Back story: About 2-years ago I switched providers (from Bell to Rogers), so that I can get the iPhone 3G. I love it, but there are some downfalls to it. First would be the lack of video recording without any add-on apps. The second would be the basic capability that most phones have – voice recognition. My old Samsung A900 even had that.
So when iOS4 was released a few weeks back I did the upgrade right away. I enjoy testing out the latest hardware and software, so I figured what they heck… why not?
Within 2 hours I had it loaded, and all my music and apps synchronized back on to it.
I immediately set up folders for my apps. For the past year I’ve had my “screens” setup so that all my apps were arranged logically. I had a screen for navigation/car items, a screen for utilities, a screen for social media, two screens for games, and a screen for web links. So setting up the folders was great for me, because now I don’t have to flick through all the screens to get to the last one. I have all my folders on one screen.
I then realized that my camera now has a zoom function. Great!
That’s pretty much where the good ends.
Within 10-minutes of using the phone, I had at least 5 apps crash and quit on me. And yes, that even includes the Maps app and App store apps that Apple ships with the os and phone.
So I shut down the phone, boot it back up, and the same problems persist. So I load up iTunes, and make sure I have the latest version of the apps. Sure enough there are a few that have updates, and those say iOS4 tested. Wonderful. I load those on, and they work well, but the App Store app still crashes intermittantly.
The following days and weeks – up until now – have had many app updates. I would imagine that nearly all the apps loaded on my phone are now updated. There are a few that aren’t, like iFuel Lite, but I would imagine the developers are working on that – at least I’m hoping they are.
So what’s my real gripe?
I’m annoyed at how slow and laggy the phone seems now. It’s just chugging along.
This past weekend, I was at the Toronto Eaton Centre, and I figured why not go in to the Apple Store and chat with a “genius”.
I make an appointment on their computer system, and wait about an hour.
They hook my phone up to their computer, and within a minute or two he tells me that the problem is with some of the apps. He says there are 8 apps that have “bad data” on the phone. I ask him if he can write them down for me so I can uninstall the apps and reload them. He tells me that what I need to do is restore the phone software, and set it up as a new phone. Then go in to the app store on the phone, and download all the apps again through the phone – not through iTunes.
He said that just wiping the app doesn’t remove the data files and preference files. For all I know, the problem lies in the apps that I don’t even have on the phone any more.
I thought that once you deleted an app from the phone, all the prefs would get wiped out with it. I’ve had experience where I decided to delete an app, and then a few days later load it back on, and I needed to setup all the preferences and settings again.
Anyways, I’m wondering if anyone knows what app Apple uses to diagnose iPhones? All I could find is the “secret” iPhone Configuration Utility on the Apple site. I have yet to run it, but I doubt that’s what they used.
I’m wondering if I should even bother restoring, since the rumor is that the iPhone 4 will be hitting the Canadian market on July 23, 2010, and I just so happen to have that day booked off work… so I think I might attempt to get one on launch day.
🙂