Apple Should Officially Support iOS 4 Downgrade to 3.1.3

Apple is yet to address alleged problems with iOS 4 on iPhone 3G handsets, while customers continue to rack up complaints on the company’s Discussions forum, where over 1,000 posts can be found in a single thread entitled “Iphone 3G slow after update to IOS4.”


Does iOS 4 really pose problems for old-generation hardware?

According to a July 28 report by Digits, Apple was investigating reports saying iOS 4 was causing problems for users of the iPhone 3G.

An Apple spokesperson reportedly said that the company was aware of these reports and that it was looking into the matter.

To be noted that this doesn’t translate into Apple admitting these issues are real, although it is now obvious iOS 4 doesn’t mix well with old generation hardware.

Numerous iPod touch owners, for example, claim to be experiencing battery drainage issues after upgrading to the new software version.

In July, Softpedia issued two reports entirely dedicated to these symptoms.

iOS 4 Severely Affects iPod touch Battery Life - Post Your Case

Softpedia Readers Speak: iOS 4 Affects Battery Life

Before rolling out the iOS 4 software update, Apple itself went on record saying that several new features would not be compatible with older-generation hardware.

However, by jailbreaking, owners of these devices can, in fact, enable functionality otherwise unsupported by their hardware.

This can be at the heart of some of the complaints we’ve been spotting over at Apple Discussions.


Apple Discussions users are “jailbroken”

While we cannot confirm that jailbreaking under iOS 4 can hinder one’s experience, we can say for sure that many of the users complaining about performance are wielding jailbroken units.

Apple Discussions forum user Hawk_Eye writes: “I've now dug out my old iPhone 2G for comparison and carried out the same jailbreak.”

“Running on 3.1.3 on the iPhone 2G the free memory available is 38MB when using Safari only (plus whatever the JB stuff is using). On my 3G iOS4.0.1 browsing the same site I'm down to 7MB,” he explains.

“There is a serious memory management issue in iOS4 which needs addressing which is probably happening on all versions of the iPhone but not noticed as they have at least twice the amount if ram,” the poster notes.

Hawk_Eye hopes Apple is aware of the issue and that iOS 4.1 will deliver the appropriate fix.

“I found that with 4.0.2 I would see 6-8 megs when using FreeMemory that would then jump up as it was cleared,” a forum user identified as cliff writes.

“I'm seeing over 40 clear now in 3.1.3 without having to do anything,” he shared.

Many similar reports can be found in the respective thread.


Fix needed

Even with the majority of disappointed users being jailbroken, Apple clearly needs to step up and do something.

Thousands of customers have upgraded their perfectly good iPhone 3G to iOS 4 only to make it run slower. This is unacceptable for the Cupertino-based electronics vendor.

Many of the affected customers have confirmed that downgrading back to iOS 3.1.3 solved their problems.

However, Apple doesn’t support downgrading officially, so getting the job done is a little difficult for less savvy users.

Softpedia believes Apple should provide official support for downgrading to an older version of the iOS, as a first step in addressing these complaints.


Update: article updated to remove a reference to Free Memory, a diagnostics utility for iOS devices. Softpedia erroneously noted that, in order to use such apps, users need to jailbreak their device. While this was true a while back, Apple now approves applications that use APIs needed for diagnostics. Credits to reader John for pointing this out in the comments.