Downgrade iphone 3G from IOS 4.2.1 to 3.1.3

I've decided that I now hate apple and my iphone. with IOS4+ the performance has been so miserable, that I just can't take it anymore. I would lock up frequently, especially with yahoo maps, and I would drop calls more often than not. I blame AT&T for the call drops, but I also think that maybe the new firmware might not be helping the situation...so I've decided to go back in time to better days.

Here is the deal. If you want to go back to an old firmware version you can, but there are a few things to remember.

1) you will lose all your settings etc. It's a factory reset, so if you have solver every level of angry birds with 3 stars...then you will have to do that all over again.

2) there were bugs in 3.1.3 just like every OS before it, so you will have to live with those. Though, i've found it pretty stable.

3) you can always flash back to the latest version if you want. just allow itunes to perform the update as normal.

4) Apple requires signing of firmware so you need to modify your hosts file as explained below.

anyway, here are the steps I used. Please don't expect me to warranty this fix. use at your own risk. I think it would be hard to brick your phone, but don't blame me if you do.

http://www.redmondpie.com/downgrade-ios-4.1-to-ios-4-3.1.3-3.1.2-how-to-guide/

This is pretty much what I did, but I used a program called tinyumbrella to get the phone back out of recovery mode.

http://thefirmwareumbrella.blogspot.com/

In a nutshell the process is:

1) Download the ipsw for the firmware you want to go to. It’s in one of the links above or you can just google ipsw 1.3.1 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ipsw+3.1.3

2) You will likely need to change the extension on the file you just downloaded from .zip to .ipsw

3) Put your iphone into recovery mode. http://tinyurl.com/32asub2

4) Modify your hosts file as described above.

5) Attach the iphone to your PC and bring up itunes

6) I tunes will say it found your iphone in recovery mode and ask you to restore it.

7) Hold shift and hit restore, then select the ipsw you downloaded

8) Once that’s complete run tiny umbrella and get it out of recovery mode….done.