iPhone, iPad, iPod Forums at iMore.com

[stooovie]

Title says it all - iPhone 3G apparently has trouble keeping up with indexing, ever since 3.x. Two days ago, I turned off Spotlight search (Settings-General-Home Button-Spotlight search-switch off all you don't use) because I rarely, if ever, used it.

Up to this day, my poor old 3G with iOS is way snappier than it was before, and I wouldn't hesitate to say it's as snappy as with 3.1.3. Stutter while open/close transitions is gone and apps load way faster. I've compared it to some youtube videos (YouTube - iOS 4 Performance on iPhone 3G (Camera and Settings)) and mine on iOS 4 performs almost as fast as theirs on 3.1.3.

This is not even a "Restore as new phone" install - it's restored from backup that has 7,5 GB out of 8 GB filled.

Please try this if you find your 3G struggling with iOS 4 and report back.

[teryan2006]

I tried this find no difference. I timed launch time for both Plants vs Zombie launch time and running the sunspider benchmark, and theres zero difference. Are you sure you're not just seeing placebo effect?

[stooovie]

I'm not, of course. But then again, it's highly unlikely to see a difference in synthetic benchmark like Sunspider.

I can, however, see a big difference in day to day operations like opening Messaging app, Settings, Camera, Mail.app, keyboard delay (including rotation) is significantly lower etc.

The biggest difference can be seen in apps that generate content indexed by Spotlight - Notes, Mail, Calendar... all of them used to close with noticeable stutter. That is gone now.

[Jellotime91]

I wish you could turn off spotlight all-together...

I never EVER use it and it's just an annoyance to me.

[OTACORB]

Originally Posted by Jellotime91

I wish you could turn off spotlight all-together...

I never EVER use it and it's just an annoyance to me.

Me too and I also hate when I hit the home screen it sometimes going to that Spotlight screen. That I surely wish we could turn off!

[tizmosis]

You are defiantly right it must have free up some memory. I am not lagging anymore. Great tip.

[Ipheuria]

This reminds me of PCs loaded with Vista but the user didn't turn off indexing and the computer just crawled LOL anyway just did it and rebooted will see if there is a diff for me

[stooovie]

You're right, but I didn't disable indexing on Vista because I find it really useful on desktop OSes. On phone, not so much.

[Ipheuria]

I think it is useful but for people who loaded it on slow computers that could barely handle it I think it was better to have it disabled. I tried disabling spotlight and the phone is a little more snappy but still slow so it's barely noticable.

[BLiNK]

i tried this and have yet to notice anything for the better

i was sure hoping it would help, but after all the 3G is now the new dinosaur

to be honest i will be embarrassed to even sell mine when the time comes