Any reason not to? I’ve been ignoring the big red 1 on the home screen telling me an upgrade is available but I’m tempted. Is it worth it?

Functionality is a bit nicer, but it runs slowly on the 4. I only use my 4 as an iPod and audio recorder, so I can live with the sluggishness. If it was my day-to-day phone, I wouldn’t bother.

that annoying about the slowness, as my 3GS ran the iOS6 update fine, so you’d think they could do the same with iOS7 and iphone 4

Bloody nightmare on mine, don’t do it!

I don’t think I’ll bother if it is going to make it sluggish.

Its seems faster on my iphone 4 than IOS6 was?

Not noticed any sluggishness on the missus’s iPhone 4 and believe me, she’d let me know! 🙂

Having lived with iOS7 for a while now I think it is a vast improvement overall (I’m using it daily on my 4s and an iPad 3).

Only thing that sucks for me is the built-in Calendar app, which now sucks, but there are plenty of alternatives.

As already said. I loved my iphone 4 and wasn’t interested in upgrading. IOS 7 for a the last month, IPhone 5s ordered today. Not happy as it’s money if I’d not upgraded I wouldn’t have needed to,spend. Leave it as it is….IMO.

I did mine, and it has added a second or 2 to most operations. Which if you just need to quickly check something, ie: unlocking your phone, quitting an app, launching an app, it soon adds up.

I was planning on upgrading about now anyway, but iOS 7 has hastened my decision.

it has added a second or 2 to most operations

Whaaaaa…? Definitely not seen that here.

Watch this side-by-side (skip to 2:20 to avoid the waffle). He’s pretty critical of iOS7.
There are a couple of pretty slight differences but I wouldn’t say 2 seconds.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8FAU-gnN-E[/video]

(And of course it would help if his wifi wasn’t fecked).

I was planning on upgrading about now anyway, but iOS 7 has hastened my decision.

*Apple rubs hands together*

I use my iP4 all the time as an iPod, navigation in the car, and ad hoc Internet browser because it’s got a 3 sim in it.
The processor’s slow, but iOS 7 hasn’t caused any problems with it at all.

*Apple rubs hands together*

Suck it 😀

Whaaaaa…? Definitely not seen that here.

To qualify, it is nearer to 1 than 2 with baked in apps, apart from when Safari encounters a feature rich, read most modern, website.

Longer delays have been with 3rd party apps, which I know is not Apple’s problem, but it is mine when I am trying to use them….evernote/downcast etc.

Don’t do it! Yes it’s got more features and i’ve grown used to the looks but the lag really makes it unusable for me.

I’m in the camp of i’d not be upgrading if i’d left it as is, and I reckon the phone would fetch more on the bay if it was IOS6.

Even my ipad mini struggles with it – not to bad for general use but some of the games really struggle and they never used to in 6.

Those seeing slowness.

Have you tried switching off the fancy animations to see if that makes things better for you?

Likewise do you regularly kill all background apps?

Yes. And it crashes frequently when it used to crash a handful of times a year at most. Makes me want a new phone but makes me so angry with Apple that I don’t want to give them any money for one! Up there with the newer version of MS Office for worst ‘upgrades’ ever.

Yours just sounds knackered chief!

Not noticed any increase in crashing either.

But then I really like the newer versions of Office 😀

Works fine on a 4S – decent improvement generally IMO.

Have you tried switching off the fancy animations to see if that makes things better for you?

Mine is running as stripped-back as possible (like no parallax; high-contrast colours). Because it’s not used as a phone anymore, it’s always in airplane mode – so not even any wifi or 3G to support. It’s navigation and opening of apps that’s sluggish, especially visible next to my 5. See if you can take a look at how it runs on a 5: it’s much smoother and snappier.

Well yeah – it’ll be snappier on a 5. I don’t doubt that, the 5 has a faster CPU + GPU and more memory.

But iOS7 compared with iOS6 on the same iPhone 4 I don’t see that much difference – much like the vid above.

Sounds like there is some variability in performance as my wife’s 4 runs just fine on ios7. I don’t think the 4 supports all the visual features like parallax cause it’s either not got the hardware to support or power. Maybe if those who are not happy carry out a full restore it might improve things? My iPod gen4 sometimes got a bit twitchy and it was all fixed after a full restore.

Well yeah – it’ll be snappier on a 5. I don’t doubt that…

So then why do you disagree the assertion that it’s sluggish on the 4? It’s just another way of saying exactly the same thing :]

My daughters 4 is still on ios 5. Is there a way to upgrade to ios 6 not 7?

So then why do you disagree the assertion that it’s sluggish on the 4?

Because the OPs question was about whether he should upgrade a 4 from iOS 6 to 7, not if an iPhone 5 was faster than a 4??

An iPhone 4 is sluggish compared to a 5 regardless of OS, but (in my experience) iOS 7 is not noticeably sluggish compared to iOS 6 on the same device

Pretty sluggish on my 4S – to the point of being annoying

On a 4S? Really? 😯

I wonder where the variability comes from?

It’d be interesting to a a side-by-side of my 4S next to yours and see if there is actually a difference between them or if it is just a perception thing. Maybe some folk are just more sensitive to delays and animations than others?

Didn’t notice much difference on my 4 at first. But after a few weeks it slowed up a fair bit. Sorted it out by uninstalling and reinstalling a bunch of apps with big caches, and with regular and frequent background app killing.

It still seems quite variable, but even when it’s bad, it’s not that bad…

@cooie – yes but you have to do it unofficially which unless you are familiar with the process might be a hassle. You’d have to find a download site with iOS6 on it and then do a manual upgrade.

OP iOS7 runs very nicely on my 4S and I find it a big improvement. On a 4 you’ll probably want to turn off some of the features like the background animation of wallpaper etc. My daughter runs iOS7 on her 4 and is very happy with it, she doesn’t do much other than photos, Facebook and normal messenging though (sign of the times but she hardly ever makes or receives phone calls !)

Maybe some folk are just more sensitive to delays and animations than others?

Perhaps, but said delays were non-existant on iOS6

but even when it’s bad, it’s not that bad…

No, it’s not. But, as it wasn’t a factor at all in iOS6, it’s certainly not an improvement. And TBH, it’s a complete PITA scrolling some times.

No problems at all.. Waited and waited for others to do it. Now ok on a 4s
And an iPad 2.

I wish I hadn’t bothered too – the lag is really annoying, especially when typing and it takes 2-3 seconds to catch up.

They should have excluded the iphone 4 from ios7 in my opinion.

Its slow enough on the 4s I can’t imagine how slow it must be on a 4. Leave well alone!!

We have two iPhone 4 phones on iOS 7

No issues at all. Quite a nice platform.

I’ve never liked ios but once I upgraded to ios 7 my work phone (4s) went from having an os I didn’t like but which was at least fairly slick to one which I don’t like and which is noticeably laggy and frequently buggy – yesterday it refused to open a keyboard in any app.

My galaxy s2 running 4.1 is much slicker even leaving personal preference aside.

I now look forward to being told my iphone is awesomely fast and I must be doing something wrong.

@cooie – yes but you have to do it unofficially which unless you are familiar with the process might be a hassle. You’d have to find a download site with iOS6 on it and then do a manual upgrade.

Would that involve jailbreaking it?

she doesn’t do much other than photos, Facebook and normal messenging though (sign of the times but she hardly ever makes or receives phone calls !)

Sounds familiar 🙂

I now look forward to being told my iphone is awesomely fast and I must be doing something wrong.

I don’t think anyone is saying that. It’s just that other iOS 7 users on the same hardware (like me) are not experiencing the issues you are talking about. (e.g. I’m happily typing this reply and not seeing any keyboard lag at all – seems identical to iOS6 performance).

I do believe you are seeing issues, but I’m not.
Not sure why there is variation. 😕

Question: did those with issues upgrade through iTunes or just over the air? And have you done a wipe and full restore via iTunes since the upgrade? That often sorts out glitches. I’ve always done that after every big upgrade.

Would that involve jailbreaking it?

Yes, but that’s the easy bit. The whole process looks a complete ballache.

You will need the following:

An iPhone 4
A Windows PC
iTunes 11.0.5 or earlier
Saved SHSH blobs for iOS 6.1.3 or earlier (if you don’t know what this is, it’s explained in the below link)
iFaith (a jailbreaking software tool)

…but read this first: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-downgrade-to-ios-6/

Would that involve jailbreaking it?
Yes, but that’s the easy bit. The whole process looks a complete ballache.

Hmmm, she seems quite happy on ios 5, think I’ll give it a miss 🙂

Thanks anyway.

I think that is just a guide for downgrading Jamie.

cooie just wants to upgrade from 5 to 6 (not 7). I think you can do that without jail breaking and faff. IIRC you just connect to iTunes and hold shift when you hit “Upgrade” button then you can select an IPSW file. (There are lists online with links to all the old IPSW files on Apple’s servers)

As Apple have stopped signing all iOS versions prior to 7.0.4, apart from selected hardware, I cannot see how the alt+restore option will work without Jailbreaking?

…aaaand if your going to have to do that, you might as well go to iOS7 and have a play with it, as you never know it might be ok, and if not then you can drop down to iOS 6.1.3 through a tested method.