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iOS 5 on iPhone 3GS: First Impressions and Performance

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Yesterday’s upgrade to iOS 5 on my iPhone 3GS was a rough experience for me but not for the reason that I was expecting. I went into it thinking that because I had a two year old iPhone model, I would have all sorts of issues with an operating system that Apple promised would be its best yet. My fears were based on the past experiences of friends who installed iOS 4 on their iPhone 3G.

If you recall, iOS 4, at least for a lot of owners, made the iPhone 3G sluggish to the point where it was virtually unusable. I figured that iOS 5 would be a similar experience on my iPhone 3GS.

iOS 5 for iPhone 3GSAfter six hours, and countless ‘Error 3200’s, I got the operating system installed. I gulped, pushed the button indicating that I was ready to upgrade my device and prepared myself for disappointment.

With everything set up – iCloud, Find My iPhone, etc – I swiped to the home screen for the first time and began poking around, putting some of the new features to the test and looking around to see what, if anything, was missing.

I’m about 13 hours into my experience with iOS 5 on my iPhone 3GS and I couldn’t be happier. iOS 5 works great. It’s snappy, apps load up as normal, battery life remains the same from what I can tell, and I can’t find any features missing besides some of the camera options that will be afforded to iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S users.

Siri, of course, isn’t here either.

But what is here is great and far and away better than iOS 4 which was a great operating system in of itself.

Now, again, I am only 13 hours into my experience so it’s possible that over time, iOS 5 could end up letting me down, but so far so good.

I’ve had a lot of people write in to express their fears about installing iOS 5 so hopefully my experience will convince you to give it a go, if you haven’t already.

And for those of you that already have, how is iOS 5 treating the rest of you with an iPhone 3GS? Or am I the only person (definitely the only tech blogger) on earth still rocking one of these?

137 Comments

137 Comments

  1. Timbo

    10/13/2011 at 10:52 am

    I upgreaded my iphone last night to iOS 5…went to bed happy and at 100% battery life.  When I woke up my phone was off and completely drained.  I can just about watch my battery life godown like a timer.  Any advise?

    • Kutub

      10/13/2011 at 5:32 pm

      I had the same problem. After playing around with the system, I have identified what I believe to be a temporary fix, until Apple posts an update. If you turn of both 3G and Cellular Data in the Network section of Settings. Hope that helps

    • Dan Czarnecki

      10/13/2011 at 7:47 pm

      I suggest that you have your auto-brightness turned on, and don’t have any data like email and other things being pushed in the background.  With those settings, as well as some occasional browsing, playing of games, and listening to music, I can easily pull off 2-3 days on a charge.

    • ElVox

      10/13/2011 at 10:45 pm

      This happens to my 4 once in a while…I found a fix a while back somewhere in apple’s support forums…delete all your email accounts (they all are imap, right? so no data loss), reboot and then add them again…my theory of why this works is that once in a while, the imap connection gets stuck and the network stuff stays on, eating battery fast.

      • funnyduddde

        11/23/2011 at 12:48 am

        Becuz the iphone 4gs is the only one with the apple ios 5 CHIP we have softwear no chip

    • Broadwayland

      10/14/2011 at 1:41 pm

      why no siri

      • Chris_ababa

        10/15/2011 at 3:22 pm

        takes too much CPU to run without dual core

        • Grifter2420

          10/15/2011 at 6:33 pm

          Wrong.  siri used to be a downloadable app from the app store.
          No siri because apple wants you to buy the 4S.  Maybe after it finishes the beta stage it will be available but I doubt that.

      • Derf

        10/17/2011 at 5:35 pm

        Siri is a marketing gimmick. no CPU needed – see similar apps that run on 3Gs

        Siri 3.0 – pre buy-out by Apple (now unsupported)
        Dragon Dictation
        Dragon Go
        Vlingo

        If you want Siri-likeness, try Vlingo.

        • Anonymous

          11/09/2011 at 1:31 am

          can u help me in upgrading my iphone 3gs into ios5? I done with my upgrade but i cant on my iphone yet. it show until intunes connected to my pc. n its not connected with internet or lan line.. =(

    • Tundoan

      10/15/2011 at 8:26 am

      As you just upgraded to a new os, the phone will need to re-index all your contents for the spotlight search feature. This takes place in the background and I am not sure how long this will takes before it complete and things return to normal.

    • Zach McGovern

      10/16/2011 at 1:46 pm

      If you check your usage statistics by going to settings>general>usage then look at the time spent on standby vs. the time spend in use and notice they are the same, or very close to being the same then you have a problem.  I experienced this after updating to iOS5.  My phone would drain about 10% in 30 min while on standby.

      I was able to remedy the situation by doing a restore on my phone and setting up as a new phone.  Now my battery life is as good as new.

    • Deanit

      11/03/2011 at 12:16 pm

      I also upgraded and it seemed that there were no problems (aside from battery drain which I think has been cured by some of the recommended fixes); however, I just noticed that the button that used to read “Ipod” has changed to “Music”…when I go there it’s just audio….where can I find my videos?????

      • Ron

        11/03/2011 at 1:37 pm

        There is a new app call Videos. The icon not on my iPhone until after i synced twice. You can search for it and find the app

    • Yul_jones

      11/08/2011 at 8:55 am

      switch icloud off

    • Roopa Singh

      11/08/2011 at 9:22 am

      Turn off ur 3G … This helped me lot … Battery performs incredibly …

  2. Dalchemist

    10/13/2011 at 10:55 am

    same here the features are cool but the battery drain is ridiculous….gonna have to upgrade the phone or get a droid…i was hoping to avoid both but IOS5 and my current phone just aren’t working well together. cant have my phone dying after half a day of nominal usage. But in all honesty friends did warn me it was going to happen like this with my model of iphone.

    • kibbles

      10/15/2011 at 8:19 am

      yes, because you won’t run into battery drain on a droid. er, yeah.

    • Me

      10/20/2011 at 7:22 pm

      dude battery life is so much better now that i can see everything on my lock screen. no need to unlock phone, open app…

    • Pzzmp22

      03/06/2012 at 8:22 am

      Wel u guys need to make sure ur closing apps after u use them!! That will definitely drain ur battery slowy cuz it’s taking ur battery power if u leave them running! For ex. If u go to “photos” to look at some of ur pics, u have to close that app when ur done ! If not it keeps running!!

  3. Megan

    10/13/2011 at 11:07 am

    I have seen no issues with battery drain, used it all evening and battery usage was perfectly normal. Super fast on safari, great new features–I feel like my phone has been given a new life! This will certainly tide me over till my contract is up in Nov 2012. Oh, I charged my 3GS last night to 100% and when I woke up this morning it was at 97%. I don’t have an explanation for the difference in battery life experiences that the other posters mentioned.

    • Timbo

      10/13/2011 at 11:16 am

      Did you use the new iphone or back up version of restoring the iphone?

      • Megan

        10/13/2011 at 12:07 pm

        Backup version, it’s been 24 hrs now. My phone is a year old and is used fairly heavily, and nothing has seemed out of the ordinary battery wise.

  4. Smallvillesf

    10/13/2011 at 11:10 am

    Hey Guys!  So far so good for me.  It did take a while.  About 1/2 this morning.  I tried last night but had to download the updates on my new iMac first (Lion Recovery and Security update 888mb).  This morning I updated my 3GS to iOS5 and so far so good.  Wondering though…my “Messages” app didn’t turn into “iMessages”. 

    • Jessica Salcido09

      10/13/2011 at 12:43 pm

      The person you are texting has to have the iOS5 software as well or else it will be just regular text messages. Hope this helps!

      • Dan Czarnecki

        10/13/2011 at 4:21 pm

        I updated to the GM of iOS 5 last week, and the “Messages” name stays.  The only place you will actually see the iMessage name is when you’re composing a message to someone else that also has iOS 5 and has the iMessage feature enabled.

  5. Mike

    10/13/2011 at 11:10 am

    Could the battery drain be the work be done to copy data to iCloud?   I didn’t setup iCloud on my 3GS and haven’t noticed any battery drain.

    • Bitter Witch

      10/13/2011 at 12:27 pm

      Hmm.  Probably.  And of course the fact that when you have the weather widget in the notifications panel it turns on location services every time, which has been known to drain the battery.

      • Dan Czarnecki

        10/13/2011 at 7:50 pm

        Actually, the location services for the weather widget only turn on when you open the notification center and you’re in a different location.  With that in mind, along with all of my other settings, I still easily get 2-3 days on a charge with iOS 5 on my iPhone 4.

  6. Hutington

    10/13/2011 at 11:17 am

    My biggest disappointment : Location based reminder is not an option for 3gs (supported for 4 and above).

    • NoDerf

      10/17/2011 at 5:33 pm

      use Pocket Informant (free) – app store.

      • Goofball

        01/05/2012 at 5:46 pm

        $12.99, not free.

  7. Mb

    10/13/2011 at 11:27 am

    since i have downloaded iOS5 ive had no texts through what so ever and my imessages arent activating? any suggestions?

    • Dan

      10/13/2011 at 5:49 pm

      After I updated I wasn’t getting any texts either. I sent one off and received a message that my mms box was full and I needed to delete my box……. I had text messages from 2008!!! I would estimate more then 10,000. I deleted about two thirds of these and all of a sudden my iPhone was blowing up with all the new messages. So apparently, with the software update, there is a cap on your memory for text messages. Try deleting yours and see what happens. 

  8. Laura

    10/13/2011 at 11:27 am

    ok can anybody help me with an issue i was getting ready to update my phone when i noticed that i had several missed calls, my phone was set to silent yday, but i later turn the sound back on only to find out this am that it is still in silent mode i have tried several times to set it back without any success as of thus far, i powered it off after changing the settings, i even reset all of my settings back to default and nope no luck still in silent mode… can someone please help me with this issue i have the iphone3

    • Neil

      10/14/2011 at 9:55 am

      You accidentally turned off your ringer with the switch button located  just above the volume control buttons.  Just make sure it is aligned with the above buttons and not in the down position.

  9. Anonymous

    10/13/2011 at 11:34 am

    Also disappointed about lack of location-based reminders, but as far as the battery I am doing a little better than normal.  Charged overnight and has been subjected to a little higher than normal use today as I try to learn the new bits — and in a little over 6 hours I have used just 26% of the battery.)  — I monitor 11 email accounts from the phone, so I have never gotten great battery life — in fact I replaced the original battery a few months ago because it was no longer able to last more than about 12 hours.

    In just about 24 hours with iOS5 on a 3GS, I have to say it seems to be a solid upgrade — I do see some performance improvements in responsiveness and in Safari — but on the 3GS I don’t yet have any feeling that it is a “must-have” upgrade. (However, I am still using MobileMe so the iCloud thing may put it over the top with others.)

  10. Mrpica

    10/13/2011 at 11:58 am

    Battery life is worse with iOS5 than with iOS4 on my 3GS (from 100% at 6:30am to 20% by 11:30am,  when typically by 5:30 pm I’d still have 50% under iOS4). I have not been doing anything differently under iOS5 other than 2 iMessages. But I’ve had no phone calls and have not done any web searches even. Maybe the iCloud (which I migrated to) is the culprit?

    • Unknown

      10/20/2011 at 5:08 am

      apparently it is iCloud, i’ve just been reading up on it and a few people have said it

  11. Itwouldgoboom

    10/13/2011 at 12:00 pm

    Hello! i have a 3rd gen ipod touch with ios5, and i mst say that everything went perfectly. since the update no apps crashed (not that they did before), the new notification system is great, and i love the fact that (AT LAST!!) i can remove songs from my ipod without sync.

  12. Starlite

    10/13/2011 at 12:01 pm

    Since i upgraded last night i notice my Emoji isnt working in any of my texts to people that havent upgraded thier 3gs or 4 yet. Anyone else with this problem?

    • Bill

      10/13/2011 at 10:41 pm

      There’s an Emoji keyboard that you can enable under General>Keyboard in the Settings app. I don’t know what it’ll do for non-iOS 5 users, but it should bring your emoji back.

  13. Ronald van Atten

    10/13/2011 at 12:05 pm

    How can i update 3gs without losing data? If i update it says it will delete all app data, when i say to iTunes to sync all apps, it says it will overwrite all apps on the phone…. i just want to save all my phone apps and update…..

    • Jeff

      10/13/2011 at 3:26 pm

      When you begin the process, it creates a backup. When you restore, it should restore from the just created backup. I had no issues.

  14. Jla18

    10/13/2011 at 12:12 pm

    I downloaded the update last night, updated my 3gs to the new firmware but during the resorethere was an error and all my data in my phone was deleted. I tried restoring from a back up but apparently they are corrupted or non existant. I figured that I would just start over again but now while trying to sync with my computer the sync is stuck on backing up iPhone. The progress bar has not moved. And has only gone like 15% of the bar. Any suggestions?

    • Brittlea325

      10/19/2011 at 3:49 pm

      That happened to me. and now I can’t get my apps to load back up on my 3GS. Help? :(

  15. Zach Carey

    10/13/2011 at 12:31 pm

    I had no problems with the download and I have not seen any battery drain problems, and it could be what mike said because I too did not setup the icloud data copying.

  16. Knlmagic

    10/13/2011 at 1:21 pm

    Started my 3GS update to iOS5 yesterday at 10:04AM (Had been hitting Check for Updates since 10 :)), did not bother looking at my phone for a while. Ever so often noticed it turning on/off, but did not pay much attention. 

    At 11 when I did get some time, I noticed that the phone was done. Slid my way in, configured iCloud and anything else I was prompted to. When online to the iCloud, checked out the features there, located my phone etc. And then got out.

    My Contacts were missing. I.e. I could not see any of them. Noticed though that my call history + vm still showed my contacts names etc, but the main contact list was empty. Checked on the iCloud and noted that they were there.

    Back in my phone, I went in and turned iCloud sync off for contacts, waited a min and then turned it back on. Forgot about it for a while (maybe a couple of mins). Went back into the phone and my contacts were back. Yay.

    Been using it and charging it as usual, no issued on battery life. OS feel faster, apps load quicker (I think) and so far am loving it.

    4S is on-route, :D Cant wait !!!

    • Jboyd70

      10/15/2011 at 11:00 am

      Thanks, had the same problem with my contacts but sorted it by following your instructions.

    • Popsnhops

      11/01/2011 at 7:18 pm

      Thank you, I’m so glad I found your comment!! Updated today and exactly the same thing happened! Word for word! And I haven’t been able to find anyone else with the same problem :-)

  17. Ankit Sharma

    10/13/2011 at 1:26 pm

    OMFG! if thats a screenshot of the notification dropdown, then it exactly resembles Baldoz ROM android gingerbread 2.3.4 i flashed on my Galaxy S. Hahah

  18. Jerry

    10/13/2011 at 1:49 pm

    As an older adult with less than perfect eyesight, I noticed everything is smaller…smaller icons…smaller text.

    • Todd McCann

      10/13/2011 at 2:14 pm

      Oh boy. I hadn’t thought of that. I guess they’re designing the new iOS with the retina screen in mind. I’ve still got a 3GS, so that might be a bad thing.

  19. Autozcape

    10/13/2011 at 1:53 pm

    My upgrade has gone seamlessly

  20. Todd McCann

    10/13/2011 at 2:16 pm

    I’ve been wondering this exact thing. Looks like the results are hit or miss. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?

  21. jonjo

    10/13/2011 at 2:26 pm

    All 3GS users experiencing battery issues:

    1.  Dont sign into your iCloud account through your phone – if you have.. then ‘delete the account’ from the phone – this is the biggest battery hog.

    2.  Turn off any unnecessary notifications i.e ‘weather’, ‘find my iphone’, games, ‘map location’, ‘calendar notifications’ etc.

    3.  Kill off apps constantly.

    From doing the above my battery has dramatically improved in the last hour.. It’s only gone down 3% so far which is pretty normal.

    Today I had to recharge my phone fully to 100% 4 times whilst at work (hardly using my phone at all) – hopefully this will be a permanent fix.

    I think that older 3GS models that have been worn out are suffering from the sophisticated ios5’s demands.

     

    • mcsf83

      10/14/2011 at 7:16 am

      no problems for me :) 3gs works just fine. no batterry problems!

    • Alexis Sanghera

      10/14/2011 at 10:12 am

      Hi there, having exactly the same problem with battery due to iCloud… how do you ‘delete the account’ from the 3GS? Thanks for the info

  22. Brittney Cavallari

    10/13/2011 at 3:20 pm

    I’m excited to try it out now.

  23. Steve

    10/13/2011 at 3:36 pm

    Just a thought, is maybe some of the battery drain because the upgrade reset some options, eg location services, and you need to go and turn the battery-hogs back off again?
    I’ve got a 3GS and upgrading tonight so I’ll come back and post mine too after I’ve done it.

  24. Pkhan140

    10/13/2011 at 3:42 pm

    yeah it has been a day I am using iOS 5 on my 3GS. Great! But disappointed about the cam, where is Zoom in Zoom out option and where is the feature that photo can be taken while the phone is locked and pass code protected !!

    • Pulak

      10/13/2011 at 4:12 pm

      The zoom in and zoom out option is built in, you have to use your fingers to “pinch to zoom” like in Safari :)

      And as for the camera lock screen, double tap your home button while at lockscreen, then you will see the camera icon, and then tap that icon to launch.

      Hope this helps man! Enjoy!

      • Arthur Dent

        10/13/2011 at 5:23 pm

        I assume the double tap at the lockscreen iPod controls are now gone?

        • Mcashworth

          10/13/2011 at 5:53 pm

          Nope. Still there. You will see both the iPod and camera controls.

  25. el_morgan

    10/13/2011 at 3:48 pm

    I restored my iPhone, set it up as a new phone, then installed iOS5. I have put 2000 songs back on, and about 10 applications (the only ones I ACTUALLY use). So far so good! I have not noticed too much battery difference. 3GS 16gig.

    I’m glad I kept this phone for another year as it feels new again – although it’s not quite the jump that iOS3 to iOS4 was.

    • Summerstaff

      10/14/2011 at 7:01 am

      I agree – feels like a new phone, which is fun. I’ve been using the iOS 5 on my 32GB 3GS for a little over a week now and unless I’m paranoid – which could be the case – I do think my battery it draining faster than normal. I noticed that all my location services were turned back on after I updated, so I had to fix those and then I streamlined my notifications, too, so we’ll see how that works.

      Basically, yesterday I charged to 100% in the morning and used it minimally yesterday – not much email or texting and no web browsing. Just got some updates like Facebook, ESPN for the Rangers game, stuff like that (and I love the new Notifications stuff), anyway got up this morning and the phone was down to 11%?!!! Not sure what I’m doing wrong. If you aren’t having battery troubles, can anyone give me some advice?

  26. B_garrett

    10/13/2011 at 4:45 pm

    Everything went fine at first but now the camera freezes up and photos are not available, rebooted and resynced to no avail.

  27. Ryan Newton

    10/13/2011 at 6:19 pm

    I realized that right off the bat there were no location based reminders and many other features. Also I used to have the 3G and I updated it to ios4 and it made my phone unusable so I found a way to undo the update and go with the old software. I was also weary that that would happen to this phone.

  28. B_garrett

    10/13/2011 at 6:58 pm

    3GS camera is locked up, can’t see photo albums, “About” screen says I have 2,147,483,647 photos. I must be on everybody’s photo-stream! :)

  29. Knoway

    10/13/2011 at 7:48 pm

    What is the typical time it takes for the upgrade to iOS5?  I have an iphone 3GS

    • Anonymous

      10/14/2011 at 2:07 am

      It took me about 45 minutes, but then had to reorganize my screens, and add back all my music files.  So, 45 minutes to 2 hours….No really scary problems like error codes.  I am somewhat disappointed that Apple didn’t mention that many of the features aren’t supported on the 3GS.

  30. Mauler77

    10/13/2011 at 11:48 pm

    I seem to be having keyboard issues where I press a letter from the bottom row and it registers a spacebar input. very noticeable at the start of words so the iPhone thinks I’ve double tapped spacebar and a full stop appears. annoying. apart from that it’s just the new fb app that seems to be glitchy. I can seldom scroll the page on my profile screen. news feed is fine.

    • Juliet

      10/14/2011 at 3:39 am

      That is a FB glitch.  Been happening to me with iOS 4 too.

  31. Ozair_hminhas

    10/14/2011 at 1:20 am

    i tried to activate my phone after upgrading to ios5 but it says invalid sim . i tried another one but nothing helped WHAT DO I DO

  32. Steve

    10/14/2011 at 2:02 am

    Hi, all good here. Upgraded and iPad 1 and iPhone 3GS. No performance issues and no battery issues. It actually seems quite zippy.
    And Knoway, it takes about an hour (or more, according to a message at the start of the process). Took an hour for each device for me, with 16 g data on each device.
    It seems to completely rebuild the device, which is why it takes so long (and probably why it feels zippy afterwards)

  33. Anonymous

    10/14/2011 at 2:05 am

    I didn’t notice any difference in the icons at all.  If they were sized for the retina display, they would be 4 times as large on the 3GS.

  34. Anonymous

    10/14/2011 at 7:05 am

    I will try updating tonight, I’m owrried about icloud as I still run leopard.  I’l likely ignore icloud as long as I can.

  35. Derekellison58

    10/14/2011 at 11:01 am

    i keep getting an error when i try to download it on itunes. somebody help!

  36. Andrew McDonald

    10/14/2011 at 3:50 pm

    I’ve got the dreaded battery drain on my iPhone 4 and iOS 5. To be clear, before the upgrade, I had location services ON, email accounts were set to PUSH, and my typical battery life was 24hrs on a charge. 

    After the update, same settings, no iCloud account, battery life is 8hrs. I get that most people are very happy, but I feel like I took a really great device and essentially turned it to a piece of crap with the iOS 5 upgrade, courtesy of Apple. Just saying.

  37. Info

    10/14/2011 at 4:21 pm

    Just upgraded to os5 on my 3GS but can’t seem to get few things working. I thought that I would be able to open the camera from the lock screen but so far not managed to get the camera icon to appear on my lock screen. Also with the new notification thing I was expecting to see notifications appear for new emails etc even when phone locked but again no joy so far!! Any pointers on these would be great thanks

    • Anonymous

      10/16/2011 at 3:01 pm

      Double tap the home button for the camera button, and emails aren’t set by default to go onto the home screen.  You have to enable it in Settings->Notification->Mail.  It should show in the Not In Notification Center list.

  38. Andy Lexusaudio

    10/14/2011 at 7:47 pm

    I dont knowwhy everytime the download is 99 percent it tells methat i have internet problem, pls help

  39. Andy Lexusaudio

    10/14/2011 at 7:49 pm

    Im using a 3gs phone here in philippines

  40. Anonymous

    10/14/2011 at 7:55 pm

    I keep trying to update, but just keep getting the “device isn’t eligible for the build” error, even after editing the hosts file and doing things other sites said would work. :(

  41. Louisefawcett

    10/14/2011 at 8:29 pm

    Despite me doing a sync and backup before my upgrade, when I went to ios 5 I lost all of my apps (both on the phone and in iTunes). Then my battery died in 9.5 hours the first full day on ios 5. Today was the 2nd day and I lost 6% battery the first hour off the charger, with nothing running, no location services, no iCloud, nothing running. My 3GS is more sluggish now too.

    I will be rolling back to the old iOS because iOS 5 is just not that needed nor friendly for my 3GS. Sorry Apple, but come March, you’ve lost me to an Android.

  42. disappointed

    10/14/2011 at 9:39 pm

    does anyone elses phone keep showing the apple logo then goes to the lock screen but freezes then the screen goes blank mine keeps doing this 

    • Ryan

      10/15/2011 at 4:38 am

      YES! My 3GS has been crashing and restarting itself 4-5 times a day (while I’m using it) since upgrading – so not impressed at all. Is this Apples cunning plan to make it almost work but make me want/need to upgrade phone?? I’m hoping for a soon to be released ios5 update to fix this glitch in the matrix

  43. Deepak Tibrewal

    10/14/2011 at 10:08 pm

    The iOS 5 just stops downloading at various points. If i say resume, it starts from scratch again. I have iTunes 10.5 and use Mac. 
    Please suggest what to do?
    Thanks.

  44. Me

    10/14/2011 at 11:19 pm

    Thank you. Will upgrade now!

  45. Garret

    10/15/2011 at 12:22 pm

    Just upgraded my 3gs as well… erased all my contacts and lags like no other… suggestions… 

    • Eferrier

      10/15/2011 at 1:44 pm

      My 3GS was draining the battery incredibly fast when I upgraded. I disconnected iCloud, turned off notifications, closed all apps and it still didn’t help. I noticed that my emails were taking a long time to load when selected, so I suspected there was something wrong there. I deleted all my email accounts and then recreated them and now my battery is performing well. I don’t know whether that specifically did it or whether it is just coincidence …

  46. HoumamZ

    10/15/2011 at 2:04 pm

    after upgrading my iPhone 4 to OS 5 the auto-brightness feature is not working that good, the sensor works well when i turn on lights but it stays the same when i turn off lights… in short it doesn’t dim unless i turn off the screen and switch it on again.

  47. Ron

    10/15/2011 at 5:56 pm

    After updating, enter my passcode to unlock the screen, it hangs for a second before the main screen appears. Then I go to the new music icon, get the message that the videos have move to videos app. I can use the search app to find the video app. I cannot find the icon on any screen.

  48. Avsrule1903

    10/16/2011 at 7:01 am

    I’m still using a 32gb 3GS but mine is jailbroken to 4.1.2. Not sure upgrading would help me minus a slight speed increase

  49. BGB VCBC

    10/16/2011 at 12:30 pm

    Upgrade was seamless. Seems to work fine, except WifiTrak no longer works. Apple stopped all these wifi locater apps but up until now WifiTrak still worked like  charm – now it will not start up.

    But I like ios 5 so far

  50. Jennifer

    10/16/2011 at 1:11 pm

    I upgraded yesterday and, so far, I’ve noticed I’ve lost the zoom in feature on the camera on my iPhone 3G.  It was there before.  I also lost my purchased ringtones.  Absolutely no idea where they’ve gone.

    • Emoops

      10/16/2011 at 2:06 pm

      if you transferred purchase on iTunes you can get them back from there. Oh and you can use your ringtones you purchase as text notifications on iOS 5 :D

      • Jennifer

        10/16/2011 at 5:41 pm

        I did transfer the ringtones to iTunes and they are still showing as being on my phone on iTunes.  Where exactly they are is anybody’s guess.

  51. Emoops

    10/16/2011 at 2:03 pm

    I don’t if anybody noticed but for me iPhone 3G with iOS 5 charges really quickly :D

  52. Karenlawon22

    10/16/2011 at 2:46 pm

    My upgrade is taking forever! It is moving so slow. Gt really quickly to about 4 millimetres before the end but has been moving spool slowly for the past 6 hours on the ‘backing up iphone’ screen. This is the 4th time I have attempted this. I had to cancel it the 3 past times as I needed to go out with a phone! Should it take this long? Why won’t it get any further? I have a 3GS with 9gb on it.
    Thank you for your help.

  53. Raider Bubba

    10/16/2011 at 11:58 pm

    Suddenly I’m missing (as in not receiving alerts or rings for) phone calls and texts. My wife was working late and needed me to meet her to walk her to her car. No ring no alerts nothing. She was ticked. I was sent a reply to an early morning text that I never received and almost lost out on an afternoon w/ friends. One friend called me and the call went straight to voicemail. This has all happened since I upgraded on Thursday. If I miss another call I will have to revert back.

  54. Di

    10/17/2011 at 5:33 am

    Anyone had a problem scrolling on facebook page, Im using iphone 3gs, since upgrading to ios5 i can’t scroll on friend fb pages (can on my own though??) any suggestion

    • Tman

      10/17/2011 at 3:14 pm

      I have not upgraded to ios5 yet, still thinking about.  But I did upgrade my FB app recently and noticed that problem as well, even searched on it a bit.  I think that is a FB problem and not related to ios5/ios4 specific.

  55. Baby Gem

    10/18/2011 at 10:01 am

    I did the same but I went to apple shop to update and it made my phone slower and worsen than befor and they only thing work what didn’t work befor is the emails

  56. Ford Laura

    10/18/2011 at 4:04 pm

    I thought my upgrade went well but since having IOS5 and iCloud on my year old 3GS I can’t get into Twitter, Facebook, Ping or any of my games – am I missing something??

    • Dmcarr

      10/19/2011 at 7:34 am

      Since my upgrade I can only get on to fb and twitter if my location is switched on.
      My battery usage is ok after following the usual suggestion. Hope the location thing helps. Diane
       

  57. Anonymous

    10/18/2011 at 6:55 pm

    i’m tethered jailbreaking ios 5.0 right now… i’m looking forward to the release of untethered jb

  58. Brittlea325

    10/19/2011 at 3:57 pm

    This might be a silly question, but how do I get my apps back onto my iPhone 3GS?! They’re still in my iTunes on my computer, but not on my phone. All my contacts, music, photos, videos, messages, emails, etc are still there. Why won’t my apps go back on there? The upgrade went fine (I thought)…

    • Brittlea325

      10/19/2011 at 4:05 pm

      nevermind, I fixed it (:

  59. Raymond

    10/20/2011 at 2:05 pm

    It’s made everything load Immensely slower. Even typing at times is a chore. I would like to revert back to 4. My battery life though has increased considerably. I suspect the OS is underclocking my phone.

    • Guest

      10/30/2011 at 11:49 am

      Ditto.

  60. Yeahbuddy

    10/20/2011 at 7:32 pm

    i noticed no scrollbar for songs/podcasts to slide forward or reverse, is this no longer possible?

    • skate

      10/22/2011 at 9:34 am

      To see the scrollbar, tap ONCE on the album artwork.
      To see the titles of album songs, tap TWICE on the album artwork.

  61. Lanny Wilkerson

    10/21/2011 at 11:58 am

    None of my purchased apps work – they crash before they open. Any suggestions?

  62. Terterryterter

    10/24/2011 at 5:22 am

    I am online here looking for an answer for the Siri app you mentioned in your post. I have it backed up on my PC but it doesn’t want to reinstall. Anyway, that’s aside the subject.

    After 1 week My iPhone 3GS is working pretty well. Not as snappy as yours. I have had 5 issues with low memory. I have submitted them to Apple and hope they have something positive to tell me. I do multitask a lot but no more than I did before IOS5. Otherwise I am happy with the new features and overall performance. I would recomment upgrading to IOS5.

  63. Guest

    10/27/2011 at 8:21 pm

    iOS 5 fucked over my 3GS I can’t use it anymore my service and wifi cut out and it’s laggy I installed it a week ago an yesterday it started this so idk

  64. Mlsutt5

    10/28/2011 at 5:49 am

    The only problem I’ve had so far is my ringtones wre deleted off my phone. They still show on my computer in iTunes but I can’t get them back on my phone. Any suggestions?

  65. Sasa

    10/28/2011 at 6:24 pm

    Updated and lost all my messages! Contacts and photos still there, although no real consolation. Apps won’t install fully either. Disappointed. Can’t restore to previous version as Apple won’t verify. Any suggestions?

  66. John caley

    10/29/2011 at 12:14 pm

    Hell Na the 3GS is Awsome and iOS 5 has been great for me to

  67. Sarahfraser2000

    10/30/2011 at 3:40 am

    Good morning
     have upgraded without a glitch but when i am in chat rooms ppl can no longer see my emoji?

    any suggestions?

  68. Greg

    10/30/2011 at 11:25 pm

    I have upgraded a few weeks ago and it has made my phone pretty much unusable. Apps take 10-20 seconds to start, and there are massive pauses all the time when I am using things. Even just when scrolling between pages on the home screen. I have closed all the apps, restarted, everything I can think of. The camera sometimes takes 30 seconds to start. I’m soon frustrated. Is there any way I can fix it?

  69. Giorgio2425

    11/04/2011 at 10:36 pm

    i uploaded to ios 5 last night on my 3gs and now there’s no free space at all for my music photos and videos and it has 8gb listed as other that i don’t know what are they.can someone help please?how can i delete them and free some space.All the rest is perfect i have icloud account off but still resynced several times but nothing.i used to have all apps music video and pics and about 1gb free space and now only the apps and there’s no space left at all.please help me.thanx

  70. Guest

    11/05/2011 at 7:12 pm

    Mine ran up my data. I have AT&T with tethering (4gb) and my phone backed up all of my pics and songs using 3G, now I have a huge phone bill. Thanks apple!

  71. Lraecox

    11/07/2011 at 6:24 am

    I have a 3G s, as well, and just updated last night. Is the whole ‘iMessage’ thing just for iPhone 4, 4s users? I was kinda jazzed about that lol

  72. Derick Bartlett

    11/10/2011 at 11:17 am

    Upgrading to iOS 5 on my 3GS was easy and only took one try although when it was installing i was a little unsure as to if it had really installed because as it was installing the update it was saying that it was restoring my iphone to factory settings and that had me worried till it was finished but now a little over a month later with ios 5 still on my 3GS working perfectly I have one concern and that is for the past two weeks I’ve occasionally been getting an error from my phone saying that the charger i am using is unsupported which makes no sense as it is the original charger that has been working since i bought the phone and it does work for the most part and i never got the error on ios 4.3.5. I just installed the update to 5.0.1 so i’m hoping to not see it as apple is saying that they have fixed battery issues and maybe this is a battery related issue. If not then it is my iphone itself…

  73. text message breakup :(

    11/15/2011 at 11:52 am

    i took the plunge and updated my 3GS. i remember seeing a ‘-50′ error message pop up for a few seconds but the update completed its entire cycle.

    i lost a few things but the thing that mattered most was my text messages… they’re all GONE. is there any chance i can retrieve them and get them back on my phone?

    thanks in advance (and crossing my fingers ’til then).

  74. 6055 Garage

    11/16/2011 at 9:32 pm

    I rather use the ios 4 , coz i just love the jailbreak and whatsoever its trouble free. As for my ipad, yup i had made the upgrade but the best of all the new apps is just the iCloud…. Maybe it still brand new firmware that had tons af bug and neverless problem or issue to solve.

  75. Ldunlap

    11/18/2011 at 2:37 pm

    Unfortunately my experience wasn’t as good as yours. iOS 5 on my 3GS is very slow & sluggish. I get an error saying 309 items have conflicts but it can only bring up 2 (the same 2 every time) then I get an error that it can’t find th rest & I’m. Ery unhappy to lose the zoom option in the camera…what gives? Going backward. Wish I hadn’t upgraded!!

  76. Bkissick2003

    11/21/2011 at 7:47 am

    I made the terrible mistake of installing 5 (and then 5.01) a couple weeks ago. Since then I’ve restored the phone twice just to get working for a while again.  Initially the battery was draining in no time, and taking forever to recharge.  5.01 seemed to fix that.  However, in addition to being sluggish, the phone will over a period of time refuse to run apps, even sytem apps like phone, message, etc. will crash.  Pretty much makes the phone unusable.  I last restored the phone 3 days ago, and this morning once again everything is crashing.

    Apple should make it possible/easy to downgrade the OS due to issues like this.  As it is, I now have a perfectly good phone with software that won’t work.

    Thanks Apple!

    • Bkissick2003

      11/21/2011 at 7:48 am

      Forgot to clarify – I have a 3GS.

  77. Mframe3795

    12/05/2011 at 2:41 pm

    Unlike you, I upgraded me 3GS from the 4. to the 5.0.1 and my battery life went to hell.  I have to charge it 2 or 3 times a day.  Before it would last me 2 or 3 days.  I sure hope 5.1 fixes this.

  78. Dawidameryk

    12/27/2011 at 11:50 am

    hi,

    after upgrade to iOS 5 my text message sound went crazy as well as vibration!
    any ideas? it keeps freezing or is just completely not responding!

  79. Aheroman

    12/30/2011 at 11:32 pm

    I am at the “connect to Itunes phase of the upgrade”. It’s not doing anything at all. Just keeps showing the plug with Itunes logo ? How do I get past this ?

  80. Lightningbolt31

    02/03/2012 at 5:59 pm

    I was reluctant to update my 3GS from iOS 4.3.3 to iOS 5, so I waited until 5.0.1 release. After solving some problems with the restore (wich gave me error 3194) I updated, synced my stuff and apps back and now I couldn’t be more happier: I’m now able to write my mails with bold and italics, and to my surprise the device is faster than ever, and it has even more WIFI range and robustness. Safari is ultra fast, and some apps even load faster. I was afraid to update since the iPhone 3G iOS 4 fiasco, but remember this OS is UNIX, and it shoul run better if it is not overloaded with features. As for iOS 5.0.1, I say: well done Apple!

  81. srod2749s

    03/04/2012 at 10:55 am

    I try to send emoji messages but when i send it everyone just gets a box, any suggestions?

  82. Barahona

    03/17/2012 at 3:35 pm

    After my husband upgraded his 3GS, he can no longer send or receive MMS texts. U can’t either on my iPhone 4. Help appreciated!!

  83. Judy

    05/14/2012 at 2:39 pm

    I lost my zoom on my iPhone! Can I get it back?

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