iPhone 4

[quinterro]

After my mother-in-law dealt with a flaky iPhone 4 for way too long we finally upgraded her to an iPhone 8 Plus and I got to keep her old phone. No cracks or scratches and is running iOS 9.3.5

Way too tiny for my big fingers.

I attempted to use it for iTunes but apparently things have changed since I last used my extremely old iPod Touch 2nd generation - attempting to play an album will play part of a song or open Apple Music and not play any other tracks.  It's tempting to try to use it as a phone but given the issues she was having with the phone I may have to pass.

 

[beachycove]

iOS9 on a 4?

 

[quinterro]

iOS 9 is occasionally sluggish on the phone and is quite different than 4.2.1 on my old iPod touch.

9.3.4 is as high as it Will go.

 

[TheWhiteFalcon]

That's not an iPhone 4, that's a 4S. 

 

[CC_333]

Yes. The 4 is stuck at 7.1.2. If you an get one with iOS 6, they're much better.

Incidentally, you can jailbreak the 4s (9.3.x is jailbreakable on 32-bit devices now) and downgrade to either 8.4.1 (somewhat modern) or 6.1.3 (faster) using OdysseusOTA2 or OdysseusOTA, respectively.

Even though it makes getting apps a bit harder, the fact that the 4s becomes *infinitely* more useful makes the sacrifices worthwhile in my opinion.

c

 

[BadGoldEagle]

But is it a tethered or a non-tethered downgrade? I’d like to try that some time.

 

[galgot]

i feel like an old shmonk... I do have a 4 with iOS6 as my only mobile, is serves only as a phone (and music player sometime)...

Oh and jaibreaked, so i can shh sometime too. Don't feel like changing, I hate phones.

 

[beachycove]

I still run ios7 on a 4s. It’s complete and honestly does all I need it to do for the most part. I have therefore resisted all further software upgrades. I reckon HQ wants to make the thing unusable so I’ll buy another one. Not cooperating with that one....

Mind you, the web just makes it crawl, but as I am not on FaceBook (at all, never mind 24/7) or the like, I tend to use a text-only browser to make that very occasional experience more bearable. YMMD.

 

[quinterro]

That's not an iPhone 4, that's a 4S. 

Considering I don't normally use iOS devices it's an easy mistake to make.

I thought she had that phone for a long time - apparently not as long as I thought.

The main reason I wanted to keep the phone was to become more familiar with a more recent version of iOS.  That way I can be at least somewhat informed when she is having issues with her iPhone 6.

 

[CC_333]

But is it a tethered or a non-tethered downgrade? I’d like to try that some time.

It's untethered! Apparently there's a bug on Apple's servers that causes certain OTA 6.1.3 and 8.4.1 updates to still be signed for certain models (namely, the 4s and iPad 2 for 6.1.3, and the 4s, 5, and 5c for 8.4.1).

I went through a lot of trouble to find a 5 that still had iOS 6 on it (I lucked out on eBay awhile back, getting a Verizon 5 in white, which had 6.1.4 on it), so that ought to tell you something

6 is looking kinda dated, but it's the first iOS I had any experience with (and 5.1 on my then new iPad 3, briefly), and it still does many things quite well (including, of course, phone calls and text messaging).

I initially didn't like iOS 7 very much, but it's not that bad, and 8.4.1, aside from the lousy Music app redesign (it's clearly designed with the 6 Plus in mind, as that's the only model I have where the UI is large enough to be usable) is like the best of 7, with most of the bugs fixed.

<rant>

What really irks me is that I had my first iPhone (GSM 5, 64 GB), which ran iOS 9.0.2 (I had upgraded shortly after I got the 6 Plus that replaced it), and since 9.0.2 is jailbreakable, I thought I'd try the downgrade to 8.4.1. Well, I tried, and it was almost complete, and then it bricked, forcing me to upgrade to 10.3.3, which is *not* jailbreakable, and therefore un-downgradable. UGH!

</rant>

The 6 Plus is the newest I'll go for now, *maybe* a 6s Plus eventually.

And then, I'll have to try to find one with iOS 8 or 9 on it, because I don't like 10 too much, and 11 is too weird (I'm not fond of the new Control Center; I liked the one from 7-9 just fine).

c

 

[youjuoufudtgd]

The downgrade thing isn't a bug. It's just a required minimum version for the in place upgrade. Like you can't upgrade from XP to 10, you need 7 first.

 

[CC_333]

Yeah, I guess you're right.

The same trick can be used to upgrade from any older version (say, 7.1.2 or 8.0) to 8.4.1. And of course, any other version for which one has the SHSH blobs.

I wonder, since both 9.3.5 and 8.4.1 are jailbreakable on the 4s now, that probably means that one can go from one to the other and back again at will. That is neat!

c