As readers of this blog know, I like Apple products. My wife's iPhone is a pleasure to own and use. Extremely useful device.
Throughout the time that she's had her iPhone, I've always updated it with the latest release of its operating system, Apple's "iOS", to get better performance and new features. I've never had a problem with the updates or the update process.
Until now....
I'm posting today to let readers know that the latest update to iOS, which is version 4.3, is a complete piece of crap. The update process (for me) was as easy as always, but from what I read on the Apple user forums that has not been the case for many others. But the trouble doesn't stop there...
Beyond the update process is the real meat of the situation, which is the 4.3 update itself and what it does to the phone.
To that end, I can say that the 4.3 update "broke" our iPhone 3GS. Since updating to 4.3 this weekend, the key internal iPhone apps (Email, Contacts, Settings, etc) have slowed to a crawl. There are giant pauses between scrolls on the screen.....and I mean pauses of 5-10 seconds or more before the 3GS will respond to a swipe of your fingers. This obviously makes the phone quite unusable. It's faster to just do work on the computer.
If you want to see the trouble that you're probably in for if you do this upgrade, check this link on the Apple web site. The forum at that link is filled with people having problems with their iPhone 3GS and 4, and the iPad, after moving to iOS 4.3. Broken connections, crashed phones, lost data, horrible performance, etc.
For now, I would recommend to anyone who happens to read this that you stay with iOS 4.2 until these problems with iOS 4.3 are resolved.
Come on Apple. This update sucks and you've crippled your customers' devices. Get it fixed!
UPDATE on 3/15: Here's a link to a thread on the Apple forum dealing with the problems on the 3GS. There's a rumor going around that Apple has provided some people with info that a 4.3.1 release is already being worked on, but that's just a rumor as far as I know...
UPDATE on 3/18: We've noticed that the battery life on the phone has plunged and it will drain a full charge in a few hours, even when just sitting there untouched. The phone also gets quite warm when in a pocket or purse, something that never used to happen before.
UPDATE on 3/20: Well, as quickly as the problems appeared after the iOS upgrade to 4.3 on my iPhone 3GS, the problems disappeared. Yes. All problems are gone. If I didn't know better, I would say that Apple pushed out a secret fix to iOS 4.3 that suddenly fixed my phone but that's highly unlikely (if not impossible). Instead, a member on the Apple forum posted a seed of an idea that might have caused the problem. Since the battery was acting so strange, he suggested that perhaps the batter management subsystem somehow got corrupted during the update process on my phone (which has not been unheard of in the past with iOS upgrades). This could probably explain some of the strange behaviors that we were seeing, but in any event, there's something wrong with the 4.3 upgrade if it could even cause this problem in the first place. Knock on wood, my phone is now working fine with iOS 4.3 in place, however a lot of people on the Apple forums are still having problems so I would still recommend staying away from this until a cleaned up iOS 4.3.1 is released.....
UPDATE on 4/14/11: I recently purchased a new iPhone 4 that has iOS 4.3 on it already, and the phone is running fine. It has none of the problems mentioned above. I have not updated to 4.3.1 because I don't have a reason to on either one of our iPhones, and I don't want to risk it. So, for now, we have two functioning iPhones on 4.3. Seeing as how I just bought a new iPhone 4 with iOS 4.3 on it and it's running fine, and the problems with my wife's 3GS seem to have completely cleared up, it's really making me wonder what's going on. My sneaking suspicion is that the 4.3 and 4.3.1 updates themselves might actually be OK, but instead it might be the update process itself that's causing a lot of strange problems. Many people are complaining that things are going wrong during the process, and those errors and problems might be corrupting the phone somehow. Just my guess...
Had the 4.3.1 update and its still crap!
ReplyDeleteSeeing as how I just bought a new iPhone 4 with iOS 4.3 on it and it's running fine, and the problems with my wife's 3GS seem to have completely cleared up, it's really making me wonder what's going on.
ReplyDeleteMy sneaking suspicion is that the 4.3 and 4.3.1 updates themselves might actually be OK, but instead it might be the update process itself that's causing a lot of strange problems. Many, many people are complaining that things are going wrong during the process, and those errors and problems might be corrupting the phone somehow. Just my guess...