iOS 4 bugs

Noticing any bugs or problems with your iPhone or iPod touch post-iOS 4 install? Got any iOS 4 issues? Well, we've got 11-pages of them being reported and trouble-shooted over on the TiPb iPhone Forum iOS 4 bugs thread -- everything from Google sync woes to pixelated pictures to missing apps to bloated "other" partitions to... well, go check it out for yourself.

We'll also repeat our standard advice:

  • Delete and re-sync any data or content (like pictures, movies) that seem buggy.
  • Remove and re-add any services (like email accounts) that are causing issues
  • Uninstall and re-install any apps that are giving you problems

And if all else fails, there's the nuclear option:

  • Restore your iPhone clean (i.e. not from backup).

It's a huge pain in the @$$, especially if you have tons of settings to re-tweak and content to re-sync (and if a lot of your data doesn't live in the cloud, but when a whole new version of the OS comes out, it can sometimes be your last, best hope for a fix.

Before you consider anything drastic though, get over to the TiPb iPhone Forum official iOS 4 bugs thread and see if the experts there can't help get you sorted first.

Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

64 Comments
  • How about the sms character count, i turn it on, but it doesn't count the characters when typing an sms, anyone having the same problem?
  • Character count comes on after a certain number of characters, can't remember how many
  • 50
  • Character count comes on after you get to the 2nd line.
  • All the Free Memory apps of old (not available now) no longer work. But my performance is better overall.
  • cover flow is missing.
  • @redshirt: I decided to do a resync with iTunes and it appears to have solved the missing songs and the coverflow issues I experienced.
    Thanks
    :-)
    Can't reinforce advice given above. Don't be hasty when syncing, let it back up your phone first.
    Cheers guys
    Jez
    :-)
    :-)
  • Could these issues be related to an upgrade? I did a full restore and then set up the iPhone with a backup and I have no issues so far.
    The only issues I found out are interface and related to folders and the "opened" apps list.
  • Timdubz:
    I had that problem.
    Try re syncing but it may take a while be patient lol
    :-)
  • A few apps have completely refused to open such as the itv world cup app.
    Hopefully will get resolved soon
    Jez
  • Heading to the forum to fill in my ridiculous 5+ hour experience from yesterday... still not fixed.
  • For the first time, I actually restored and then installed the update and I swear the phone runs great. It's a little slow but it's running better than it was before.
  • I also see the failure on the foot ball app and the same thing on Capital Radio app.
  • The Itv world cup doesn't work on iOS 4: I installed it when running the GM and it's never worked
  • I had the top right of my screen flicker for a couple of seconds (around where the battery bar is), and my iPhone 3G restarted it on it's own once today too. One minute it was showing Google Maps, the next, an apple logo on a black background! That and iBooks also failed to launch properly, just giving me an empty bookshelf, and that required a restart to fix. I hope 4.0.1 is already in the works.
  • I have found that the skype app is not working
  • My battery life is horrible I'm at 28% left after 2 hours of use :(. After charging all night long
  • I heart radio app not running in the background. I think it has to wait for a 4.0 update from the developer. Pandora seems to work as planned.
  • Poor battery life, incredibly sluggish response from all apps and Spingboarf, and two hard resets required in the first day.
    Not a good update for my 3G.
  • Weak wifi. Poor battery.
  • My calendar data all lose after upgrade!!!
  • I don't see why 3g users would even update. U need a 3gs to mAke it worth the time
  • cant search emails. wtf? spotlight just asks web or wiki.
  • i finally got it to work....had to move mail to the top.
  • apps that are not working on IOS4 so far nfs shift,call of duty,snapfish,pro zombie soccer,itv
  • notes are very slow when u have a big page
    it was faster on 3.1.3
    i have 3gs
  • My MMS option is GONE can only email photos now. Anyone else having this problem????
  • Google mail/calendar services that worked (and still work) flawlessly on 3.1.3 are hosed so badly under iOS4 I am tempted to assume Apple broke them on purpose, rather than through incompetence.
  • I can't multitask with my itouch.
  • The best advice I could give is that a lot of these problems can be solved by NOT restoring from a backup. With 2.0 to 3.0 it wasn't a HUGE upgrade, just added features, but a lot of iOS4 is a completely different file structure than 3.x - so do not restore from a backup, save your camera roll, save your contacts, etc.. and just resync everything new in iTunes, not from a backup. This will probably solve 99% of the issues we see going on.
  • My signal is much weaker now than in OS3 and my 3Gs will no longer communicate with my microcell. AT&T's response to the microcell issue was general confusion and head scratching.
  • terrible battery life now.
    used to be able to go all day and late at night and not see the "20% battery life warning." pop up. now I see it after a few hours.
  • Did Apple let RIM do iOS4? This seems eerily like the Blackberry Storm fiasco.
  • I don't know if this is a bug but i dislike how when i am viewing safari in landscape mode and bring up the multitask menu i then have to rotate my phone so that i don't have to read the multitask menu sideways it seems like it would have been common sense to make the icons rotate and not necessarily put the menu on the bottom of the screen. hopefully this will be fixed in 4.0.1
  • my 16gb 3g is WAY slow after upgrade. google sync is also broken (or slow enough to look broken). i might do a clean restore tonight if this continues. hope these issue aren't around when i get my new iphone 4 on thursday
  • Install on iPod 2G is taking forever. Ran for two hours last night ("Backing up 'My iPod'." Started again this am at 9:40. As of noon it has completed maybe 8%. #fail. Particulars: iPod 2G - fully patched; latest iTunes; Win7 - 8GB Ram; 7.01 GB free space on the 8GB iPod. Wait...as we speak...something is happening...
  • ATTENTION if you had a jailbroken iphone using spirit on 3.1.3 with 3gs like me and upgrade to 4.0 without clean install it will break all 3g communication voicemail etc. after clean install i have seen a dramatic improvement.
  • For all those having lag and poor battery life on their 3G phones I would recommend completely powering off and on again. Mine was stuttering right after the update as if something was left running in the background (ironically). Powering off and on again seems to have fixed it and in fact the animations seem smoother too me. Battery life seems about normal.
    I think when people are comparing battery life though they should look at their actual usage in the settings under General->Usage as it can be easy to play around with the phone more than you realize after just having updated. Losing about 25% of battery for every 2 hours of actual usage was normal for me before the upgrade and I could usually get about 4 hours usage plus 20 hours of standby or nearly 48 hours of standby if I hardly used it and this is with an 18month old 3G.
    Google Sync seemed a little glitchy to me earlier, but for all we know the Google Sync servers could be struggling with all the iPhone users that just upgraded and are refreshing all their email, contacts, and calendars. Seems to be OK for me now.
  • Not sure if it's a bug, but when listening to video podcasts while using the old OS if i got a tweet or text it would make a sound and the popup would show, but the podcast would continue playing. This morning with ios4 on the drive to work i had to start the podcast 8 times because tweets. Any ideas on how to keep my podcasts playing so i donthave to keep reaching over while driving to turn it back on?
  • This post should be called "switching from iPhone 3GS to android" iPhone iOS is no longer bug free. Lags, and apps crash. Tried several restores but agh oh well still gave another year in contract.
  • My 3G does not have zoom capabilities, but every review of iOS 4 I read indicated it would.
    I also experienced a fast-draining battery after upgrading, but after a complete shut down and restart, it works great.
  • iOS 4 definitely eats up memory.
  • I had to restore as new. I tried everything to get data to work and nothing. I ended up just saving my pics. MobileMe and calendar syncs over the air so I never lose those. But it was a fiasco. Restored 3 times yesterday. Finally did a full wipe and it went smoothly.
  • Noticed that new pictures taken are blurry, not sure how to delete and restore existing photos on device though. Also, noticed that typing seems to be a bit slower than before. entire contact list was deleted on my GF's iPhone 3GS as well.
  • Keyboard definitely less responsive for me too, whether in messages/Safari/Facebook etc.
    Gmail (Exchange) seems ok now after 24hrs of not sending/receiving at all.
    Mail app opens in non-default Hotmail account every time for some reason too.
    Gmail calendar was previously set up with different coloured seperate work/home appointments and now only has them all mixed into a universal one. It's lost loads too, but not all.
    Boo.
  • Nate, if you're talking about the camera zoom, you have to tap the viewfinder (middle of the screen) in the camera app to bring up the zoom slider.
  • When i turn on the bluetooth i got a "turning/working circel" after 1 second a got the original on/off button.
  • It's killing me.
    Keep getting voice recognition even though I'm not pressing anything.
    Starts playing iPOD songs all of a sudden.
    My iPHONE has a life of is own since iOS4.
    DAMN YOU APPLE!!!!!
    You better release ios 4.1 in the next few days !
  • Well my update went smooth. However the only problem I am having is getting my iPhone ready Pioneer car stereo to play music from my iPhone. It worked fine before the update. I hope apple fixes this because I just bought this car stereo couple months ago. I got to check my logitech alarm clock for iPhone to see if that has the same problem. Anyone else experiencing the same problem?
  • Anyone else have problems with the ipod not working? When I try to open it, it freezes for a minute then crashes.. I have tried restarting phone and it doesnt help. Mine is a 3gs if it matters. I have even tried playing ipod before unlocking (double clicking home button) and the little play symbol in the top right corner flashes then goes away.
  • I've notice that my phone has a 15 second delay when loading apps. I went to apple.com to contacts and emailed feedback to the software developers and told them they need to send out a iOS4.1 Update to fix the bugs to iOS4 update.
  • Some pictures are out of order (both on my iPhone 3G and iPhone 4). And some videos on the iPhone 4.
    Also, iPhone 3G running slow.
  • I experienced that my iPod did strangce things such as starting and then ending Apps.
    Also, a little part of my screen aint reacting to my fingers, and thats VERY annoying!!
  • Since the 4.0 update I have reset my iPhone 3GS two times due to problems with the email client and today I had to restore a clean iPhone as the connectivity to 3G/GSM was unavailable (wifi was fine). Before IOS 4.0 I never had any problems with my iPhone which I purchased in November 2009.
  • Since I downloaded iOS4 on my ipod touch, my battery life is about 1/4 of what it used to be.
  • I cant get it to show my most recent mails! it shows the oldest!!!
  • Noticing issues with the iPod, tapping 'more' or 'videos' appears to crash the iPod application
  • I'm not able to create & edit the contacts details after the update... =(
  • Bad battery life with 4.0!!!!!!! Hope a fix comes out soon because it is horrendous...
  • This update has been absolutely HORRIBLE!!!! I hav a 2nd gen itouch and it won't let me listen to my music!!! It opens... Then freezes... Then crashes... I've tryed everything I could think of... Except for resetting my iPod... Anyone? Help? Plz!! I love apple... Bt can't they at least let me listen to my music???
  • What have apple done to my ipod touch? why can i no longer download podcasts? why do i have to close every app twice. is there anyway of going back to an earlier os. I loved my touch before the update but all i want to do is smash it. Typical apple.
  • After I updated my iPod touch with iOS 4 my music and videos open for about 5 seconds and then close out. Also all of my downloaded pictures are all fuzzy and you can't even tell what they are. Any advice? Please help!! I love apple, but now I hate them because of this update. ( b/c I am a music ADDICT!!! )
  • My itouch keeps crashing on apps and Internet and just seems slower sence I've updated to this software
  • iOS 4 crashed ma ipod 3g...n eventually hd 2 thriw coz of numerous probz...got a new 1 wid 3.1.3 ....
    wont upd8 now...!!!!