Why my iPhone 4S run slower now, what should i do?

my iphone 4s run slowly now, but it's not before. why this happen? and what should i do?

Maybe you could tell use why you think it is running slower. For example...what was installed or updated to make you think that it is running slower.

Also...how full is your iPhone?

- Nick

iPhone 4S 16G, and there are some games install on. everytime i restore it from backup it would run faster at first days. but several weeks it still run slowly! especially when i play with games!

Try powering it off and back on once in awhile.

Close down all your Apps when you have finished with them. Double Click the Home button, brings up the Multi Tasking tray, and flick up the Apps to close them in iOS 7 and in a lower iOS, hold until they shudder and tap the cross.
You could have 20 Apps open using up the RAM in the phone, which like a computer would make it slow.

Make sure you have all the latest updates as well.

i spend much of time to find a answer, when i googling i find someone talk about 'other' file on iphone. then i connect my iPhone with iTunes, just find about 3GB of other files.
i think maybe these files make my iphone work slowly!

Close down all your Apps when you have finished with them. Double Click the Home button, brings up the Multi Tasking tray, and flick up the Apps to close them in iOS 7 and in a lower iOS, hold until they shudder and tap the cross.

Click to expand...

Now I know why you have those three stars! I didn't realize how many apps I had open on my 5c until I double clicked the home button. Would you believe I had between 10 and 15 apps open at once. Closed them all with the flick up move. Maybe my battery will last a bit longer...

Thanks Brent, good tip for a new iPhone user like me.

chscag said:

Thanks Brent, good tip for a new iPhone user like me.

Click to expand...

Who is Brent?

JimmyWalt said:

Who is Brent?

Click to expand...

"Brent" is "TattooedMac"...the MacForums member who suggested closing all open apps.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

"Brent" is "TattooedMac"...the MacForums member who suggested closing all open apps.

- Nick

Click to expand...

OK, thank you.
Brent

TattooedMac said:

Close down all your Apps when you have finished with them. Double Click the Home button, brings up the Multi Tasking tray, and flick up the Apps to close them in iOS 7 and in a lower iOS, hold until they shudder and tap the cross.
You could have 20 Apps open using up the RAM in the phone, which like a computer would make it slow.

Click to expand...

There is a lot of misperception about how iOS works and manages its resources. Most apps are automatically paused in the background and eventually closed completely if iOS decides it needs the RAM that app is using. The list of apps in the launch tray is NOT a list of all open apps. It's a list of recently used apps, in the order they were last opened, and not necessarily actually open anymore. An extremely simple way to verify this is to open one of the apps that is further back in the list. Does it take time to re-launch (showing, say, a progress meter or splash page), or does it almost immediately show that it has been "paused"? If it is re-launching, then it's not open.

Here's a good explanation:
How multitasking really works on Android and iOS | ExtremeTech

More details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitasking_(iOS)

One additional note: micromanaging the apps running in that tray risks increasing your battery drain. An app that is in a proper "paused" state uses no or virtually no battery power and resuming from paused is much more energy efficient that re-launching it from scratch.

Back to the OP's problem... doing a hard reset once every couple weeks may help (notice... if you do a full hard reset, all those apps are still in the tray!). What part of the problem could be is too little free space. If the iPhone is chock full, then there may not be enough free space for caching and temporary files. Here's how to check:
Running out of storage space on your iPhone or iPad? Here's how to fix it! | iMore

EDIT: Here's a good article with some tips on how to improve performance in iOS 7 on older devices:
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-speed-up-ios-7-on-an-older-device/

also someone say after upgrade iphone 4s to iOS 7, it will run slower than when iOS 6. what about this?

JimmyWalt said:

also someone say after upgrade iphone 4s to iOS 7, it will run slower than when iOS 6. what about this?

Click to expand...

It's very possible. Older hardware + latest iOS can sometimes mean slower performance. I have heard some folks mention slower performance with this combination. But if you want the features of iOS 7...then you have to upgrade or get an iPhone 5.

- Nick

JimmyWalt said:

also someone say after upgrade iphone 4s to iOS 7, it will run slower than when iOS 6. what about this?

Click to expand...

I had iOS 7 on my 4S before upgrading to a 5S. It was a little more sluggish than iOS 6 was, but I didn't think it was unbearably so. What are you running anyway? I don't think you mentioned yet. And just how much space is being used for apps, photos, etc? How much free space do you have?

Agree with lifeisabeach. iOS7 on an iPhone 4s shouldn't be too bad.

For anyone interested...the hardware in the iPhone 5s is a SIGNIFICANT improvement over the iPhone 4s. Geekbench 3 scores for each:

- iPhone 4s = 406
- iPhone 5s = 2523

* Nick

pigoo3 said:

Agree with lifeisabeach. iOS7 on an iPhone 4s shouldn't be too bad.

For anyone interested...the hardware in the iPhone 5s is a SIGNIFICANT improvement over the iPhone 4s. Geekbench 3 scores for each:

- iPhone 4s = 406
- iPhone 5s = 2523

* Nick

Click to expand...

Thank you, pigoo3

I think i should upgrade to iPhone 5S later or wait for the coming iPhone 6.

chscag said:

Thanks Brent, good tip for a new iPhone user like me.

Click to expand...

No worries mate. I hope your enjoying the new iPhone

pigoo3 said:

"Brent" is "TattooedMac"...the MacForums member who suggested closing all open apps.

Click to expand...

JimmyWalt said:

Who is Brent?

Click to expand...

^^^ That ^^^

JimmyWalt said:

OK, thank you.
Brent

Click to expand...

and your welcome too

lifeisabeach said:

There is a lot of misperception about how iOS works and manages its resources. Most apps are automatically paused in the background and eventually closed completely if iOS decides it needs the RAM that app is using.

Here's a good explanation:
How multitasking really works on Android and iOS | ExtremeTech

Click to expand...

Fair enough, but I'm sorry, in real life and what happens with my iPhone, when I have 20 Apps open, my battery drops somewhat quicker than if they weren't open (tested over a 2 day period) and when my Apps are "open" in the multitasking tray, JailBreaking it and using SBSettings, I have seen with my own eyes the RAM increase when I have closed down Apps . . . Still a good read though, thanks.

There are some apps that are active even in the background (apps that depend on location like navigation applications for example) so some apps will drain battery while in the background. But in general, the are closed when memory is needed, as was said. My habit is to check every once in a while to see if I've forgotten one of the ones that does keep running.

TattooedMac said:

Fair enough, but I'm sorry, in real life and what happens with my iPhone, when I have 20 Apps open, my battery drops somewhat quicker than if they weren't open (tested over a 2 day period) and when my Apps are "open" in the multitasking tray, JailBreaking it and using SBSettings, I have seen with my own eyes the RAM increase when I have closed down Apps . . . Still a good read though, thanks.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but how much of that is a result of being jailbroken? My battery life has always been noticeably worse when jailbroken. Maybe there's something going on when jailbroken that interferes with the normal multi-tasking features. MacInWin also raises a good point... even though ALL the apps aren't actually open (note: there is a module for SBSettings that will show what apps are truly open), there easily could be some running, especially music and navigation apps that were very recently opened. But that really only applies if they are actively working in the background. If you pause your music, iOS will pause the app and eventually unload it if need be.

I'm looking at my list now. I have about... 98 apps in my tray. Yes, I sat here and counted them. 98. I forgot to charge my battery last night, so it has been over 24 hours since last charged and seen light to moderate use in that time, and the charge is about half. I'm going to scroll over to the 9th app in my list, which is an app that plays customized ambient music that I use at night sometimes. That was in a true paused state and popped right away. Number 11 is Slacker Radio and popped right away, so it was properly paused. Number 19 was another ambient sounds app... it had to reload when I selected it. It looks like everything in between was in a true "paused" state from some brief testing of a few others (that surprised me... I expected fewer). So now I'm going to open up Infinity Blade 2 and play for a minute. That first app I mentioned, which was more recently opened than before as a result of this little test and now at number 5 in the list, had to reload from scratch. Same thing for a handful of others that I just tried in the 10 most recent, though a couple were still properly paused. So as a result of iOS needing more RAM to accommodate the resource-hungry game, it closed a large number of apps that were in a paused state.

That all said, what you are saying isn't wrong, nor is what I said or linked to. There's a lot of "context" not being considered. If you habitually close a running app from the tray that you are just going to re-open in the very near future, then you are certainly hurting yourself. If you have an app that is actively running in the background and you are no longer using but isn't "obvious" it's still active, or worse, poorly coded, then you are unnecessarily wasting your battery and using up RAM. I also think it's fair to say that if, in your list of most recent apps, you have one in a paused state but have no intentions of actually using again in the near future, then closing it would be of benefit. In the case of what I just did, if I have no intention of playing Infinity Blade again today, then closing it wouldn't be a bad idea. Closing it just to re-open it in a couple hours WOULD be a bad idea.

Here's a couple more articles worth reading.
Misconceptions About iOS Multitasking
How iOS Multitasking Really Works