iOS 4 On My iPhone 3G Makes Me Want An iPhone 4… But Not In A Good Way
Still resisting getting an iPhone 4 right off the bat, but circumstances may force getting one sooner. And it’s not solely because of desire, but out of necessity.
Basically, my iOS 4 install kind of screwed up my iPhone.
The new iPhone operating system was released on Monday, and I rushed home to set it up on my currently aging iPhone 3G. The update downloaded fine, but something definitely went amiss during installation, as iTunes got stuck on an iPhone backup, spending about an hour with the progress bar hardly moving. I eventually gave up and forced a backup and restore. That got iOS 4 installed — but all my apps and settings were wiped out. That’s actually a pretty big deal, as I discovered during work today. I had a bunch of information stored in notes, progress in several games, logins and passwords for a ton of apps — all gone.
And after all that — my phone now feels prohibitively slow. Settings takes 10 seconds to launch, the camera around 8. Don’t think it’s just my imagination as corroborated by iThinkDifferent.
And from what I can tell — the only new feature I’m making any use of is folders. No background wallpaper or multitasking. So far, not worth the update.
Anyhow, since my iPhone is now a clean slate which I’ll have to invest some time getting it back to utility — am truly wondering if I’d be better off just getting the iPhone 4 and start from scratch. Yes, iOS 4 is making me want an iPhone — but probably not in the positive way Apple intended.
Update: Restore from a backup fixed everything; read this post…
Yikes. My 3GS took the upgrade fine. :/
iTunes should have done a backup before upgrading, and if you hadn’t synched, it should have urged you to do that (mine did, as I hadn’t synched in a while when I clicked the button to install iOS 4).
Worst case, you could restore from the backup — if it’s still in iTunes. If you’ve synched since then, it’s probably replaced the backup with a fresh one. They should keep multiple backups, or at least major OS versions.
I’ll try restoring again and get back to ya.
Update: it worked. Restore from a recent backup put everything is back on the iPhone, plus iOS 4. Whew.
I’m surprised you’re thinking of getting another iphone after all that.
Well, having a hampered iPhone has also underlined how much I need one.
makes sense… “you don’t know how good something is until it’s gone”, and all that… but why another iPhone? Why not a different smartphone?
1. Starting over with another smartphone would mean having to learn how to use a completely different phone.
2. Own tons of iPhone apps.
3. Totally loved the iPhone until this moment. Not gonna turn my back on two years of awesome phone-ness for two days of pain.
Getting the new iPhone 4 was personally inevitable, it was just a matter of when. This situation may have just bumped up that date. Yes, this is the mind of an Apple addict.
[…] Thanks to reader Mike who commented on a previous post and got me to take a second look at the restore option. Can I get my Apple fanboy card back? […]
I had the exact same experience on my 3G. Backup was taking forever! So I cancelled. Mistake. This meant no backup to restore to, and everything was wiped out. It has definitely slowed my phone down to a crawl. The only thing I really use in iOS4 is the multiple Exchange accounts. I sync my work email plus Gmail to the unified Inbox. That’s all I really see that I like with the crippled version of iOS4 on my 3G.
Since I wasn’t fully impressed with iOS4 on my 3G, I decided to try a jailbreak. Again, that made my phone slow to a crawl, and I lost MMS and 3G. Back to square one. Restore as a new phone, reinstall all my apps… again.
Unfortunately for Apple, my next phone is going to be Android.