Wi-Fi Problems: Restore?

I have a two-year old iPhone 4 that has recently been having problems staying connected to my home Wi-Fi. The problem worsens when I'm driving and I want to stream music from Soundcloud -- the Wi-Fi/3G icon turns to a circle and rarely loads a full song (I am driving in L.A. where there is no shortage of Verizon smartphone towers).

I have restored the network settings, but it didn't fix it. My girlfriend's phone had the same issues and Apple replaced hers citing a firmware issue.

I have an appointment tomorrow at the Genius Bar where they advised me they'll likely restore the entire phone to try and fix the problem.

So my questions are a.) what do you think is the problem? and b.) how do I do a full backup of my phone? I want to back it up to the point that I can get it looking (apps, notes, settings, etc.) exactly as it currently is now. Thanks.

You simply backup to iTunes and/or iCloud.

It's hard to diagnose the issue with so few details. It just sounds like loss of 3G signal. That can be attributed to many things.

Since you didn't mention it, I have to ask: have you tried simply powering the iPhone down completely? I'm discovering that not a lot of people EVER do this, and then six months/a year later they wonder why its behaving so poorly.

To be clear, not talking about pressing the sleep/wake button briefly. Even if this doesn't fix the issue, it's a good idea to do once in a while.

chas_m said:

Since you didn't mention it, I have to ask: have you tried simply powering the iPhone down completely? I'm discovering that not a lot of people EVER do this, and then six months/a year later they wonder why its behaving so poorly.

To be clear, not talking about pressing the sleep/wake button briefly. Even if this doesn't fix the issue, it's a good idea to do once in a while.

Click to expand...

Once a week

Okay, at least we can eliminate that as a possible fix.

You didn't mention it, but how does your phone perform when on a Wi-Fi network other than your own?

I think I backed everything up to my desktop w/ iTunes. But before I do a full restore, how can I check to make sure everything I want is backed up on my desktop?

Wi-fi: It seems to never switch to a public wi-fi, always on 3G or the 'circle' icon (no service).

There's no way to check per se. I mean you don't know everything that's supposed to be part of the backup so there's no way you could verify the content.
You could do an iCloud backup for extra piece of mind though.

The blue circle means 2g/gsm not 'no service'.

It won't necessarily 'switch' to public wi-fi. Depends if you have the 'ask to join wireless networks' toggle on.