The iPhone iOS4 came out on Monday June 21st at 10:17 am Pacific Time. And with the release many people jump blindly into the upgrade. Yet there are a few things that you may want to know before upgrading to iOS4.

Apple had the iPhone 4 on mind for the iOS4, they don’t like baggage as much as they proof with the support of the first iPhone, known now as the classic iPhone. The iOS4 will provide multitasking to the iPhone 3GS yet won’t provide it for the iPhone 3G, why is that? the Chip on the 3G will be too slow to run Multitasking. So, we should expect a slower device on the 3GS running applications in multitasking?

• Slow Performance?

After the big upgrade to the iOS3 many 3G owners reported a huge performance hit on iPhone, was not obvious after the upgrade, it came overtime, now many report frustration using  those devices. We should expect the same after the iOS4, even when Apple disabled the multitasking feature.Many 3GS that upgraded to iOS4 report not having any performance hit on the new OS. I own a 3G and my wife has a 3GS, great for comparison! Other people reported an actual faster user experience.

• Battery Life?

The new A4 chip installed in every iPhone 4 from Apple is meant to be really good for battery consumption, we saw that on the iPad, and the new iPhone has a bigger battery. Now the 3G and 3GS had a crappy battery life, now the 3GS is required to keep running in multitasking all the time, I would expect the old chip wasn’t designed to save battery life in a multitasking OS. I already seen my 3G running out of battery faster than before, like that was possible. The new OS4 sucks the battery life noticeable  faster than iOS3 in the 3G and 3GS, I tested both and I believe is worse in the 3GS.

• Backup?

Most users reported problems backing up the data on the upgrade and they lost all their contacts and configuration, so make sure you back up and rename the folder in the computer itself, so cannot be change and then rename it back when you want to restore it after the upgrade.

If you decide to upgrade this is the best way to get ready for it. When opening iTunes, the program should alert you that there is a new version available to download, you are required to install 9.2 for the iOS4, so this should be your first stop.

Now that you got the iTunes up to date, you should connect the iPhone to download the new iOS4, check for updates and select Download and Install, the download is around 293 Mb, so depending on your connection it could take a while.

After installing it, will require you to backup the device, does not matter if you already back it up, will run a full backup for you that, depending of how much data you have, could take hours, yes hours! So be prepare of not using your device for hours.

After the backup, the installation will start, do not disconnect the device and let iTunes take control, should be pretty fast, faster on the 3GS than the 3G.

If you are planning to upgrade your 3G or 3GS to the iPhone 4 when arrived and migrate all the data, I would believe you want to upgrade your phone to iOS4 before arrives in the mail, yet, no real news from Apple about this one.

Question: Have you received your email confirming the iPhone 4 has been shipped?

Cheers

Al

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