How's your iPhone 3G performing with iOS 4.2?
We tested out iPhone 3G on the original GM release of iOS 4.2 and performance seemed far better than the dismal results on iOS 4 though still not as snappy as iOS 3.1.3. Now that you've had your hands on it for a week we were wondering how it performed for you? If iOS 3.1.3 was great and iOS 4 was all but unusable, where does iOS 4.2 fit along the curve? Is it a breakthrough or still a deal breaker?
Vote up in the poll and leave your comments down below!
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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other: slightly better than ios4.1. when using ipod in background its the same slow speed/response time as ios4.1
I think is the same as iOS 4.1, maybe a little better memory manage but in general performance I think is the same.
Battery is draining very fast-nearly dead by the end of the day. I eliminated all but 3 of my most important email accounts and set them on manually retrieve. Still the battery drains. I cannot wait to get the iPhone 4. This is ridiculous.
Using 4.1, and it was sluggish. Seemed that the wallpaper hack slowed it down. Removed it and now is snappy as 3.1.2 I used before. Too afraid to use 4.2.
Apple is forcing me to get an iphone 4 now. Thanks to iOS 4.x, my iphone 3G is literally unusable!!!
Still as bad as 4.0/4.1 on a non jailbroken device.
Still on 4.1. I was scared to update but I'll give it a try today especially since it's jailbreakabke.
Other: Who still has a iphone 3G? Upgrade people upgrade. At least to the 3gs.
Well my 3G was on iOS 4.0 with activated homescreen wallpapers and multitasking via the jailbreak. It literally killed the phone. But now, with iOS 4.2.1, I am loving it! This time around, I only activated the homescreen wallpapers, and to be honest, I think it's working just as great as 3.1.3, and the phone is just way snappier to response. In iOS 4.0, most the apps would crash, and if they worked, they would be so slow to even use. In iOS 4.2.1 however, everything works, and just as fast as it used to be.
Thank you, Apple. I really was willing to replace my iPhone 3G with some stupid Android phone, but with iOS 4.2.1, my 3G is back to life!
Macboy15,
Some of us have budget constraints. I'd love to have gotten an iPhone 4 the day they came out. Sigh.
My mind has been made up and a switch to a Droid device on Verizon will happen when contract runs out on ATT. I will not upgrade my 3G any further. You should be able to EASILY get 3 years, if not more, from your phone. Mine would likely last 3-4 years, but not if i keep installing crippling updates. Booo, Apple!
Of course, if i had Macboy15's money, i'd have a brand new MBP every year and a brand new iPhone every 1.5 years.
iOS is real pain for me. Now, with 4.2 the speed is acceptable, but I still have problems with short baterry life. I am thinking about downgrade to iOS 3.1.3 again - using RectBoot utility. (My version history was 3.1.2 - 4.0 - 3.1.3 -4.2.0 - 4.2.1)
I'm disappointed and frustrated with this upgrade. Firstly,, I had to do the upgrade on my Toshiba laptop since iTunes 10 won't go on my non-Intel iMac G5! So, I managed to upgrade smoothly and, thanks to Scott at iPTIB ('iPhone Therefore I Blog' at the Chicago Tribune) I sorted out the 'no content' in the iPod problem in seconds. Then I tried to sync my now fully-up-to-date 3G on the iMac and, of course, it won't sync because it requires iTunes 10! Apple is not playing nice with those of us who haven't updated our hardware in the past two or three years. Performance-wise there's absolutely no improvement. The Camera App still takes 6/7 seconds to open while most other Apps take several seconds to respond. I loved my original iPhone and was enjoying this 3G model until the iOS 4 upgrades. I'd never jailbreak, so I'm stuck with an under-performing mobile phone and a sour taste in my mouth regarding Apple. Like Karen, I'd have loved to get the iPHone 4 but it's beyond my budget (currently €199 on an upgrade with O2 Ireland while the Galaxy S is only €50!). I'm very fond of the whole iOS way of doing things and don't want to learn the Android way. Microsoft's new phone system has no appeal whatsoever and Palm and RIM are not my cup of tea. I've checked out the Nokia N8 and it's starting to look very attractive - if I can find it at the right price! Any suggestions for a guy who would love to stay with Apple but feels let down?
Harden up.
In the US anyway, you can buy the iPhone 4 for $200 and sell your 3G on eBay or Craigslist for like $150. You can get closer to $250 or $300 for the 3GS. I have upgraded every year on launch day and actually profited by upgrading. There's pretty much no excuse for an iPhone enthusiast to not have the latest hardware. Unless of course you bought my old phone on Craigslist
Mark me as "other". I upgraded iTunes to 10.1 to install 4.2 and now iTunes won't detect my iPhone 3G. The computer detects it fine. I've messed around with all the services, so I will be doing the completely uninstall iTunes dance then reinstall and hope it works. Otherwise I'll have to stick with 4.0.1.
I'm going to leave my iPhone 3G at 3.1.3 Jailbroken and unlocked for Life, yo! Just too good to mess with that for what I use it for... my 3rd phone, reserve, I use world wide when I travel goodness!
@d00ber Really u are going to go to android because u want updates seriously. Yea because android phones are supported for so much longer then a iphone just look how long the G1 was supported... oh wait. Thats right it got one year of updates. Now look at the first droid i bet you that phone will never see 2.3 but the phone is only one year old. With iphone you get one year of full updates, a second year of major updates but missing some small things, then a third year of compatibility updates. So I would say that iphone is a lot better for people who want to keep their phones for many years and still be up to date.
@BMRDave
I had the same thing happen to me. Here's how to fix it:
In iTunes, go to Edit --> Preferences. Select the Devices tab. Then click "Reset Sync History". Plug in your iPhone and it should work again.
Keep in mind that this does not delete your backups. Hope this helps.
I just have one thing to say about battery life. For most who use their phone an average amount, the battery life is going to steadily get worse as time goes on, not necessarily with each update. It's a two and a half year old rechargeable battery with 2008 technology, its life is only going to decrease from here on out regardless of how Apple updates the software....
Can anyone point me to a list of what did change from 4.1 > 4.2 for the 3G model? In looking around, the front end changes seem pretty minimal.
My iTunes won't let me upgrade. Not sure why.
@JoeMcG Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a shot when I get home.
I'm definitely confused why $200 when you pay $100 a month for service is out of someone's budget. Part of the $100 you pay is subsidy so you are basically paying for nothing. If it is out of your budget maybe you should get a phone with a cheaper plan (this excludes those that unlock and go to tmo obviously).
updated (&jailbroke) from 3.1.3 the day before thxgvn. performance & features are working as well as before. apps & web pages load faster. phone hasn't crashed/frozen yet, as it often did b4. battery life seems to be consistent. oh, wifi connects better/faster, as well. glad to finally update after a year of nada!
I will update to 4.2 today..having dismal performance on a jailbroken 4.1 with 3G. does jailbreaking degrade performance?
@Pani, some say no, some say yes. For me, jailbreaking has always impacted performance as soon as I installed anything, and typically battery life too. I had downgraded from 4.1 back to 3.1.3 on my wife's 3G, and last week went to 4.2, NOT jailbroken. Perfermance seems to be just as good as 3.1.3.
@Billy Bean
100% right on...
Still slow and doesn't look like it will get any better. Thinking of getting Samsung Captivate. Can't afford an iPhone 4, but don't want to be forced by Apple to upgrade because of bad software. They should of left the 3G out of the upgrade cycle and everybody would be happy. Bad marketing Apple!!
I installed 4.2.1 on my 3G and it runs the same as it did on 3.1.3. I was one of those who upgraded to 4.1 when it came out...only to get slow and unusable performance. Had to go back to 3.1.3...
So far things look great!
Specs iPhone 3G iPhone 3GS iPhone 4 Processor 412MHz 600MHz Apple A4 1Ghz RAM 128mb 256mb 512mb How have they forced anyone to upgrade. Technology decides what's possible and not. I had a 3G and took the next logical step to 4. Just cause you buy a droid x and it works great today does not mean it will work great on android 7.8.#]^= 3 years down the road. Is motarola then forcing you to upgrade when their hardware is under powerd. Blame it on the rain.....
Why the hell, after all the massive problems and the general seediness of Apple, would ANYONE buy another IPhone? Makes me pity all the stupid people who just don't learn. There are so many phones out there that are so much better! And not as restrictive either.
Stop telling me I should upgrade. Tell it to AT&T! I'm not eligible to upgrade from 3G to 4 until freaking August!
After almost two long months, unlocked my iphone3g today. And it's all good
4.2 works OK, except that it wrecked playback on headphones. I can still use powered computer speakers, but on headphones (earbuds and Sony noise-cancelling) - sound quality is horrible
I'm also having issues with the battery draining inside a day with next to zero usage. This did not happen under 4.1. It's no biggie, as I'll upgrade to an iPhone 4 as soon as my carrier has stock, but it's worth pointing out.
4.3 anyone?
Smurf
would love to upgrade to get multi-tasking but by what i'm reading it ain't worth it.
@Joe McG - no go. Had to do a complete reinstall of iTunes and all its associated programs, but it's finally all working.
@Joe McG & @Billy Bean - For those of us on T-Mobile (AT&T has little to no service where I live) that $200 for a new iPhone 4 becomes $575 when you add the $375 ETF. So, even if the old iPhone 3G sells for $150, it's still $425 for a new phone that doesn't run 3G on T-Mobile's network. So, I'll be waiting for a hardware update that actually can use T-Mobile's 3G network. (Hope I'm not waiting forever! Ha ha.)
Oh, and I'm still on 4.1 because I'm waiting on the Ultrasn0w update via PwnageTool for Mac users with an old baseband (I'm still on 04.26.08). Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think this has been released yet. When it is, I'll come back and update my reply here.
I'm afraid to upgrade. My iPhone has so many problems with it, I feel as though I want to whip it through a wall sometimes. Battery drains too quickly and it crashes on me a lot with the iOS 4.1.
I wish Apple had a better solution for 3G users, as opposed to getting something else to use. I'm tempted to divert away from Apple because there are almost no options for us.
With OS 4.2 my 3G is almost unusable. It was tolerable with 4.1 but very slow to respond. Now with 4.2 the screen freezes after a few strokes, put it to sleep, wake it up, and type a few more words. Can't move between apps without a screen freeze and sleep/wake cycle. Sometimes the slide to wake doesn't work and sometimes it crashes when answering a call. From all my forum reading it sounds like it's time to learn jailbreak and go back to OS 3.1.
My experience with the upgrade to 4.0 was much the same as everbody-elses - except one additional thing. It took a week for me to realise that my phone never rang. I thought I kept missing calls by not hearing it, until i actually saw it wake and display a missed call msg, while it was sitting on my desk in front of me. I imediately rang the person back and they told me they heard it ring 7 times. So it was so slow on OS4 that it was now an iUseless, not an iPhone. I finally got fed up and reverted it back to 3.1 and it is a phone again. But nobody else seems to have this issue and therfore I cannot find out if OS4.2 has solved the problem. All the focus has been on web browsing and text entry speeds - but does it actually ring? is it a phone?
Right now through replies i will leave my iphone 3g as it is on ios3(never upgraded to 4 because of complaints) and i currently have two options
1)How i will make iphone apps that require ios4 and above to work on ios3. PROBLEM: I dont think its possible
2)I upgrade to ios4.2, see performance my self and downgrade if i dont like. PROBLEM: I dont know how to downgrade and i dont know if i will lose my apps and stuff
People please reply me on what to do
I struggle buying the iPhone 4 because I am having so many performance issues with my 3G. It was speedy till IOS 4 but since then I regard this as unusable. Currently me iPhone resyncs my full mailaccount 2-2 times a week and our IT sais it's not on their side. Launching some apps just takes up to 5 seconds and tryining to type into e.g. SBB travel schedule sometimes take 20-30 seconds till I can type my destination while key inputs take 2-3 seconds to respond. Further when I switch to my phone tab, I get a white screen and I need to press the off button and go back to the phone tab to eventually see someting. Picking up a phone call if it is locked is impossible, moving the slide and hitting the answer button takes too long
It might be a coincidence and my iPhone might be broken just the same time I upgraded to 4.2 after lousy 4.1.
My iPhone has gotten even more worse, it constantly crashes and freezes now and when it is in sleep mode it will make the charging sound constantly, and when it is plugged in the wall it won't charge sometimes. The headphone jack constantly glitches out and will plays out of the speakers or vice versa, there are so many problems, it is partially the hardware and ow old my iPhone 3g is now but still it's gotten even worse since the update.
How nice of Apple. Make my iPhone even slower, please, I love it when you do. Screwed by Apple for, what, the third time when it comes to iOS 4? I believe it's all a big con to get us to upgrade. Dammit, Apple. I can't afford to upgrade;—if I could, I would have by now. Just develop 3.1.4 and leave the iPhone 3G alone.
IOS 4.2 is NOT noticeably faster than 4.1, which is faster than 4.0, but no way near 3.1.3 in daily use. I know that benchmarks has shown that 4.2 performs almost as good as and in some cases better than 3.1.3. But this is not the whole truth. Fact is that 3.1.3 is a much better experience on 3G than 4.x.x has ever been.
Especially text/SMS app is veeeery slow at startup. So is map application, it takes AT LEAST 40 seconds from I launch the app to it is ready to accept input. Just tried again, this time it took more than 2 minutes!!!
I often experience applications that won't start. They attempt startup, i.e. I get the splash/welcome screen then nothing happens for some time and then I am back to home screen.
Sometimes when I slide to unlock, nothing happens, graphics doesn't even respond. Then after 10-15 secs, I get the numeric keyboard for access code, when I enter the four digits nothing happens, until after 5-10 secs then the all or some of the digits are registered.
All in all, this is NOT acceptable!!
I really surprised and upset that Apple gets away with this! I would have preferred that they kept the 3G on the 3.x.x SW stream instead of moving it to a stream that it could not support.
But I see people complaining about the performance of iPhone 3G + IOS 4.x.x and then in the next sentence saying that they can't wait to get an iPhone 4!!! That is probably why Apple makes this kind of dirty tricks and bad customer support: They know that no matter how bad they treat their customers, they'll buy the next product and the history can repeat itself again, and again, and again, ... >:-/
Treat em mean. Keep em keen.
Upgraded my 3G to iOS 4.2 today. Only a slight decrease in performance as compared to iOS 3, and I now have better compatibility with newer apps. I haven't noticed any decrease in battery life beyond that which has occurred since I bought the phone two years ago. I am happy with it.
Just got the update today and thus far it is OK. It launches in to programs quickly and reverts back to the home screen quickly now. I am still have issues once the program is open though. The program (even SMS) will open quickly, but sit on a white screen while the phone struggles to load the rest. I understand 3rd part apps, but the basic iPhone apps should be a lot snappier than they are. I also understand that my 3G is pretty old, but then, everyone's should be. I might have to revert to 3.1 so that things work smoothly.
Upgraded as well and my phone doesn't ring either. I seem to get missed call after missed call and the phone is going directly to voicemail. sitting on the table right in front of me even. I'm concerned about upgrading ...is all this resolved with the iphone 4?
Upgraded & hate it! Screens freezes every minute for about 15 seconds up to 2 minutes before I have to hard reset it. I could be doing anything on the phone & it doesn't matter. Freezes as I'm trying to make or answer calls, it's so annoying. I was okay frustrated with the 4.0, was okay with the 4.1, & again frustrated with the 4.2. How do I know what OS is in my backup on itunes? I want to go back to 4.1
Moved to 4.2 and has slowed my 3g slower then it was before, takes about 90seconds to dial a number and call it. My phones still under contract and would like to upgrade to iphone 4 but if this is the way my phones gone in under 2years whats to say the same wont happen with the iphone 4 after owning it for around the same time. Ive lost trust with apple and the way they have gone about the updates for older iphone. Dont get me wrong i dont expect a 1st generation iphone to run perfectly on updates 4years dont the line but i would expect apple to let customers with older phones know not to download the updates when the phone can no longer handle them anymore, after all they made the phones and the updates so they should know whats what. Will think long and hard if i stay with apple or see whats new and have less problems that can be avoided.
just want to know.. ive done this to my iphone.. but my father can change the image behind the apps.. but i cant. how can i do this? thanks.
Is possible to share internet with iPhone 3g iOS 4.2? How can do it? Thanks. J.