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My brother has an iPhone 3GS. The upgrade to iOS 5 has considerably slowed the device. Will the upgrade to iOS 6 slow the device even more?

Will iOS 6 work well (not any different from iOS 5) on an iPhone 3GS?

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You don't get all the features of iOS 6, but you do get the "feature" of Apple's not-quite-there maps program. I'd stay away if I were you! – None of the above Sep 20 '12 at 22:09

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According to this ArsTechnica article

iOS 6 doesn't make the iPhone 3GS any slower or more difficult to use than it was before, which should be good news to anyone who keeps theirs around as a secondary or backup phone—indeed, it's pleasantly surprising how many of the refinements and improvements make their way down to Apple's oldest-supported piece of iOS hardware. However, that hardware has been surpassed so thoroughly by other iOS and Android handsets at this point that it's difficult to recommend it as a primary handset. You don't have much to lose if you upgrade a 3GS to iOS 6, but there's a lot more to gain by investing in a newer device.

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This is correct among 4 people I know that have upgraded. The older devices only get slow if you have no room left on the device. Keeping between 500 MB and 900 MB free space seems to ensure most if not all apps have room to cache things and not hit the low memory / low space warnings that really slow things down on iOS. – bmike♦ Sep 20 '12 at 20:56
I agree with bmike's reply above and would add that deleting all of your photos and movies off your 3Gs does wonders for its responsiveness. Especially start up time. Make sure that you back up/copy your photos to iPhoto or into hard storage beforehand though. – user30438 Sep 20 '12 at 22:53
I found my iPhone 3GS to be faster on iOS6 than it was on iOS5. iOS5 seemed to behave sluggish, and iOS6 is definitely better. – Bart Koopman Jan 24 at 13:40

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