix. For the guy suggesting we just buy new iPhones, we're not complaining about not being able to use all the new features, our phones went from fast machines to frustratingly slow, buggy machines overnight. My iPhone 3G is in mint condition and has a lot of life left in it. I shouldn't have to replace it when a simple software downgrade would correct the problem.
July 28 2010 at 11:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI don't see why everyone is complaining, my iPhone 3G runs as smooth as it always has. I don't know how fast the iPhone 3Gs is so I don't know what I'm missing out on.
It's perfectly acceptable to me. Pfft...
I guess you don't have anything else than music on your iPhone ;)
July 29 2010 at 3:56 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis is not just limited to iOS 4 and the 3G .. I have a 2G iPhone and it has been getting slower and slower over time on iOS 3.0 .. (It is much slower at doing the same tasks than my friend's iPhone 2G) .. I just turned off everything for spotlight and it seems faster
July 28 2010 at 7:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe 1st generation iPhone was the slowest of any iDevice to begin with, even when it was still supported by Apple... :-/
July 28 2010 at 9:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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