My Experience With iOS4 On An iPhone 3G

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20100702-3g.jpg

Here’s my iPhone 3G. It’s a bit scratched and a bit cracked, but it still works just fine. At least, it did until I upgraded to iOS4.

The update turned my reliable friend into a pain in the backside. Simple things, like swiping between springboards or calling up the virtual keyboard, suddenly took an age.

In short: iOS4 on a 3G was painful.

I’m not the first to notice this, of course. You can find discussion threads about it all over the net, and a post by m’colleague Adam Rosen from earlier this week.

Quite a few kind Cult readers responded to that post with their own suggestions and comments, and I’ve been trying some of those in the last couple of days.

Namely:

  • removed folders (not a big deal, I didn’t find them terribly useful anyway)
  • done the double-reset trick (this didn’t appear to have any effect)
  • backed up and done a full Restore from iTunes

That final trick was a Restore of my most recent iOS4 backup, and I must say it seems to have made a significant difference. The slowness has all but vanished, and the device now feels more like it used to before the iOS4 update. I’d recommend that if you’re in the same position, and you have all the appropriate backups, you give it a try.

I can’t guarantee this will work for everyone, but thought I’d share my experience in case it helps anyone else. I’m still keen to see an update – I’m hopeful that 4.0.1 (or whatever it ends up being) will address some of these performance problems on older devices.

I fully intend to get an iPhone 4 for personal use soon, but the 3G still has plenty of life in it yet, and is likely to be passed on to someone else in the family. I’d like it to be in as responsive a condition as possible when that happens.

How have you got on with iOS4 on your 3G? Any more tips? As always, we welcome comments that might be helpful to the wider community.

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