So what if you get iOS 5 and you're not too happy with its performance? Or what if you're on a 3GS and just can't handle the slow-downs that occur when you put the later iterations of iOS on your mobile device? Simply downgrade it.

This also works for developers who've updated their iOS devices for development purposes and want to downgrade.

1. Download iOS 4.3.3 for Your Device

Download the iOS 4.3.3 Restore ISPW file from Apple, which will restore your device.

Download the appropriate ISPW file by clicking on your device:

- iPhone 4 (GSM)

- iPhone 3GS

- iPad

- iPad 2 Wi-Fi

- iPad 2 GSM

- iPad 2 CDMA

- iPod touch 3rd-Generation

- iPod touch 4th-Generation

2. Sync Your Device

Sync your device with iTunes to pull off any new content that you may have purchased on iOS 5.

3. Restore Device

To begin the restore process, open  iTunes and choose your device in the left-hand sidebar. Ensure that you are on the “Summary” tab.

Hold down the Option key and click the Restore button. A dialog window will pop up, allowing you to select the ISPW file that you downloaded for your device. iTunes will then begin restoring your device.

4. Restore Device from Backup

After iTunes restores the operating system back to 4.3 and your iOS device restarts, you will see a new screen in iTunes. From this setup screen, select “Restore form the backup of” and select the newest backup available for your device.

Please note: iOS 5 backups are not compatible with older iOS versions so you may not see device backups that occurred while iOS 5 was installed. You may lose some of your settings, but because you synced the content back to your iTunes library, none of your purchases should be missing.

5. And... Finished!

After your device has been restored from backup, iTunes will continue syncing your device, adding content back to it. This process may take a while depending on the amount of information you sync to your device.

Afterward, your device will be back to normal, running a non-beta version of iOS. From here, you can click the "Check for Update" button on your device page in iTunes to ensure that you have the latest version of iOS 4.3.

Follow this article’s author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.