iOS 4 Slows Down the iPhone 3G

iOS 4 — the new iPhone operating system — is wreaking havoc upon the iPhone 3G by all accounts (including my personal experience).

It immediately became clear to me after upgrading to the new OS that it was really slowing down my iPhone 3G. I've taken good care of my second-generation iPhone, and it performed very well until I installed the free iOS 4 upgrade.

Everything from my Maps app to text messaging functioned far more slowly. This lag is underscored by the sudden delay of several seconds between pressing the "Sleep" button and hearing that reliable clicking noise. iOS 4 is apparently so bad that my iPhone 3G can't even sleep well!

Unsurprisingly, other 3G owners share my dissatisfaction. This has been reported by a score of sources, such as Product Reviews. Fortunately, AppleToolbox has posted the following methods for improving performance:

Perform a “hard reset.” Hold down the sleep/wake and home buttons simultaneously for roughly 15-20 seconds, until the screen powers off then an Apple logo appears, which signifies a reboot. Some users have (oddly enough) reported that performing two hard resets resolves the slowness issue.

Restore, but not from backup. It appears that bad holdover data from iPhone backups can cause performance problems. Restoring as a new phone will delete contacts and other data, but may resolve this issue.

To do so, connect your iPhone or iPod touch to your computer, click “Restore” in iTunes, then choose “setup as new phone.”

Free up space. Make sure that your iPhone has at least 10% of its available memory free. OS X-based systems, such as iOS 4.0, may require some free space to operate properly.

Close open Safari windows. One iOS application that consumes memory in the background is Safari. Close all unused windows in the application by pressing the page switch button in the lower right portion of the screen then clicking the X at the top left of each page. See this page for screenshots.

These methods do improve performance, but they are simply quick fixes that do not restore the iPhone to its pre-upgrade performance level, nor do they change the bad taste left in loyal Apple customers' mouths.

If customer satisfaction is as crucial as Apple CEO Steve Jobs trumpeted during his iPhone 4 press conference, then I certainly hope Apple is working on fixing this most regrettable problem.