CATEGORIES
- WEB STARTUPS
- CONFERENCES
- WEB JOBS
- MICROSOFT
- INTERVIEWS
- VIDEO
- AMAZON
- ALL TOPICS
CONTRIBUTORS
Upgrading My iPhone 3G to iOS4
As you are no doubt aware, a major update for the iPhone/iPod Touch operating system was released by Apple last week. The first day it was released, I downloaded the large update file (almost 300 megabytes) and attempted to install it overnight on my iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, when I woke up in the morning, I was confronted with an iTunes error indicating that the backup was not completed successfully.
Later that evening, I tried again. I started trying to update around 6 p.m. on Tuesday evening, and finally cancelled the process around 11 p.m., having made very little progress in the backup process.
I tried a few more times over the next few days, and kept experiencing a similar problem. At one point, Windows decided to restart itself in the middle of the backup process because Windows updates had been installed.
Finally, overnight last night, I modified my Windows power settings, making sure that my computer would not go to sleep for at least four hours (just in case that was the issue) and attempted the update one more time.This time, the backup process completed successfully, and the software update was successful, but the process of restoring my applications and files failed. This morning, when I woke up, I told it to try restoring my files again. It took a little over two hours (causing me to be an hour late to work this morning), but that process finally completed, too.
Oddly, though, when I plugged in my iPhone this evening to sync it again, iTunes immediately popped up a dialog telling me that the restore process was interrupted and asking me if I wanted to restore my iPhone again. Naturally, I told it not to try again, since I had already verified that all of my files, applications and settings were in place. The first time the warning dialog appeared, I told iTunes not to attempt the restore again. However, in the middle of syncing my iPhone, for some reason the device was disconnected from Windows so I had to unplug it and plug it back in again. This time, the same warning dialog popped up again, so I told it to delete the backup that it was trying to restore.
At this point, I have had a little bit of a chance to play with the updated operating system. As an iPhone 3G owner, I don’t get to take advantage of the wallpaper updates that were part of iOS4, nor do I get to use multitasking. However, I do get the benefit of threaded e-mail conversations (along with a unified e-mail inbox, should I choose to use it), folders and a few other minor features.
To be quite honest, with the limited new features implemented on the iPhone 3G, I’m not really sure it was even worth the hassle of updating the operating system. What are your thoughts? Are you running iOS4 on a 3G? If so, did you experience as many problems as I did? What do you think of the new features?
By the way for the 3G the new performance “IMPROVED” iOS 4.2 sucks as well. maybe a slight improvement here and there but the overall result will not please. I went to the Genius bar and the only advice apple had was to wipe the phone clean and restore to the old iOS – i.e. full loss of data – bottom line is you 3G users are screwed, and ultimately may just have a old generation itouch to play with. To those of you still holding on to the old 3.1.3 – my advice is stcik with it, 4.2 did not hit the mark by a long shot.
I had no problems updationg to IOS4.0.1 very quick and easy, also updated my sons iTouch with out any trouble, and some of the new features are great. Also I have not seen most of the problems out lined above, however……… all is not rosie.
What I am really annoyed (pis***) about is the phone dropping the signal, when I make/recieve a call after about 2-3 mintues into the call the line drops, the phone turns off and resets !!!!!!!. Also Bluetooth does not work at all !!!! Having done some research it seems these are common problems.
THese are very fundamental issues with the iPhone, NOT what you would expect from Apple…… Shame as I really like my iPhone………
I upgraded my 3G to iOS4.0.1, upgrade was pretty easy, didn’t experience any problems in the upgrade (jailbreaking it again was just as simple). I feel that I have better battery life than before, but it’s soooo slow most of the time. Not worth the upgrade.
AARRRGGGHH! i have spent all night trying to upgrade my 3G iphone and im experiencing the same problem! it sooo damn long! I am thinking twice about it now after reading this thread…. in fact im going to give up and go to bed! It seems it is just not worth it. I only wish i stumbled across this website much earlier on! I wouldnt have wasted my whole godamn day off (and night) to try and upgrade to OS 4. Nice going Apple! i think im going to get a Blackberry instead next.
IM PISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSED!!
that update, a waste of time. My phone, a piece of shit. the guy at At&t and Apple, not any help at all.
Im getting the iphone 4
iHackintosh (sp) go through the steps, pain in the caboose – 3gs – it will take a few hours to reload everything then you get ‘updated’ – 4.0.x doesn’t work with a 3gs – they really want you to get the new iPhone – but figure out the antenna problem first – its not software – really stevie?
Aaarggh!!! At last!! I consider myself happy when I see the updating process is finishing after read some troubleshooting of updating ios4 on iPhone 3G.
Benefits:
~ nice arrangement of the folder with my own desire folder.
~ nice arrangement of multiple email accoun
Don’t upgrade! You can’t retro-grade so you’ll be stuck with a super slow phone and hardly any new features! What a load of CR@P!!! I’m still under warranty yet my phone is basically useless! What a way to nab the consumer in this economy! Should be illegal! No warnings no nothing, just you’re screwed! Gonna get another kind of phone because that was so under-handed of Apple.
Hi Joe
Here you go, After fussing and fighting with Apple they did replace my 3G iPhone after the iOS4 upgrade, I am on a Liver Transplant list and told Apple I have to have a good working phone and that I strongly felt it was Apples responsibility to correct this problem. I also told the supervisor that I personally felt Apple failed in being responsible by making the iOS4 available for the 3G phones, I had to speak with a supervisor in the customer relations department do to the fact my 3G was out of warranty and I did not have Apple Care, the supervisor submitted an over ride code in my iPhone file and the local Apple Genius Bar honored it.
Frustrating with my iphone 3g … trying to update ..or even restore since last week …unfortunately it takes toooo long … worse than hours … 1 day still didnt complete … i really dont know whatelse should i do … i have deleted all of the songs,movies and photos but still it takes more than a day …please someone help me … worry if i leave my phone connected to my pc all the time might cause battery problems ( which is already well known that battery of iphone 3g is really suck ) ….
Till now i keep on trying and trying … hope it worth while waiting for Apple to fix their problem with iphone 4 …
So sorry to hear you guys had so much trouble with your upgrades! :( I was just about to upgrade my 3g when I found this. THANK YOU for sharing and sparing others the anguish!
I currently have an iphone 3G and with the update it is so slow i’m thinking of restoring factore settings and bring back the first update which came out. I the Folders are very bad i cant find the application easliy
Gang – maybe someone can provide instructions on how to evert back to iOS 3.1.3? I don’t see how to do this in iTunes.
I found this website. :)
http://lifehacker.com/5572003/how-to-downgrade-your-iphone-3gs-from-ios-4-to-ios-313
Steve Jobs obviously wants me to upgrade from my 3G iPhone. I’ll conform to his wishes… I am upgrading to the Droid X on July 15th. Goodbye Apple. Goodbye AT&T. Goodbye slow phone, dropped calls, missed calls, missed texts, late texts, slow 3G internet. “Fastest 3G network” and “Fewest dropped calls” should get AT&T sued. Just because I say “I’m the greatest man in the world” doesn’t make it true… even though it really is.
Same problems here to how do go back to to other version
Never mind it works you just have to do a “hard reset” and it works like new
Same here with the 3G, and it was a complete waste of my time. Everything’s slower, camera picturing taking is screwed, gmail is annoying with archiving option, it added nothing good IMO, only frustration. I visited an Apple store and the rep “unofficially” told me that downgrading back to the 3.1.3 would be my best bet … doing that tomorrow. Lesson learned that it’s not always best to jump on the bandwagon, and instead wait for reviews, not just that something new and exciting launched 30 seconds ago. And this is why I’ll wait to get the 4G … if at all!
I too have had trouble getting 4.0OS download. While phone was backing up (from right click on “iphone device”), I went surfing and found this website. THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU. I’ll now stay with my 3.1.3.
Slow. And now when I am charging the phone, the there is no progress indicator as the battery gets charged. it still shows the last condition it was in (red or small area green) EVEN the battery is charged. you have to reboot the phone to see the full green / full battery status to show up. does anyone have the same problem?
Thanks for the reviews everyone. I was just about to upgrade but thought I should look into it, seeming that Apple has been pretty good at crippling rights to media sharing.
Question: Has anybody tried upgrading the 3GS? It seems that everyone here so far is talking about the 3G and not the 3GS.
Please post your experiences with the 3GS. Thanks again.
Denis
Here you go Dennis
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1333 This is a forum for the 3GS upgrade on an Apple server.
The bottom line is Apple shouldn’t have allowed the upgrade for the 3G period. yes, that would have pissed all of us 3G owners off – thinking we are being boxed out and forced to upgrade to the 4, but in essence by allowing the upgrade they have screwed us even worse, now our once great phone performs like a real dog.
The whole iOS4 experience has been a joke for the 3G – The download didn’t work and it too blogs to figure it out, virtually every feature on the phone is slower than crap now to the point I am frequently pissed off, my bluetooth connection in my car which was perfect and seamless is now totaly screwed, and the list goes on…. The only really great 3G feature I like and have wanted for years is the apps folders. they could have given us that with an 3G OS 3 upgrade and been done with it. I now have 11 pages of apps on 2 pages. The e-mail upgrade is nice, but that wasn’t a big one for me.
The bottom line – the architecture of the 3G is just too strained to run the new OS and they did not invest much engineering time into making it flawless for a 2 year old phone.
My original strategy like I am sure is the case with a lot of others – I am on a 2 year refresh cycle with AT&T and I wanted to test the iOS 4 features for a month or two while Apple worked out the bugs on the new iPhone before I upgraded. I say why wait in line to get day-1 release hardware that you are stuck with for 2 years. By August there will be both OS and HW upgrades for the iPhone 4. Who knows a later generation iPhone 4 may have a new internal antenna design and the early adopters are stuck.
I am pissed off enough now that I might just forgo the iPhone 4 for some competition, or I’ll wait for a reliable way to downgrade my OS back to release 3 and live with it for more than a few months. I DONT like to be pushed – do you hear that Apple, and I have been singing your praises for the past 2 years!!! The competition (albeit totally driven by the iPhone) is getting better every day, and Apple needs to spend as much time catering to keeping their existing customers happy as they do on trying to sell new phones period.
The last I seen for the day Apple has already sold 1.7 million iPhone 4′s, but I wonder how many 3G users are pissed-off because the iOS4 upgrade slowed their 3G’s down to the point you now hate your iPhone, all the while Apple is promoting the iOS4 upgrade for the 3G iPhone, do your self a favor and don’t upgrade it but if your reading this it’s probably to late, I’m sorry I upgraded!
I loved my 3G iPhone before the iOS4 upgrade and now I absolutely hate it, this has been by far the worst upgrade yet in my opinion. When txt is opened I can literally count, 1000-one, 1000-2, 1000-3, 1000-4 and then the txt window opens. :-(
I can no longer play the iPod and use any other program with out my music chopping up as it plays, the apps crash before opening, I have to wait 2-4 sec’s for the key board to come up when needed. I have to keep tapping the phone until it responds to my commands.
How ever my download and update was seamless, I’m using a MacBook Pro, up until it completed and then I found out that it made my iPhone slow down so much that I actually hate this phone now. It’s like using my dual core computers, then putting me back on an old IBM 286 computer.
I have called Apple so many times, trying to find a way to revert back to the 3G-OS system, Apple is telling me it can’t be done, I’m sorry but I’m not buying that it can’t be done, question, was this done on purpose by Apple to push the consumers towards a hardware upgrade, hmm?!
Apple should have never said that the iOS4 update is 3G compatible, it wrecks a 3G phone in my opinion. I personally feel that Apple needs to make this good for the owners of all 3G phones and make a simple way of restoring the phone back to OS3, they need to provide us with a software link/download.
If anyone knows how to do this by all means plz let me know. I have an appointment with Apple tomorrow, I’ve already been told several time your S.O.L. buddy and your phone is out of warranty. Apple has wrecked my perfectly good working 3G phone by telling me the IOS4 is 3G compatible, I too have learned that I will always wait before upgrading any OS system from here foreword and not to take Apple at their word anymore. I will wait and watch to see what the general public has to say. Because we the end users are the ones who will be more reliable then the manufactures.
Those of you who did not experience your 3G slowing down after the iOS4 update, count your blessings.
You can rollback i did takes about 30mins. iphone 3g now works great.
Google rollback os4 to os 3.1.3
Hi, how did your appointment go? Are you happier with your I-phone? Should we all try pester Apple to sort this out?
I upgraded and after a check on how far it got, I found my iphone in a disconnect mode. unplugging and plugging back in only returns a msg saying ITunes could not connect to the Iphone for an unknown error. The antenna reads “no service”.
Any suggestions anyone?
same experience on loooooong download but unlike some – no glitches. Just looooong.
* love the folders feature. helps organize my apps.
* love the consolidated email feature. easier to scan all emails in one glance.
* love the “create new playlist” feature. i DJ quite a lot so helpful to create genre-specific playlists without having to go into iTunes.
* zoom feature on camera is so-so.
* is it just me or did the sound on the iPod feature become crisper!!!??? hmmmm
* considering i’ll wait a bit to upgrade to iPhone 4 …. firmware upgrade is a good primer on some of the new features of iOS4
* my 3G hasn’t slowed down. Battery drain seems faster though :(. but not too bad.
Overall – it was worth downloading on 3G just for the Folders feature, Consolidated Email feature, and Custom Playlist feature.
I too updated my 3G had similar issues with the backup (it just took ages) and the restore of the applications failed part way through but completed next time I sync’d (after being prompted).
However, I was disappointed with the number of features (lack thereof) supported on the 3G.
A very poor ‘upgrade’ iPhone 3G 16Gb, slow since upgrading to IOS4. Safari is very unresponsive – will not let me interrupt when loading slow pages, calendar acts strangely, contacts are slow, SMS is slow, camera is pathetic. Is it a marketing ploy to get us to hate our 3G and upgrade to 4…
I agree with every single point you make. I am so fed up with the new OS. I pay a fortune each month and have now ended up with this thing that frustrates the hell out of me everytime I pick it up!
Looks like my experience is pretty common. I wonder if Apple did any testing on the 3G at all before they released this update. Thanks for the responses so far, everybody. Glad to know I’m not the only one with these issues.
I am very frustrated for the first time. I get this long error code every single time I plug my iphone in now. I cant seem to get my apps to appear on my phone. Just random selected ones that I didnt choose. My speed and battery life dont seem affected at all. But right now my biggest problem is that one of my kids set a restrictions password on the phone for apps and cant remember it, and since only a few of my apps came across in the upload, I am pretty pissed. the only thing I can do is do a system restore. But if I do that I dont know whats gonna happen to all of my contacts. Does anyone know?
The only advantages I can see are the threaded email, and now I can run Pandora while I am using Motion X GPS (as long as you have the latest app updates for iOS4).
You didn’t miss much, zoom on the camera and unified inbox and folders are great but interface speed now is a joke.
I’ve heard that. I’ve also heard that battery life can be a nightmare after the upgrade to iOS4. My battery and my interface speed didn’t seem too much worse yesterday than they have been for the last few months, so I guess I’ll see.
My update went without fail. I’m using an iMac though. The system runs a bit faster and the mail setup is nicer than in the previous OS. The photo thumbnails are bigger, which helps and there is a camera zoom. This of course is zooming a 2mp camera and it’s not really worth using. All in all, it is alright. It DID take a LONG time though. Wow.
What iPhone are you using, I;m using the 3G and the iOS4 update just wrecked my phone, it’s literally none responsive, I have to wait 2-4sec for it to validate a command.
I have installed iOS4 as soon as it was made available to developers. I mainly only cared for one feature, the application folders, in order to put order to my 250+ apps.
Well, after installing, the phone became very slow. Not all the time, and maybe only the UI is slow (like, when I slide to unlock the phone and nothing happen, and then after a second or two the phone unlocks).
Also, folders are almost unusable with so many app. Each folder can only contain 9 or 12 apps (I think it can contain 12, but iTunes only let me add 9) that means that I can only have 12 games, 12 utilities, etc. or I need subcategories, that would work if there was an easy way in iTunes to manage folders. So, all in all, this looks like a very bad feature added at the very last minute. So much for clean and intuitive interfaces.
Email threading is nice, but on the first impression it feels unnatural. I click on a message and see two or three. Anyway, I didn’t spend too much time with it so I can’t really comment.
The worst thing of iOS4 is that half of my apps now crash at startup. And the phone has rebooted by itself more than once. Some people have commented that after a full reset and install (with no restore from backup) the phone works great but I didn’t really want to lose all my settings to try it out (well, I guess I could have tried before restoring from the 3.x backup).
Anyway, as I said, a lot of application crashes and that is a big problem for an update that Apple is forcing onto customers. Again, maybe my particular problem is that I have too many applications (but if the 3G really doesn’t support multitasking, why should it care ?). And considering that one of the main features was support for more applications this makes things even worst.
The only good thing of iOS4, that I am not sure that it is a feature of iOS4 since it has not been reported anywhere, but that I was able to verify twice was this: I drive 50 miles to work almost every day and if I am not too interested to the current NPR programming I listen to a podcast. Since I am lazy and don’t “sync” my iPhone too often, I turn to streaming podcasts, a nice feature of iTunes mobile. I know that there are a couple of points on the freeway where I can lose 3G signal, but must of the time the player’s buffering is good enough to keep the program playing. When it’s not the podcast ends and I have to start from the beginning (try to seek in the mobile player while you are driving). Well, after I installed iOS4 I listen to a couple of podcast and both time the program interrupted (I guess I lost signal) but magically resumed from where it stopped when I restarted playing, after a little buffering.
Again, I am not 100% sure that this is a feature (I would call it a “bug fix”) of iOS4 but it’s the feature I’ll miss the most now that I downgraded back to 3.1.3. On the plus side, all my app works, even if I can’t put them in folders and my old 3G clunker feels twice as fast than before, after the SLOW intermission that iOS4 provided.
So, iOS4 makes your fast new devices twice as faster, and your slow old devices twice as slower. And this combined to the hardware problems of the iPhone 4 is seriously making me reconsider what my next phone will be.
I am running iOS4 and I love it. Only took me 1 attempt to update. And this was the first hour of being released to the public. Best update by far. Improves the overall experience.
I had a very similar experience with my 3G update to ios4. After several frustrating attempts the update took effect and I was delightfully underwhelmed. The folders are nice as is the integrated email. I forgot about having to delete all my old comcast emails again after an update, ugh! It seems that my phone runs much slower since the update. My assumption is that the 3G/128 RAM just cant deal very well with the updated os. I’m patiently waiting for an iPhone 4 so hopefully my problems will end with that purchase if it ever occurs.
Same here with the 3G, and it was a complete waste of my time. Everything’s slower, camera picturing taking is screwed, gmail is annoying with archiving option, it added nothing good IMO, only frustration. I visited an Apple store and the rep “unofficially” told me that downgrading back to the 3.1.3 would be my best bet … doing that tomorrow. Lesson learned that it’s not always best to jump on the bandwagon, and instead wait for reviews, not just that something new and exciting launched 30 seconds ago. And this is why I’ll wait to get the 4G … if at all!
Hey how do you download to go back to the 3 software.