Aging iPhones

[itguy08]

Try 7.1. My 4s was a bit slower and more unstable with 7.0. But 7.1 seems to have restored a lot of the speed to it.

And it seems to be working for older iPhone 4's as well:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/03/ios-7-1-on-the-iphone-4-as-good-as-its-going-to-get/

 

[chriscreags]

Originally Posted By: dparm
Originally Posted By: chriscreags
I got my iPhone 4s brand new from Sprint in October 2012. Coming up on a year and a half of using it and I've been noticing that it's not operating as smoothly as it used to. Some things that I've experienced are apps freezing up repeatedly, frozen home screens, jerky screen swipes/motion, screen turning off randomly when it's not supposed to and then turning back on, dropped calls when I have a full signal, etc. I've tried rebooting it during the times it was acting up, and it is running the latest software update.

I plan on continuing to use the phone until my contract is up this coming Oct. I'm just curious as to if any other iPhone users have experienced this? Is this maybe the "norm" for iPhones?


Plug it into your computer, do a full backup (stored on the computer, not iCloud), then wipe the device and restore. Some settings will be lost, but your data will be fine.


Thanks dparm, I'll give that a try today.

 

[chriscreags]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
I liked the 4s very much and it served me very well.


I agree, aside from these recent quirks, the 4s is a very reliable phone that serves very well. I was a loyal BlackBerry user for years prior to coming over to Apple. IMHO the Apple phone is a much better product.

 

[SnPb]

I have an iPhone 4 and it worked well until I installed iOS 7.0. After the install I experienced the symptoms that you describe. The phone became very frustrating and unpleasant to use. I was reluctant to update to iOS 7.1 after this, but did so last night and have been pleased so far. During the install I reviewed the list of things purported to be fixed by iOS 7.1 and one of them was issues with the iPhone 4. If you have an iPhone 4/4S with iOS 7.0 installed, I recommend iOS 7.1.

 

[ddrumman2004]

I have an iPhone 4 running 7.1 and it works just as good now as it did when I got a year and a half ago. I make it a point to shut all apps down when I'm through with them also

I liked IOS 7 for the fact that I could now start blocking unwanted calls with that software. 7.1 just makes the phone better to use. Could do without the Fisher Price interface though.

 

[rjundi]

I was having serious hestiation problems on a iphone 4s, safari and iOs7/iOs7.1. I discovered disabling the cloud on safari fixed it.

 

[Subdued]

I have a 4s. I wipe and reload from backup every 6 months due to free space getting chewed up by "other" as reported by itunes. They're orphaned files caused by various things (not least of which is my impatience with sync) and a wipe/reload is so fast I don't really mind doing it as often as I do. Especially since I know I'm the cause of the issues.

7.1 fixed everything that was an issue for me when I went to 7.0, including the very bad battery life.

 

[Cujet]

My non current, 4s decided to delete all apps and data when I turned it on one day. I decided to look at some pics on the phone and it deleted everything! The reason I upgraded to the 5 was the slow speed and response.

But, now it's as fast as new, mostly because it's 100% empty. Weird.

 

[chriscreags]

Update: After doing a backup and full wipe and restoration as dparm suggested earlier, the phone is running as fast and smoothly as it did when it was new. This is with the most recent software update as well. Thanks again dparm

 

[dparm]

You're welcome. Glad it worked out.

 

[97tbird]

Hmmm... my wife's 4s (even with 7.1) has become laggier than mine recently..

so this wipe and reload: you guys mean:

-Backup the iphone to itunes.
-"Wipe" the phone (how do you do that?)
-Then restore from the itunes back up?

Might have to give this a try...

( On the other hand IDK if we should upgrade...to a 5s with 4G LTE?

But that would mean giving up the grandfathered-in (alltel) unlimited data plan and choosing one of Verizon's current offerings, which WILL be cheaper, and Verzion keeps telling us that we don't use nearly enough data to keep the unlimited plan... and that even their most basic data plan would cover our needs.
But there's something so comforting about the word "unlimited" ...)

 

[Rand]

I routinely wipe and restore my phone about every 4-6 months

everytime pre-wipe The phone is all bogged down and being weird.

everytime after the wipe and restore its like brand new.

I do use my phone alot with many different apps. Sometimes I know right away when a dud app just poo'ed on my phone.

the next day my battery life is -5hours etc.

ended up doing this a few weeks ago.

before wipe the battery life was struggling 14 hours, freezing, phone wouldnt answer when you swiped to answer etc.

now.. good as new. 60% battery left after 12 hours with a couple of those having the screen on. (lg optimus G)

I will say nothing kills the battery like WAZE

but I like it for the navigation hazards/police alerts.

I usually use it plugged in(in the car) and if its an extended time(with screen on) I take off the case or it will get very warm.

of course I have the diztronic case and it removes in about 5s.