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Serious iPhone 3G Bugs I Wish I had known about

C

clint4

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 15, 2009
6
0
I'm about to return my iPhone 3G (as I'm still within the 14 day cool-off period). Before I go, I thought I'd leave my 2 cents worth here in case it helps prevent others from making the same mistake I did.

In a nutshell, the iPhone has at least two fundamental and very serious bugs. Once you hit one of these bugs, it seems there is no long term solution for getting out of them. Apple simply haven't provided a hard enough "reset", or a complete enough "restore from backup". Sooner or later you will hit one these bugs (in my case I hit them both within 48 hours). Then you will start perusing forums like this, whereupon you will find post after post of people with exactly your problem describing various laborious and purely circumstantial "solutions" that "seemed to work for them". It's a classic case of superstition reinforcement as demonstrated in pigeons in 1948 by B F Skinner:

http://www.crystalinks.com/skinner.html

The bugs for which nobody but Apple could possibly have an answer are:

1. All of your installed 3rd Party Apps will suddenly stop working. They will start, then quickly crash without any error message and return to the Home screen. You will then have to reinstall all of them to allow you to use them briefly until the next time this happens.

2. You iPhone will suddenly start refusing to connect to WiFi networks that it used to connect to just fine. No matter how many times you type in the correct password over and over again, or change settings you shouldn't have to change, or ask it to forget the network and start again, you will never, ever solve this in the long run. Again, there's a fundamental bug whereby the iPhone is "remembering" some faulty information, and there doesn't seem to be a way of ever correcting this faulty information.

By all accounts, there is little real evidence that Apple are even aware of either of these problems let alone endeavouring to fix them. Despite the fact that people have been "reporting" them for several months.
 
You must of messed something up or didn't set it up correctly. My phone works great, never had one problem. Those two problems or "bugs" you listed I've never heard of. I think your quick to find a problem and complain about. I truly think there is nothing wrong with that phone. If you really want to return it, go ahead, but if you just use it and set it up right, I'm almost positive it will work fine. I have NEVER had an app crash, much less freeze the phone, and I've had these apps on both my iPhones, 2G, 3G and iPod Touch. But if you want to return, nobody here is going to stop you.
 
I would suggest returning your iPhone and getting a Windows Mobile/CE powered phone. If you think what your experiencing is bad try one of those bad boys out. Perhaps a BlackBerry would be good for you, but then you have to suffer with lack of apps, poor hardware, etc. I think your one of those people that just can't be pleased.
 
Yeah I noticed. It's several pages long and full of minor bugs that are of little interest to most people.

The bugs I'm talking about are fundamental to the core features of the iPhone. Sure all S/W has bugs, but not long standing bugs as fundamental as these. You Apple fans are way too forgiving of Apple's foibles for the common good.

e.g.

Bob:
"Try reinstalling all of your apps, one by one. Do this 12 or so times and it should eventually fix your problem for a few hours"

Sam:
"Thanks Bob! Worked a treat! Everything working fine now! :)"
 
usually a quick reboot or even a soft reset after installing new applications would make the sudden crashes stop. and under my personal experience, i have never had a problem connecting to wifi.

even though you have read many posts regarding your circumstances, understand that it isnt the large percentage of iphone users. also, that people dont usually complain on forums about how WELL their phone works.

with that stated, there is little evidence that your problems are large enough to make apple aware.

but i can see where i sense this dismay. after thinking the iphone is the perfect mobile device, only to find out that it isnt. glad you are making it in the 14 day mark.
 
clint4 said:
Yeah I noticed. It's several pages long and full of minor bugs that are of little interest to most people.
Click to expand...

The ones you've mentioned have no interest to me. Why are they more important than other's?
 
Good point bartelby.

I don't know anyone who even uses WiFi. And iPhone Apps are a passing fad that will never catch on. So why worry if none of them work?
 
clint4 said:
Good point bartelby.

I don't know anyone who even uses WiFi. And iPhone Apps are a passing fad that will never catch on. So why worry if none of them work?
Click to expand...

Yes. But you're talking as if everyone is suffering.
 
Are you on the latest firmware? These were happening on 2.0, but got fixed on 2.0.1 or something like that.
Latest firmware is 2.2.1...
Click to expand...

Yup. I'm on 2.2.1.

I know that there was a perception that Apple might be about to fix these problems back in August 2008. From all that I have been able to find though, there is no evidence that thay actually ever did fix them. It was all just rumour and conjecture. My own experience is enough to confirm for me that they have definately not fixed these problems. There is also plenty of recent evidence of others with the same problems if you look around.
 
clint4 said:
Yeah I noticed. It's several pages long and full of minor bugs that are of little interest to most people.
Click to expand...

Your right, you are way better than those people and are too good to follow the Forum Rules:

Forum Rules said:
One thread. Do not post a thread more than once. Post a new thread in the proper forum. If the topic is relevant to more than one forum, pick the best fit or most specific forum and post it only once.
Click to expand...

David
 
clint4 said:
Yup. I'm on 2.2.1.

I know that there was a perception that Apple might be about to fix these problems back in August 2008. From all that I have been able to find though, there is no evidence that thay actually ever did fix them. It was all just rumour and conjecture. My own experience is enough to confirm for me that they have definately not fixed these problems. There is also plenty of recent evidence of others with the same problems if you look around.
Click to expand...

It's a shame you're still having problems. Personally I had these bugs that you aer talking about, but the updates certainyl did fix things for me and I have had no problems for months. Have you considered exchanging your phone for another iPhone, as that's not normal behaviour, and certainly shouldn't continue with a new phone.
 
clint4 said:
Good point bartelby.

I don't know anyone who even uses WiFi. And iPhone Apps are a passing fad that will never catch on. So why worry if none of them work?
Click to expand...

I think his point is that with every single person on these forums complaining about bugs and "bugs" on the iPhone (OMG! No copy and Paste!, OMG! Only one speaker working!), for you to come in and claim that your problem, which many of us have never heard of anyone having, ever, or atleast very few times, out of the 17,000,000,000,000,000 posters here daily, is more important than all the bugs on the "bug thread," or to insist that your bug is so special, it doesn't deserve to be in that thread, is asinine.
 
ZiggyPastorius said:
I think his point is that with every single person on these forums complaining about bugs and "bugs" on the iPhone (OMG! No copy and Paste!, OMG! Only one speaker working!), for you to come in and claim that your problem, which many of us have never heard of anyone having, ever, out of the 17,000,000,000,000,000 posters here daily, is more important than all the bugs on the "bug thread," or to insist that your bug is so special, it doesn't deserve to be in that thread, is asinine.
Click to expand...

Pretty much... :)
 
Yes. But you're talking as if everyone is suffering.
Click to expand...

No. You said that these were minor bugs that were of no interest to you.

Obviously, people who haven't hit the problems yet aren't suffering. Doesn't mean they won't suffer when they hit them though, which many people eventually will. Like I said, when people make excuses for fundamental bugs such as these (or fail to distinguish between teething problems and fundamental problems) it is not in anyone's long term interest.
 
Have you even taken steps to troubleshoot these problems? Or is your solution to just join a forum to bash the product and move on?

Seriously, everybody experiences problems here and there. I've had both issues you've mentioned at one time. Take it to Apple and get a working device FFS. They're not going to hesitate when you ask for a replacement.

You paid good money for it. No reason for it not to work.
 
ZiggyPastorius said:
I think his point is that with every single person on these forums complaining about bugs and "bugs" on the iPhone (OMG! No copy and Paste!, OMG! Only one speaker working!), for you to come in and claim that your problem, which many of us have never heard of anyone having, ever, or atleast very few times, out of the 17,000,000,000,000,000 posters here daily, is more important than all the bugs on the "bug thread," or to insist that your bug is so special, it doesn't deserve to be in that thread, is asinine.
Click to expand...

funny thing...only one of my speakers is working...

to the OP:
listen, i can see how some people are posting some same comments about your situation, but you dont need to spit back with "apple fanboy" or whatever you want to call the people on this APPLE forum.
if you think we are too forgiving for apples blunders i.e. mobileme, iphone, glossy screens...then you probably arent understanding of other companies and their blunders.
what i can suggest to you, is that you suck it up, because the other people in this thread are correct, stating that your situation isnt as common...that it doesnt effect them (them being in the larger percentile of iphone users who are quite happy with their device)...and its just not understanding on how you can complain about how apple should have fixed this or that months ago.

fact is...we dont have the same problem with you.
fact is...apple doesnt care about your one bad apple. you can go get another if youd like...or go get a windows mobile device, symbian, or say hi to RIM.
 
clint4 said:
No. You said that these were minor bugs that were of no interest to you.

Obviously, people who haven't hit the problems yet aren't suffering. Doesn't mean they won't suffer when they hit them though, which many people eventually will. Like I said, when people make excuses for fundamental bugs such as these (or fail to distinguish between teething problems and fundamental problems) it is not in anyone's long term interest.
Click to expand...

it isnt in your long term interest. and why would these "fundamental" bugs be anything to the users who HAVE had this device for a long term as it is, and still have no problems?

again, i will state the fact that people who DONT have problems DONT post threads talking about how they DONT have problems. you come across all these small "fundamental" bugs that arent fundamental to anyone else. and we are trying to tell you that its not common...but you seem to push the fact that we are wrong, and that we will suffer from these "fundamental" bugs, even when we have HAD these devices for much longer than you have had, and we havent had such problems you are facing.
 
clint4 said:
Doesn't mean they won't suffer when they hit them though, which many people eventually will.
Click to expand...

I've been using iPhones since they launched almost two years ago and have never hit these bugs. We're happy to try help you, but rather than whining like a teenager with a blog have you contacted Apple and asked for a new iPhone? Its possib you got a bad one and its software related.
 
Okay, I have never had either of these problems. What makes you so sure that this will happen to everyone, and you didn't just get a bad phone? Try taking it to an Apple store, see what they say.
 
This is obviously a sensitive topic. I guess many of you are not exactly power users? If you've seriously been using your devices for years without hitting either of these problems them you are probably not exactly pushing the envelope, so to speak.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/19/steve_jobs_vows_iphone_app_crash_fix_for_september.html

PS: The problems I report are not better than anyone else's. They are simply fundamental enough to perhaps justify not being buried among the huge variety contained in the general Bug thread. And, on reflection, I think they are also better than anyone else's.
 
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