Upgrade to iOS 6.1 freezes iphone 4 - alternative resolution

Question

Up til 2 weeks ago, my iPhone 4 was working great, but all of a sudden it started to hang or freeze on some regular apps.  Looking back, it may have something to do with iCloud linking to my iPad or perhaps a corrupt app, but I make a point of deliberately not downloading non-established apps that   aren't widely reported in regular or tech media.
Whatever it was, it frustrated the **** out of me. Hitting the home button didn't do much and in fact, even that only took it home 60% of the time.  When I saw the new iOS 6.1 software upgrade appear in my settings, I would normally leave it a couple weeks to let Apple iron out the bugs and dodge the rush that seems to inflict pain on so many others.  However, I figured it might just fix the problem.
I made sure I had more than 60% battery and did a remote update through WIFI.  The status bar appeared, filled up and it seemed to complete the process as you'd expect and then.... bang!  Nothing.  Well, apart from the Apple logo.  That's all I had for the next 3 days.
A regular reboot and "hard reset" (pressing the Power and Home buttons for 10secs, waiting for a refresh) didn't resolve anything.  What's worse, I had no way of telling how much battery life was left, so whilst trying out a Restore through iTunes (which initially didn't even recognise a device), I could feel my phone was overheating.  You could actually feel the heat through the screen and the back cover.
The next night I tried the restore from iTunes.  But my device wasn't even being recognised. I tried a hard reset whilst it was plugged in and after a few more attempts and a full scan and update to the latest iTunes, my device was eventually picked up (recognised), but still no change on the phone's screen.  Oddly, iTunes recognised that it was using iOS 6.1, but the phone itself was useless.  I gave up there and left the phone to cool down overnight, figuring a complete drain of the battery is a good thing anyways.
Next day, I took it to a trusted IT repairs store, who removed the cover, blew the dust out, checked it over and said they could try an engineer's reset to debug the software, but they needed much more time. He also said he had a 2 other iphones and an ipad with similar problems.  I said I'd try again over the weekend and as I had already booked an Apple specialist call the next morning.
Those were the symptoms, here's my solution (I've stated all attributes, whether necessary or not);
Get to your regular PC and download the most up to date version of iTunes. (I'm using 11.0.1.12)
Get the correct cable you were given with your iPhone/ device.  Don't use a substitute and from what I've seen, always best to charge and use the charger and cable that comes with your iPad 3/ iPhone 4 or more.  They charge faster.
Suggestion: Don't run any other applications in your PC,unless say this webpage to read as you go.
Next the trick: Start iTunes on your laptop/ PC.
Plug the cable into your iPhone/ device.
Plug the USB end of the cable into your laptop/ PC.
Do the fast reset - pressing the Power and Home buttons for 10secs, wait for a black screen to signify the refresh and lift your finger off the POWER BUTTON ONLY.  Keep your finger down on the Home button.
Pretty soon after this, my iPhone gave me a new image, intimating that I now plug it into iTunes for a regular iTunes restore. 
So I uncoupled the cable and plugged it back in again and it recognised the device and started the regular update process with a firmware update too.  I just let it do it's thing and pretty soon, we were there.
YOU WILL LOSE DATA STORED ON THE PHONE, but better than a frozen screen for 3 days, right?
So long as you have a recent backup on your PC, or the iCloud, then you should be able to work through a restore process and get your contacts, apps and photos back in place.
Unfortunately my last back up was to my PC last August and it suggests the device "didn't allow it", but hey, a spring clean is good for business.  I can use an earlier version, but I'm thinking I can live with this for a while.  I will however, start taking more notice of iCloud backups and
Good luck and keep the faith, persevere and you will get there!

Answer 1

Do you have iTunes 11 on your computer? If not update iTunes.
Reboot your computer.
First thing to try is to reset your device. Press and hold the Home and Sleep buttons simultaneously ignoring the red slider should one appear until the Apple logo appears. Let go of the buttons and let the device restart. See if that fixes your problem.