iOS 5 is an interesting OS release because it treats the 3GS, now a two-year old device, as almost the same as the iPhone 4 (last year’s model) and the current-gen iPhone 4S. This is an interesting change of pace, since Apple used to treat devices that were over a year old as second-class citizens, […]
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iPhone 3GS Performance on iOS 5

Oct 13th 2011 by

iOS 5 is an interesting OS release because it treats the 3GS, now a two-year old device, as almost the same as the iPhone 4 (last year’s model) and the current-gen iPhone 4S. This is an interesting change of pace, since Apple used to treat devices that were over a year old as second-class citizens, and seemingly arbitrarily restricting features that would otherwise have been awesome to have (think homescreen wallpaper support on the iPhone 3G running iOS 4).

The 3GS is missing location-based alerts in the new Reminders app and a few camera extras (grid lines, exposure and focus lock) (EDIT: Oops, those gridlines are there), but other than that it seems about as capable as the iPhone 4 on iOS 5, which is a refreshing change. I have ignored features like Siri in this article, since the newest generation device must always have some sort of exclusive feature to set it apart.

The thing to talk about then is how the 3GS performs with this latest OS installed. I’ve been using the 3GS with the iOS 5 betas for a good month now and how it will end up running depends a lot on how you use your device (no surprise there). Minimal app users who don’t do that much surfing will probably get by quite well, but I’ve found that switching too frequently between 6–10 apps throughout the day can slow the whole device down.

There have been a few articles of late that insist that you don’t need to purge apps from the multitasking bar to clear RAM (iOS should does this for you), but the fact of the matter is that clearing the 4–8 most recently used apps can definitely help performance. Sluggish keyboards, buttons that simply cannot be pressed, and other minor maladies can be cured by purging a few apps.

It is definitely worth noting that previous-gen devices are getting better and better at running latest-gen software, though. My original iPhone is basically unusuable as a phone on iOS 3.0 due to sluggishness, and while the 3GS may definitely have lost some of its trademark Speediness over the last two major OS updates, it remains usable, and even fun, on iOS 5.

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