iPhone Life magazine

Upgraders beware as iOS 4.0 can be pretty demanding

Todd Bernhard 6.23.10

As a developer, I had the chance to work with iOS 4.0 for some time before the general public, so here are some thoughts:

First, just because something is newer doesn’t mean it’s better, as anyone who watches American Pickers knows.

If you have an iPhone 3G, you cannot use many of the new features in iOS 4, such as multitasking and even wallpapers.  Obviously you cannot use FaceTime and iMovie as the iPhone 3G doesn’t have a video camera or front mounted phone, so you get very few benefits by upgrading your operating system.

What’s more, many users have complained of slow overall performance for an iPhone 3G running iOS 4 compared to iPhone OS 3.1.3.  You might be better off reselling or gifting your iPhone 3G and upgrading to the iPhone 4.  There's an interesting video comparison here: http://gizmodo.com/5569969/iphone-3g-owners-you-might-want-to-hold-off-on-ios4

iPhone 3GS owners can leverage some of the benefits of iOS 4.0, such as multitasking, but it will require updated apps that support multitasking.

Of course, all iOS 4.0 users can watch ads using Apple's iAds, so you've got that going for you.

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Todd Bernhard
http://NoTie.NET

Todd Bernhard is founder of No Tie Software, an app developer specializing in Ringtones and Sound FX including AutoRingtone.

An iPhone is almost always attached to his hip, but over the years, Mr. Bernhard has owned an Apple Newton, a Motorola Marco, an HP 95LX, a Compaq iPaq, a Palm Treo, and a Nokia e62.

In addition to writing for iPhone Life, Mr. Bernhard has written for iPhone Life’s sister publications (PocketPC Magazine and The HP Palmtop Paper).

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Comments

iOS4

Submitted by Jo Thorpe on 6/23/10 6:00pm

Thank you for your input on this. I currently own both 3G and 3GS iPhones. I'm still thinking about the new phone, and the new line of service it will require. As a long time PC person, I recall hanging onto an old desktop computer running Windows 98, and again with a laptop running XP Pro, because if it wasn't broke, I sure wasn't going to spend money fixing it. Somehow, I don't think that MAC users have faced those issues, although I have heard that OS upgrades can be rather involved. Thanks again. I appreciate your insight and enjoy reading your comments.

I upgraded on my 3G phone

Submitted by Pankitty on 6/23/10 8:05pm

I upgraded on my 3G phone with OS4 and am pretty happy with it. The speed problem was fixed when I shut the phone off and rebooted. I also ran into a couple of other snags - I needed to input my voicemail and bluetooth headset passwords again - but the screen is more clear and the folder capability is worth it all by itself. A couple of my Apps were a little behind on upgrading to work with the new OS but they caught up within a couple days. If there are any downsides created I haven't stumbled across them yet.

I upgraded on my 3G phone

Submitted by Pankitty on 6/23/10 8:05pm

I upgraded on my 3G phone with OS4 and am pretty happy with it. The speed problem was fixed when I shut the phone off and rebooted. I also ran into a couple of other snags - I needed to input my voicemail and bluetooth headset passwords again - but the screen is more clear and the folder capability is worth it all by itself. A couple of my Apps were a little behind on upgrading to work with the new OS but they caught up within a couple days. If there are any downsides created I haven't stumbled across them yet.

I have 3G and noticed the

Submitted by defboy999 on 6/29/10 11:41pm

I have 3G and noticed the sluggish performance. I went into Settings and Reset All Settings. Working way smoother now.