2nd gen iPod touch okay with iOS 4.2?

January 22, 2011 8:14 PM

Is iOS 4.2 stable or mostly stable / will it run well on a 2nd gen iPod touch?

My brother would like to be able to get some more apps for his Touch, but most require a newer version of iOS. Unfortunately, there have been reports of iOS 4 making older Touches run like crap, especially affecting the battery life. Also, manually upgrading to iOS 3 seems nigh on impossible.

8 GB and running iOS 2.2.1 currently, he thinks.

Side question: is it possible to restore it to the previous firmware if iOS 4 doesn't work out (maybe via imaging it first)?

posted by nrobertson to technology (6 answers total)

I've never experienced any battery problems—or any kinds of problems at all—with my 2nd gen iPod Touch. I've been running iOS 4.2.1 since it was released.
posted by roosterboy at 10:13 PM on January 22, 2011

there have been reports of iOS 4 making older Touches run like crap, especially affecting the battery life.

I've noticed higher drain on the 2nd gen under iOS 4.x than 3.x, but it may well be related to degradation of the battery -- which is a bit of a pisser by itself. However, turning off notifications, location services (of limited value on a wi-fi only device) and other push stuff (in Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar) brings a drastic improvement in the amount of time you get out of a charge.
posted by holgate at 11:04 PM on January 22, 2011

I have a 3rd generation 8gb Touch, which I think is basically a 2g under the hood. I had major issues with the first version of ios4, but the current version is much better. Battery life is still a little short, but it's not terrible. That said, the ios4 features I'd most have liked to use don't work on the 8gb devices anyhow. Switching might not create big problems for you, but you also might not have much to gain.
posted by jon1270 at 5:15 AM on January 23, 2011

I have a 2nd generation Touch and I wish I had not upgraded, because it hasn't really benefitted me--I haven't really downloaded any new apps lately, and 2nd generation touches can't take advantage of features of iOS4 like multitasking. I've taken to just leaving it in "Airplane Mode" unless I specifically need to connect to the internet--which is annoying, but otherwise the battery is always dead whenever I go to use it, which is even more annoying.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:42 AM on January 23, 2011

Lifehacker has a bit on this and this

"Slow Performance on Old iOS Devices
While the iPhone 3GS is still snappy, pretty much any other iOS device released prior to 2010 suffers from speed issues—especially in iOS 4.0 and later. Reader v5point0 suggests disabling spotlight and MMS to fix the problem. We also have a few suggestions of our own. To name a few, try turning of SMS previews, clear your phone's history, and disable fancy iPod features like sound check, lyrics, and podcast info. There is only so much you can do with older hardware, but these tricks should help you dismiss some of the frustration and keep your phone a little more usable. If not, you can always downgrade iOS as a last ditch measure."
posted by stratastar at 10:05 AM on January 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

If my girlfriend's iPhone 3G (very possibly the same hardware minus a phone) was any indication, while 4.0 was a disaster in terms of responsiveness, the current iOS runs pretty comparably to 3.x now.
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:58 PM on January 23, 2011