iPhone Crashes
I have two iPhone complaints for the moment:
- Google Maps, Safari, and the iPod app have crashed on me multiple times.
- There are no games.
Even the iPod nano has games on it. Why not the more advanced iPhone?
While attempting to multitask between Google Maps and Safari, those apps would occassionally crash. On the first day I got the iPhone– Friday– it crashed maybe once, but I didn’t remember it because the iPhone doesn’t handle it like a crash. There’s no error message at all. The screen turns black and, usually, it takes me back to the Home screen. Safari will attempt to save state, so when I open it, it navigates to the same website I had open when it crashed. Often, this state info is old, so it’ll be a page or two back from where I was. The back and forward history is lost. The cache seems to be lost. Safari on the iPhone has bad caching, by the way. I feel like it’s loading each page when I go to it, rather than loading parts of the pages from cache, like it should.
As I used the phone more and more, and had lots of friends try it out, it started crashing more and more. By last night, it was crashing every 20 minutes or so under use. By this morning, maybe every 15 minutes when under strain (just typical use of email and Safari while listening to the iPod). That’s pretty ridiculous for a phone, no matter how advanced it is! Especially for something that’s supposed to run on OS X. And when I was trying to listen to a podcast while surfing, the iPod would seem to crash and the audio would cut off. I could restart it by going to the home screen and opening the iPod, but it didn’t save state. It would start playing much earlier in the podcast than when it crashed. That meant I had to drag my finger along the short timeline to the spot where I was. This takes a significant amount of time to get right, and it’s a bit frustrating. In some ways, the iPod click wheel was more efficient! They should add a click wheel-like interface to the iPhone.
When the iPhone crashes, it saves log data and sends it to Apple on the next sync with iTunes. I looked at this log data in a text editor. It’s interesting, much like what Microsoft sends in with crashes on Windows. A friend tells me Apple does the same on OS X. Should I post some of the logs here?
I did an actual reset this morning, which should hopefully fix the crashes. The iPhone can get unresponsive at times. It definitely feels like a computer; more like a computer than a phone. When turning it off, I was listening to Leo Laporte. The slider you’re supposed to drag to shut it off wasn’t responding. It didn’t actually turn off until I pressed the sleep/wake button again.
Turning it on feels like a bootup process, minus any hard drives, optical drives, or any drives at all. The Apple logo appears while the software loads.
P.S. I spotted this question on the Apple Message Boards and I’d like to know the answer, too: “Anybody design a carry case for headphones that stores them away neatly?”
It’s an Apple product. You expected different? Crackberry all the way baby. ;)
Apple iPhone slider doesn’t work?
My workaround — slide it, and then hit the home button. Works for me.
After a while, you can reboot it — hold the power button down for a few seconds.
~L
I’m having the same problem with the crashes. I went to the apple store and they told me to do a restore. I did that Friday evening and the phone didn’t crash at all Friday or Saturday with fairly heavy usage. However, it crashed today while watching a youtube vid and then crashed again while browsing songs in ipod. I’m really surprised the software would be this buggy. When it works, it’s great. But when it starts crashing it’s ridiculous.
I agree with Andy. The iPhone is a great product, when not crashing. I’ve been running it hars since I got it…music, youtube, safari, googlemaps, weather, stocks…and it started crashing on my every couple of minutes or so when I was watching youtube videos tonight. I am looking forward to v1.1 with a few bug fixes…any idea when?
My iPhone totally froze the other day while capturing a photo for one of my contacts. Nothing responded at all. The only thing I could do was hold down the sleep/wake button and the home button together for several seconds, which caused a reboot.
This isn’t a good thing to have happen on the road, which it did. I was in a Staples store with a friend. It’s not a problem with the software. It’s just like a computer– it needs to be rebooted every now and then.
Leo Laporte suggested that the first new iPhone software update might be headed for release in the next week or so.
I pisseth in thy pants.
I too had the same problems… crashing infrequent with heavy use at the beginning, but over the days it got worse and worse. Resets didn’t help. I just restored the phone, which was a rather quick process.
There seems to be some kind of memory leak or something going on. iPhone definitely needs a bugfix update for such serious issues. I love the phone otherwise, though, and I have faith for a first update that says something like “addresses volume level when placing calls using the handset or speakerphone” and “various bug fixes”. :)
My iphone crashed hard on the third day. After I took a bunch of pics at a wedding…it showed the “please connect to itunes” message and wouldn’t let me do anything until I plugged it to a computer. To restore, it had to erase everything…I lost tons of time inputing contacts, music (not to mention the lost wedding photos).
How about a “try to save user data” function before Restore, Apple?
’tis still crashing over a year in. great product, still.