Should You Upgrade your Old iPhone or iPod Touch to iOS4
Should I upgrade to iOS4? It’s a question we have been hearing from many readers after the newest Apple iPhone and iPod Touch software, iOS4, was released yesterday. While there are many benefits to installing iOS4 and we would normally recommend that you upgrade to iOS4 right away for the best features, there are reports of issues upgrading older devices to iOS4.
The issues started off with many users unable to download the new software as Apple’s servers came under fire from millions of eager iPhone and iPod Touch users and since then have expanded.
To start with, many users are reporting very lengthy upgrade times, as long as 3 hours, to complete the upgrade and other users have reportedly resorted to using the Restore function in order to get their iPhone or iPod Touch to accept the update.
If you are successful in upgrading to iOS4, you’re not out of the woods yet.
- Slow and Laggy: Some users are reporting that iOS4 runs slow or has issues on their iPhone 3G devices.
- No Phone: Others are reporting that they cannot use the phone portion of their device to surf the web or make phone calls.
- More Limited than advertised – Mobiputing reports that even current gen iPod Touch users are receiving fewer features than expected. Most notably absent are screen orientation lock and lack of ability to change the wallpaper.
- Blurry Pictures: Some users have reported that their pictures are blurry or grainy after upgrading to iOS4. Thankfully, this can be solved by syncing to your computer again.
- GoodBye Contacts: iPodnn reports that due to issues with sync services some users found themselves without their contact lists. Thankfully this issue should be resolved shortly as sync services come online and address any iOS4 issues.
- App-ocalypse: Not all current apps will work in iOS4. This incompatibility isn’t just that they can’t multi-task, but other issues. Many of these app developers have updates in to Apple and are awaiting approval of an iOS4 ready version. Currently RunKeeper is urging users to wait for an iOS4 compatible version to go live in the store; they aren’t alone.
- Other Issues: There are also scattered reports to iPodnn of broken push notifications and MMS failures and even in very drastic cases, devices that will continually reboot after a failed update.
So, what does this mean for you? If you are going to be getting an iPhone 4 at launch you may as well wait until you get the new device designed to take advantage of all of the new iOS4 features, especially since iPhone 4s are shipping early, rather than waste a few hours upgrading your old device.
If you have an older iPhone or iPod Touch and aren’t getting an iPhone 4 right away it may be best to check and see if your favorite apps are compatible by visiting the developer’s website. If you want to be safe, you may want to wait until next week to let others get the bugs out of the iOS4 update.
How did your upgrade go? If you haven’t updated, will you still update right away knowing these issues?
Category: News
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Comments (20)
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed
Sites That Link to this Post
- iOS 4 Optimized Apps | Notebooks.com | June 23, 2010
- iOS 4 on iPhone 3G Parody Illustrates Upgrading Issues (video) | Notebooks.com | July 17, 2010
- iOS 4 on iPhone 3G Parody Illustrates Upgrading Issues (video) | Notebooks.com | July 17, 2010
I updated yesterday. It took me a few tries but my update went through in ten mins. LOVE it. I have the iphone 3gs. The only thing I have come across that isn't working for me is the camera zoom feature and the ability to add pictures to my texts-which I was able to do before the upgrade. I have another app that does the zoom on the camera so that is no big deal except that I was hoping to be able to delete it. Smooth transition between apps and background works fine and is clear. I am hoping to purchase the new iphone after the first ones have been out and the kinks are sorted out. Totally LUV my iphone.
I tried to upgrade my touch (less than one year old). It downloaded, then started backing up from midnight to 10a.m and was only about half finished. Did something else on the computer, and itunes “lost” the connection, meaning have to start over.
I love apple hardware, but I'll tell you that itunes is an abomination and doing anything like this is a royal pain if one runs windows. I don't know what I'm going to do. I figure 24 hours for a backup plus install.
My iPhone 3G has been clunky at best. iOS4 seems like a giant step backwards, and it's not worth it simply to have folders and spellcheck. If anything, this has forced me to consider the iPhone 4. Nice work, Apple.
Had the disappearing contact issue with my wife's iPhone 3G. But they are all still on Google Contacts so at least they are not a total loss.
I'm so disappoited with the ios4. I spent almost 4 hours to download it to my iPod touch 2nd generation and I didn't get any of the features I was most excited about, like multitasking and background wallpaper
Instead I got a laggy iPod that takes forever to run things and closes apps out of nowhere.
My son's iPod doesn't have this problem. But my wife's iPhone 3G is very slow now. We will be going back. I will post a link to how to do that soon.
How do you go back to 3.1.2? I ugraded and now can't connect to anything using the 3G network. I was on the phone with Apple for 5 hours last night only to end with “wait till the bug fix comes out”. I am always on the go and need access with the 3G network. Any help would be great!
After upgrade safari crashed iphone (nice)
Couldnt handle all the crashes so I completely reset the phone to core os.
then…..
sluggish, text and camera apps,
mail items don't open, dont report back as 'read'
I am dissapointed.
The upgrade went really fast for me. From start to finish it took a total of 20min whereas my dads took over 3hours before he finally gave up. As fast as the upgrade was, I am really regretting even having done it now. My safari keeps crashing as well as some of my apps. I have never had this problem with it, so I let it go the first 2 times it happened and thought maybe it would stop. Unfortunately, it hasn't and I am really getting frustrated with it. I was also really looking forward to some of the new features that were supposedly included in the upgrade, specifically changing my background wallpaper, but of course was disappointed since that was apparently either not included or not available on my itouch. Honestly I would love nothing more than be able to go back to before the update, does anybody know how to do this?
just upgraded my software on itunes for my older model iphone and it crashed. I lost everything. The back-up took forever to reload my information and I still lost my entire calendar! My biggest complaint now is that my songs lost their album covers and I can't seem to flip through them “juke box style”. Information seems to be missing! But, the songs are there if I search by artist…..not happy!
Does anyone know how to go back to the old program? Cuz iso4 is bullshit…
i know i tried jailbreaking it and the whole thng shut down its easy goign back to your old software all you do is go to felixbruns.com and search for your old software download it and then reset your ipod and add that software you used to have again and whal alal your ipod or iphone is back to normal
i know i tried jailbreaking it and the whole thng shut down its easy goign back to your old software all you do is go to felixbruns.com and search for your old software download it and then reset your ipod and add that software you used to have again and whal alal your ipod or iphone is back to normal
i know i tried jailbreaking it and the whole thng shut down its easy goign back to your old software all you do is go to felixbruns.com and search for your old software download it and then reset your ipod and add that software you used to have again and whal alal your ipod or iphone is back to normal
I don't really know exactly what was promised with the release or ios4 but the only problem I've noticed was the blurry pictures. Does anyone know if re-syncing them would work? They just need to get the bug fixes out there
My iPod totally crashed. My Internet switches on and off. When I’m on IM it goes off because the Internet is supposovly unavailable because it switched OFF then on AGAIN. I’m very dissapointed. I hope Apple fixes this.
to be honest my opinion is that all apple products are a blur and i am not going to but anymore of apples products the ipods ipads and iphones all are bad quality i was thinking about getting an ipad but instead im getting a sasung galaxy s tablet they seem better than the ipad thats just my opinion