When iOS 7 Attacks: Help For iPhone 4 And 4S Owners

Adriana Lee | Say Media Inc. | October 15, 2013

Older iPhones that update to Apple's latest mobile software can get laggy. Here's how to minimize those problems.

According to users Web-wide, the latest iOS 7 seems to have made legacy Apple smartphones a bit dumber. Reports continue to pour in describing crashes, slowness and erratic behavior overtaking iPhone 4s and 4Ses that have upgraded to the newest version of iOS.

Unfortunately for these users, there's no going back. They can't downgrade back to iOS 6—Apple saw to that—which means they're effectively held hostage now. Sure, the captivity is of their own making, but if they ever want to see decent iPhone performance again, the fact remains that they'll have to pay up for a new handset.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise; iOS 7 was designed with the more powerful iPhone 5S and 5C in mind. Yet many users are surprised, to say nothing of annoyed and frustrated. And, mostly, disappointed—especially the longtime users who believed Apple when it said they too could enjoy the strange, new technicolor world.