Disruptive Telephony

I upgraded my iPhone 3G to iOS 4.0!

Dumb, dumb, dumb...

You see, the "Update" button was just sitting there waiting to be pressed in iTunes... and caught up in all the hype around iOS 4.0 I forgot all about those articles I had read... and so I did a backup of my iPhone 3G, and hit the button...

I should have perhaps seen it as a sign when after the upgrade my old backup WOULD NOT RESTORE onto the phone! It was an ugly process... and a couple of hours and multiple restore attempts later my iPhone was in a weird state where it seemed to have data for some apps, but not all. I wound up syncing the apps via iTunes and got the iPhone 3G back into near normal operation - only minus data for some of the apps.

It was then I realized that the only real feature I wanted in iOS - multitasking - doesn't work on the iPhone 3G! It only works on the iPhone 3GS and of course the new iPhone 4.0. Yes, there is a way to hack it, but I don't want a jailbroken iPhone.

And what is worse is this...

M... Y...   i... P... h... o... n... e... 3... G...   i... s...   G... L... A...C... I... A... L... L... Y...   S... L... O... W... !

It's VERY clear that the processor on the 3G just can't handle the performance demands of iOS 4.0. Everything is slooooow. Opening apps. Composing messages. Accepting phone calls. Switching to the home screen. Bringing up the iPod player. Everything... is... slow.

Unfortunately, it appears that this was a one-way trip to iOS 4.0... looking online it appears the only way to get back to iOS 3.0 is to go to an Apple store (which there aren't any near me) and get a new iPhone 3G with the old OS. That's not happening any time soon. So it appears I'll probably just use the iPhone 3G less and look forward to the time when it is eventually upgraded to an iPhone 4. (It's a corporate phone, and they're being upgraded over time...)

My question for Apple, though, is this - if you knew this iOS 4.0 "upgrade" was going to make texting, for instance, so painful on a 3G, why did you allow it? Or why didn't you put prominent warnings in place? (Saying, perhaps: "Be advised that after this upgrade you will not have multitasking and your 3G will be slow as molasses.")

In the meantime, if you have a iPhone 3G and have been debating about "upgrading" to iOS 4.0, don't do it! Stick with what you have - you'll be much happier!

P.S. And yes, that snail image accompanying this article was drawn by yours truly on my iPad, demonstrating to you all why I need to leave the artwork to my wife and stick to writing! ;-)

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