iOS 8.1.2 on an iPhone 4s

By Caroline, 21 December, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi. I'm wanting to download the new I s 812 on to my I phone 4s. Before doing so I'd love to hear from as many people as possible as to whether it's the right thing to do. Thanks in anticipation

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Comments

By Liz on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Hi Caroline,

What version of Ios are you currently running?
I think Ios runs 8.1.2 runs more slowly on a 4s. Are there features you are particularly interested in?

Hth,
Liz

By Caroline on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

In reply to by Liz

Hi liz. I'm currently running I s 712 and over the past few weeks I've noticed that everything seems to be slower, there have been times when I haven't received texts/e mails, have been unable to dial out and the phone hasn't rung even though someone was calling me. I only want basic things from my phone e.g texting, phoning, Facebook, e mails etc. maybe I'll have to think about upgrading to a new phone. Thanks for your advice

By Liz on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Hi Caroline,

You're welcome. I upgraded from a 4s to a 6 plus and love it. It eels much slimmer and lighter in my hand. It is more slippery so I highly recommend a case.

Hope someone else chimes in soon,
Liz

By bryan mcglashan on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Hi.

I just upgraded from the for S to the 5S and I found that iOS 8 .1 .2 was almost unusable for me my 4S kept crashing and needed resetting constantly. I don't need to reset the 5S nearly as much it's a lot better

By Mike Freeman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Caroline:

iOS 8.1.2 runs more slowly on a 4S from what I've heard and, in addition, takes up more memory than iOS 7.1.2. For my money, I also don't think enough of the plethora of bugs in the initial release of iOS 8 have been fixed to merit the upgrade from iOS 7.1.2, especially as you can't go back once you've done the upgrade.

Have you turned your iPhone off and on, or, less drastically, turned Airplane Mode off and back on again to reestablish your Internet connection? Have you tried resetting your usage under cellular parameters? Just some things to try before ditching your 4S. Although the iPhone 6 and 6+ are nice, I wouldn't upgrade at this point unless the carrier or Apple Store would guarantee me a iOS 7.1.2 download rather than an iOS 8. All the funky "new" features to me are more bling then benefit with the possible exception of the Alex voice and even *he* takes up too much memory for my taste!

I say hang in there a while longer!

Hello ...

So I'm not the 'only one in the world' with a 4s and the last iOS 7 after all :-) .

As far as I'm concerned, updating is just too risky. The risks far outweigh the benefits. WHAT IF the phone does become too slow and unusable? Then even braille input wouldn't be of much use.
So I'd say, don't update. You might regret it. So many are reporting that their device became unusable after updating. And having to buy a new device, even though the old one isn't actually 'broken' would be such a pity, don't you think?

And yes, I agree, if I may quickly say so. The Alex voice is a little better than the other English voices, and being able to input in braille would make a real difference to me. But other than that, all iOS 8 would mean is many annoying bugs :-) . So, definetly not worth it, I'd say.

Strangely enough, I've also noticed that my phone has sometimes become extremely slow since the release of iOS 8. What's going on here :-) ? I'm sure I'm not imagining this. But when it happened, I did a reset (holding the Home butten and the Power button together for 15 or so seconds), and that has fixed the problem. It hasn't happened for 3 or so weeks now, my phone does what I need and that's enough for me.

By Caroline on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Thanks for your input. You've all helped me make a decision ... Not to upgrade both with I s and with the phone. After all, it mainly does what I want it to do and I feel unique ... Being one of the few woman with an I phone 4s running I s 712 smile

Happy Christmas and a good new year

I'm glad what I wrote was of some help! Ideal :-) .

And it seems we think 'similarly': If the device does what we need, why bother with new devices/software? Not necessary.

But try that 'holding the Home button and Power button for about 15 seconds' thing. One can 'test' whether the phone has switched off by using the 'Mute/Unmute switch'. If the phone still vibrates when you 'mute' it, it's still on, and one must hold the two buttons for longer :-) . It's always worked for me :-) , and it has always fixed problems. If you haven't already done that, it's definitely worth a try.

PS. And sorry for that unimaginative username :-) . I don't like giving out 'private stuff' online, and I just can't bring myself to give myself some 'fancy' name :-) .

By Liz on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Hello Carolyn,

I'm glad you made the decision that is right for you.

Yes, you both have a fair point. :-).

Liz

By Caroline on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Hi
I've held down the home key and the power button for 20 seconds so well now see what happens over the next few days smile. Thanks

By Mike Freeman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Another way to do this (and, in my opinion, more reliable) is to press the Lock button and then, very quickly, press it five or more times. This does the restart of the phone without risking VO being disabled.

By Shersey on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

This is actually crashing the devices springboard, AKA home screen, and isn't good for iOS; this can lead to instabilities with iOS. This is like holding down the power button on a computer for a few seconds to turn it off. Sure, it'll turn off, but it's not really good for the operating system; this is why you usually have Windows say that it had to recover from an unexpected shutdown when it comes back up--it had to repair itself. The official, supported method would be to turn off the computer using the shut down method in Windows. Fortunately, you can avoid this on iOS, since the only way to reset your device is through a physical button press. You can reset your iPhone in either of two ways. The first just shuts down the phone and clears the RAM and stuff. I know the second does more, but I'm not sure what. It won't get rid of VoiceOver, though.
Method one:
1. Press the sleep/wake button for about three seconds.
2. An alert will pop up on the screen; double-tap the "slide to power off" button, .
3. Wait for about 30 seconds.
4. Press the sleep/wake button for about five seconds.

Method Two:
1. Hold the home and sleep/wake buttons down for about 10 seconds.
2. Wait until VoiceOver starts speaking again.

This rapidly pressing the sleep/wake button has been floating around the internet around for a few years now, and while seeming useful on the surface, especially to VoiceOver users because it's fast, and you don't lose VoiceOver throughout the process, it's not a good way to reset your device. I'm sure it's comforting to VoiceOver users, but waiting for a little bit while the phone resets properly is a much better solution. VoiceOver will come back on with both of these methods, I promise.

Thanks,
Shersey

By a woman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

Yes, I guess you're right that the 'holding down Home + Power button' method is less 'brutal' and better for the device. For some reason, it seems it has fixed problems more reliably for me than just turning the phone off and back on :-) .
I'm wondering if it fixed something in this case.

And yes, VO WILL come back on with this method, I can promise that too :-) .

By Mike Freeman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

YMMV. I've had VoiceOver *not* come on with the home/power-button method. And the effective punching of the Lock button six times in a row is an officially supported gesture.

By DPinWI on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

The promise hasn't always been accurate. On my iPod 4, running iOS 6, doing a full reset with the home and lock keys will sometimes totally disable Voice Over, including turning off the triple click home shortcut. The only way to recover is to either plug the device in and turn on accessibility with iTunes, or, get sighted assistance.

This only happens about 10 percent of the time, but it can and does happen. Many others reported the same thing happening to them.

I have never heard of the bug in any later version of iOS. It's probably safe to assume it won't happen in iOS 7 and 8, but I always feel a little twinge of trepidation when I do a full reset on my iPhone 6. It's rather Pavlovian of me.

By a woman on Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - 17:24

OK, I should have said that I have only tried it with iOS 7, and it always worked, so I thought it was a totally 'safe' method. I admit I didn't know it could sometimes be risky. But I 'promised' it would work because, for me, it always has, and it always fixed problems.