Many users with an iPhone 3G have found their phone almost unusably slow after upgrading to the latest iOS 4. If you’re suffering with a slow phone, here’s something that’s worked for a lot of people: a cold hard reboot. And turn off Spotlight search.
Turn off Spotlight Search for a bigger, long term boost
Another tip submitted by readers: turn off Spotlight search indexing. From Settings/ General/ Home Button/ Spotlight search, turn search indexing off for as many items as possible. This reduces the overall workload of the system, so it appears to give an overall performance boost that is significant.