A lot of you updated your iPhone 3G's to the latest iOS 4 but you aren't
really happy because your phone seems more sluggish, you aren't getting the
benefit of Multitasking anyways, and you just wish you could go back.
I'm Brian Tong from CNET-dot com and I'll show you how to downgrade your
iPhone 3G, back to iPhone OS 3-point-1-3.
Big thanks to lifehacker for showing me how to do this, but do this at your
own risk, but this method has worked consitently for iPhone 3G users.
To get started we'll need to have a few things in place. First up, get the
Restore file for iPhone OS 3-point-1-3
It might still be on your computer's hard drive from previous updates so on a
Mac look for it here on your computer. And for Window users, you can find it
at this location on your hard drive.
If you can't find it, head on over to this iclarified's website where all the
software updates have been archived and look for this specific file.
You'll need one more piece of software called RecBoot its Mac and Windows
compatible and you can download it from here. Itsa utility that will help us
finish the downgrade process.
Alright lets get to it. The first thing you'll want to do is connect your
phone to your computer and power it down by holding the power/sleep button and
sliding to power off.
Once its off, hold the power button and the home buttong= together for 10
seconds, then remove your finger from the power button and remain holding
down the hold button for 10 more seconds.
This will put the phone into Device Firmware Update mode.
If you did it correctly, iTunes will show a prompt that it sees a phone in
recovery mode and you can press ok.
You'll see your iPhone in the devices sidebar in iTunes and click on it. Then
to start the Downgrade process, for Mac users hold the Option key on your
keyboard and press the restore button with your mouse, for Windows hold down
the Shift button and press Restore.
Now you'll have to locate the iPhone OS 3-point-1-3- firmware file and select
it as the one you want to restore your phone with. The restore process will
start and it takes about 10 minutes.
Once it's done, you'll probably see an error message like this one, and your
phone will show a "Connect to iTunes Screen"
Open up the RecBoot app we downloaded and click "Exit Recovery Mode". Wait a
few seconds and your phone will get out of Recovery mode and it will now be
ready to sync with iTunes with the previous iPhone OS 3-point-1-3.
I want to emphasize this is specifically for the iPhone 3G, this does not
involve any Jailbreaking and you might have different results but this worked
for us.
But that's how you downgrade yout iPhone 3G from iOS 4 to OS 3-point-1-3. Use
it Wisely.
