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Before I begin, let me just say that I really am an Apple fan boy – I can imagine the nodding gestures – but this time Apple has managed to annoy me big time. What happened? Well, I am an early adopter of the new iOS4 on my iPhone 3G (without the S).
Historically my experience with software updates or upgrades have always been fairly neutral, but never negative – mostly they tend to fix things or add features I had been waiting for for some time.
But this time Apple did something that really contradicts the “improvement experience” I had with their previous software and products. Indeed, not only did my experience not improve, it my entire iPhone product experience got decidedly worse. And by that I literally mean my iPhone lost quality. Why is this? Well here are a few of my observations:
- Reaction of all applications, including core applications like calendar and email slowed down. Even without the multitask functionality (which is included in the iOS for 3GS and 4G) Apple managed to make the applications react much slower than with the old firmware.
- Telephony become a pain. When running any other application, or even on standby, I have to try at least three times before the call gets received.
- Others have reported seeing “dismiss” push messages in front of telephony operations which hinders them in taking calls.
- The only added functionalities compared with the older firmware are the grouping of apps and the common inbox for all email accounts.
Now, one may well ask oneself, why should this be? What might be the strategy for Apple to upgrade an OS and make the experience worse?
It seems glaringly obvious that the latest iOS is not meant for the iPhone 3G (nor the 2G, for which there is no version anyhow). It was only designed with the 3GS and 4G in mind, to leverage computing power.
While that is fine and while it makes perfect sense to promote the advantages of the newer devices, it is still bad manners to slow a two year old device down to such an extent as to almost force the customer into buying a new device.
I had actually considered buying a new iPhone 4G, but Apple destroyed my desire with two facts:
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- Compared with previous models, the only seriously improved functionality on the new iPhone is the better camera (front and back). That is really not good enough, Apple. In terms of innovation Apple starts losing market share big time here, as other OEMs begin innovating and are passing the firm out.
- Punishing users by downgrading to old software and respectively making my old device look even more “slow” is not something I appreciate. I would have rather not had the upgrade if Apple’s software department can’t be bothered to improve my experience.
So what have I done? I’ve turned my iPhone 3G into my iPod – because for listening to music it is still a good device. For the rest of my telephony needs, I am using my Google Nexus One which just received an awesome speed and functionality boost with Android 2.2 (Froyo), proving that it is indeed possible, even with an incremental OS upgrade, to make devices faster and better in every sense.
In terms of innovation, too, I have to tip my hat to Android, with extra Kudos to Google for the new input system “Swype” which makes writing texts and emails up to three times faster.
So, please Apple – and all other OEMs – never forget that we are in a mobile situation and we have only a little time. If you make devices slower it is the absolute wrong direction!
Update: German IT-News golem.de is offering the manual to downgrade to iOS 3.x – it seems to be a very common issue …
http://www.golem.de/1007/76614.html
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You can read more from Torsten on his blog