Aging iPhones

[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?

 

[Astro14]

Close unused apps by double clicking the home button and swiping up. iOS 7 runs slower...so, if you're still on 6, keep it!

 

[JHZR2]

I can't say I have. I never went to iOS 7 on my 4s because I wanted to keep the standard google maps from 5 and earlier. On my 5s, I can't complain at all, 607 works fine. I never reboot the device unless a software upgrade makes me do so,mb it I do close apps when I haven't used them for a while.

I've never really felt an issue with lifecycle issues with apple products,they run well even when old and with newer sw. Heck, I'm still running a 2008 MBP with mavericks no issues. It's the hardware obsolescence that drives it, like the better cameras and my need for 64 go in my phone, and the USB 3 and much faster handling of. 36 MP photos on my laptop.

 

[chriscreags]

Thanks for the reply!

I've been doing that. I'm stuck with iOS 7 too. I'm wondering if these things begin to slow down with age, just like a PC does..

 

[splinter]

Don't know for certain if that's 'normal' or not, although all of mine eventually became recalcitrant too.
Shutting off auto brightness, location services, unused apps, etc. did reduce the frequency at which hiccups occur.

No issues with the 5S yet.

 

[chriscreags]

I forgot to mention that my brother also has an iPhone as well (same model and older by one month) from Verizon. After talking to him, he said that he has noticed some of the same quirks on his too.

 

[rw19]

Have you done a LTE fluid change on the phone? The OCI is every 10000 minutes of severe talking and every 400,000 minutes of normal talking

 

[LotI]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Apple.

Every update gives you a incremental slowdown so eventually you go buy the latest and greatest. I've dealt with it for almost a decade, before there was an iPhone.

 

[chriscreags]

Originally Posted By: rw19
Have you done a LTE fluid change on the phone? The OCI is every 10000 minutes of severe talking and every 400,000 minutes of normal talking

Haha

No, because I would need to have LTE fluid to begin with! Sprint still hasn't fully rolled out their LTE coverage in my area, it's still only in metro LA.

 

[beast3300]

I seen that iOS 7.1 came out and it fixes some bugs and speed concerns.

 

[michaelluscher]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
Close unused apps by double clicking the home button and swiping up. iOS 7 runs slower...so, if you're still on 6, keep it!


7.1 apparently is IMPROVING performance over 6 and 7.0x on i4's and 4S's

 

[Rolla07]

Cant speak for Apple but all my phones slowed down. My gs2 is slow and sluggish...

 

[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.

 

[SF0059]

Originally Posted By: dparm


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.


Agreed. Do a factory reset & wipe and I'll lay dollars to donuts it will run like a champ.

 

[racer12306]

I had an AT&T 3GS with iOS6 up until last month. It was pretty slow, but on the other hand my personal phone is a Note 2 and until I put Android 4.3 on it, it was fast.

I now have an AT&T 4S with iOS7.1. I just updated to iOS7.1 on Monday and it worked fine on iOS7. Also remember, the 4S does not have a LTE radio, it only gets "4G" not 4GLTE.

I do fully agree with dparm, plug it in, back it up, wipe it, restore it. It's amazing what this will do for the phone. The one problem I ever had with my 3GS was a horrible battery drain (like 1% per minute drain). Apple said to do a backup and restore and it fixed the problem. Doesn't make sense, because you would think it would put the same problem back onto the phone but it doesn't. You will have to log into stuff again, but all the app data will be there.

 

[Astro14]

My 4s was stable and ran well on 7.1, but after 2.5 years, the battery simply wasn't holding up. Perhaps I should have tried the restore first, but Verizon gave me $220 credit on a trade in, and as of yesterday, I have a 5s. I liked the 4s very much and it served me very well.

 

[Hokiefyd]

I've found that the 7.0 upgrade on the 4S phones was really hit-and-miss. The 4S I had really became next to unusable with 7.0. I got really frustrated with it, and moreso because my wife's 4S ran great with it. I can't count how many times I wiped my phone and reset it with no change in operation. My wife upgraded to a 5S and I have her 4S, and it really does run like a top. I don't know why hers runs so much better than mine did.

 

[racer12306]

Not a bad deal for a 2 generations old phone. You can get replacement batteries, granted it isn't the top OEM quality, but it will get more life out of the phone if you aren't ready to buy another.

www.ifixit.com has parts and repair guides for all iDevices as well as many other devices. I bought a battery for my 3GS from there that gave it a boost for another year. Was about $20 iirc.

 

[97tbird]

My 4s had to be replaced (free of cost) because the top power on/off button stopped working. Other than that, works as usual. Wife's original 4s is still going strong. (we got them when they first came out).

That said, I HAVE noticed tiny signs of aging, like an app or two slow to open or a very rare freeze. But those things have happened so rarely, it's negligable. All in all, still a very solid phone, now running iOS 7.1
Battery life was never a problem, and has remained very good through all iOS updates.

Both our phones were unlocked free of charge by Verizon and so easy to put a foreign SIM card when traveling outside US, which is still a big plus, and although I know that 5s is the latest, and has 4G etc, I STILL prefer the form factor of the 4s. It's perfect for our tastes.

Crazy that the 4s is actually already an "older" phone by today's standards...but that's how it is with electronics...

 

[Vikas]

As I reported earlier, I "accidentally" upgraded my i4 to iOS 7 and I did not notice any oddities afterwards apart from the GUI colors.