iOS4 on a 3G

I had a semi-long post written up about about running iOS4 on an iPhone 3G, talking about the new features that are both present and missing from the 3G model and other performance related issues. However, after spending a few weeks running it I think it’s safe to save myself all the effort and you all the reading and just say that it sucks.

If Apple removes certain features for performance related reasons, I totally believe and support them in doing so because everyone knows they are all about the user experience. If adding a wallpaper to the home screen placed so much of a strain on the hardware that the feature was removed (which is was) then my opinion is that the OS itself is probably too much for the hardware to handle. I have to say that my personal experience confirms this. I’ve loved my 3G from the beginning, but the last few weeks since the upgrade have been nothing but frustration. Everything has a delay, sometimes a LONG delay like 30 seconds or more. Sometimes it just seems to freeze up completely. You thought Notes was bad before? Trying to tweet when you get interrupted by a text message pop-up? Good luck with that. As I said earlier, Apple is all about user experience, and I’m honestly surprised that they approved iOS4 for the 3G because it’s just terrible. I imagine they did it just to avoid the backlash from the angry masses if they hadn’t.

My official conclusion is that I cannot recommend iOS4 in it’s current state (v4.0) for 3G hardware. I think the OS looks great and has tons of welcome new features, but 3G just doesn’t have the guts to run it. I know that the 3G is hardly the target device for iOS4, but hopefully one of the next iterations will include some performance enhancements that will help improve the experience on the 3G.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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