i discovered this earlier this evening

http://www.whited00r.com/index.html

and i was quite intruiged - has anyone actually tried it ?. I'm really wondering along the lines of speed and overall functionality to be honest. I have an old iPhone 3G running 4.2.1 and it runs like an absolute dog. As i've said in my other thread about the phone in here, you can press the icon to enter SMS messaging and it'll take 12-13 seconds to actually get there.

If this whited00r is optimized for older handsets it might be worth investigating.

It's certainly interesting, though if your performance is that bad I'd be tempted to go back to a regular iOS3.x firmware (though I know that's not trivial to do). My iPhone 3G is definitely a bit sluggish on iOS4, but it is usable (SMS app just took 4 seconds to launch when I timed it now).

I do plan on going back to 3.1.3 at some point but it'll probably mean i have to pay to get the phone legitimately unlocked and that's money i don't quite have at the moment.

I know it says on the website that the whited00r firmware is unlocked so that was also a point of interest - if it all works well enough then it'll save me fannying around with trying to get another handset to last me a year until i can officially upgrade.

well i'm taking the plunge and giving it a try. i've backed up everything i want to keep on the iPhone as it is so i'm going ahead.

I've got two emergency plan B's ready just in case - and a spare handset if all else fails

Let us know how you get on. Not heard about this firmware before.

it's working quite well at the moment. it's unlocked and jailbroken "out of the box" so it was literally just a case of flashing it directly from the IPSW file.

When it came back up it took a second but found the Orange signal easily enough. I was happy with that because the handset is actually "officially" locked to O2.

Restored all my music and photos with no problems, although the one playlist i had is all mixed up but that's no real hardship.

as it's based on the 3.1.3 firmware i guess there's going to be the odd app that isn't compatible - the ebay official app doesn't appear to be compatible, but i guess there's others to use.

i'm just re-downloading my paid for stuff at the moment.

i'll have to see how it handles over the next few days. if it improves things significantly enough, could well mean i'll keep it until next year when i'm due an official upgrade.

One thing i've noticed is that I get a full 5 bar reception when i'm indoors and have 3G switched on. Usually the area i live in is pretty ropey for 3G reception but this is a world apart.

Cheers for the info. Definitely an option worth considering for people with older iPhones.