iPhone Firmware 2.0.2 Released

[Manic Mouse]

I think Apple really took too much on at once with the iPhone 3G. Im guessing I could probably talk for quite a few of you on here and say that you would be happy if Apple never bothered about Exchange or the App Store this time round and just firmly concentrated on making a solid 1.1.4 style iPhone with 3G data access and GPS? That for me personally, would be by far the most awesome mobile phone ever. :)

The apps have made the iPhone about a million times better, IMO.

[richardavid58]

I´m super happy with my iPod touch :apple:

Yesterday instead of update the iPod I restored it, with no backup, just started from scratch. :cool:

30 minutes to d/l the firmware
15 minutes to install
45 minutes to install & sync the iPod

So far so good! :D

This morning the back up was much faster than the first. 20 seconds!:eek:

I guess Apple heard our prayers in church, because in my opinion iTunes is searching any changes made since the last backup. Just what it should be since the first instance. I´ll keep you posted guys!:)

[eme jota ce]

The apps have made the iPhone about a million times better, IMO.

Fully agree.

GPS and 3G also make it better, for me.

All-in-all, it's the best phone I've ever owned or used. The update went smoothly on the two 3G iPhones we have at home.

[rtdunham]

Nevermind, just talked to a friend of mine who said that AT&T has something screwed up in their 3g signal that is causing oddities and they have to push out a new baseband to the towers.

and did he say whether that's a one-hour project? one day? one week? nationwide, or only in some locales? etc. thanks.

[saminsocks]

I think most people aren't understanding about backing up there iPhone/iPod touch. If you backed up 20 minutes ago before you updated, then it's going to go a lot faster. This is due to the fact that backups take longer if you changed your iPod/iPhone around a lot since the previous backup. So, if you deleted 20 apps, and added 15, the backup is going to take a LOT longer then before.

That's basically the reason why initially backups are faster, but wait a couple of days without backing up and you will know if backups are actually indeed faster.

I have backed up my computer before, which took about an hour, then disconnected it because I needed the USB port, and when I reconnected it it proceeded to do another hour long backup...

[furrina]

ok, so it was fine before, i figure i was one of the lucky ones, no dropped calls, no unusual 3G/EDGE behavior, picked up the signals fine wherever they're available (i live in NYC). Updated last night and NOW i'm getting "call failed" and dropped calls. This SUCKS. I'm gonna ignore it for a while and see if it straightens itself out. if not im gonna be pissed.

p.s. updating took about 20 minutes. i don't think i needed to back anything up. that seemed to go smoothly.

[rrkumar]

I think it's unfortunate that so many folks are having problems. I for one consider myself lucky that I live in an area with a pretty well-built out 3G network. Outside, I have full 5-bar 3G coverage, inside it's spotty at best, luckily I have wifi.

The areas where I have been having issues is with random resarts due to application crashes. I get one per day, but I have about 30 applications and am a heavy iphone user.

I hope these bugs are fixed with this and upcoming future patches.

But I'm giving the 3G a lot of slack because it does everything so much better than any phone ive ever owned. I have exchange, mobileme, calendars/contact sync, etc etc. So I believe that the bugs will get ironed out as we go forward.

[ebony]

I think Apple really took too much on at once with the iPhone 3G. Im guessing I could probably talk for quite a few of you on here and say that you would be happy if Apple never bothered about Exchange or the App Store this time round and just firmly concentrated on making a solid 1.1.4 style iPhone with 3G data access and GPS? That for me personally, would be by far the most awesome mobile phone ever. :)

My thoughts exactly, I'd pay money just to go back to 1.1.4. ( I've tried using the method on iclarified, but got no where )

Version 2 of the software is a joke and an embarrassment to Apple, just give me 1.1.4 back and I'll never update again.

Even on 2.0.2 selecting contacts takes 1 or 2 seconds before its functional, my 6 year nokia handles my contacts fine. I know we get a lot more than phone functionality with the iphone, but Apple should get the basics right first.

The phone in its current state is embarrassing to use.

[voicegy]

I'm wondering if anyone can report any fixes related to syncing calendars with Exchange server (for people NOT using MobileME)? Apparently, iPhones (either gen.) using the 2.01 or 2.00 firmware to sync with a corporate Exchange server were having issues where you couldn't add new calendar entries from the phone, and have them show up properly all the time in Outlook 2007 on a desktop PC afterwards. You had to make sure you entered all of them at your desktop, and used the iPhone in pretty much just a "read only" mode, if you didn't want any of that to get screwed up. Major issue for some corporate salespeople and the like ....

I am able to enter Calendar events on the iPhone and they show up nearly instantly on the desktop. Am using Exchange and Outlook, with the iPhone set to PUSH.

[number9]

I don't think this one has anything to do with the 3G reception issues that people are talking about. My reasoning for this is that there was an iPod touch update as well, and that has no cellular functionality, so I would guess it is just the bugs associated with the OS X Phone/Touch framework and not the cellular radios. I think the 3G problems will get shored up in September when 2.1 is released (hopefully)

[cmichaelb]

I´m super happy with my iPod touch :apple:

Yesterday instead of update the iPod I restored it, with no backup, just started from scratch. :cool:

30 minutes to d/l the firmware
15 minutes to install
45 minutes to install & sync the iPod

So far so good! :D

This morning the back up was much faster than the first. 20 seconds!:eek:

I guess Apple heard our prayers in church, because in my opinion iTunes is searching any changes made since the last backup. Just what it should be since the first instance. I´ll keep you posted guys!:)

I had the same experience until I turned the iPod off completely and turned it back on. Stick with standby mode...

[ratattak]

hmmm... well me and my boyfriend just got home from Apple. We had called in to apple support, and they set us up with an appointment to get new phones thinking that we were part of the "2%" hoping this will fix all the problems. they gave us brand new iphones - we even opened the boxes there, so i know they were brand new. They even came with the 2.0.1 firmware, so we know they are fairly new.

Inside the apple store, we had PERFECT reception, kind of like the store had its own tower. However, once we left, the phones' service dropped significantly, leaving us now with <3 bars at any given location.

So yea, new phones DOES NOT solve the problem, well in my case at least.

(Note, I am in the Tampa area, and went to International Plaza location.)

[whooleytoo]

Even on 2.0.2 selecting contacts takes 1 or 2 seconds before its functional, my 6 year nokia handles my contacts fine. I know we get a lot more than phone functionality with the iphone, but Apple should get the basics right first.

I'd love to know what Nokia phone you were using.

My last 4 phones (N70, N6680, N6600, N7650) were all Nokias, and none of them were even remotely as responsive as my iPhone. I'm thrilled to see the back of them.

[whooleytoo]

This morning the back up was much faster than the first. 20 seconds!:eek:

I wonder if that's because of 2.0.2, or is it because you just did another backup not long before, so very little had changed?

[richardavid58]

I wonder if that's because of 2.0.2, or is it because you just did another backup not long before, so very little had changed?

It´s because of 2.0.2, in 2.0 and 2.0.1 all of my backups were taking about an hour to complete.

[richardavid58]

I had the same experience until I turned the iPod off completely and turned it back on. Stick with standby mode...

I just turned off the iPod and connected it to iTunes and the backup took about 25 seconds

[admanimal]

Has anyone else noticed that there is no more "update all" option in the App Store updates section when you have multiple updates available? Perhaps the firmware update "fixed" the issue where updating an app could delete all of its settings/data.

[dizzy13]

I updated to 2.0.2 last night and it seemed okay. When I got up today it's been stuck on edge which it never is at home. I thought maybe it was due to the tropical storm (power did go out for about an hour last night). But I drove about 35 miles north today and never had a 3g signal. I'm back home and doing a restore and keeping my fingers crossed! I never had a signal problem with 2.0.0 or 2.0.1

[kayno]

back up on my iPhone is pretty quick now since 2.0.2 i dont have any lagging keyboards or address books so far... Avoiding 3G till things get straightened out.. will probably wait for 3rd Gen iPhone.. :D

[gri]

I think Apple really took too much on at once with the iPhone 3G. Im guessing I could probably talk for quite a few of you on here and say that you would be happy if Apple never bothered about Exchange or the App Store this time round and just firmly concentrated on making a solid 1.1.4 style iPhone with 3G data access and GPS? That for me personally, would be by far the most awesome mobile phone ever. :)

Not true. 2.0 Was a big deal for me as it allowed me to finally use my job's account officially and also respond to emails with that account, which I could not do previously (I could get them but not reply, had to use .mac for that). And I never had really problems, in fact, it worked better than the previous version, where fetching often would not work and only resume working after power cycling.
But I admit that I restrained from buying a 3G last week after reading about all these problems. I will wait for some months if not for the next generation. And I guess I am not the only person - and that should also make Apple think twice... Bad enough to have unsatisfied customers but loosing potentially ones (at least for some time, not for ever certainly, he he).

[ricksterct]

I called Apple support last night to tell them that even though I'm in a heavy "red" zone for G3 and my friend's G3 phone works fine in my house that I still can't use G3 or it switches to Edge. I said that I read a lot of people are having the same problem he told me that it's NOT true. He sad that he hasn't heard any complaints and that the problem is that G3 is "new technology" and there's not many G3 towers in the United States!!! I'm wondering if Apple is telling their workers not to discuss the G3 problem. He gave me no help what so ever.http://images.macrumors.com/vb/images/smilies/mad.gif

[dizzy13]

Is it just me or do other get slightly annoyed when people say G3 instead of 3g? I guess it's understandable in some cases, but when the local news in miami covered the July 11th launch and they keep saying G3 over and over and it was irritating for some reason :p

[Santa Rosa]

The apps have made the iPhone about a million times better, IMO.

Try telling that to all the people who have had hosed iPhones because of that.

Adding features, at the price of reliability and stability is a Microsoft style move. The do it to drum up interest in the product, at the same time adding these features sacrifices quality where it should matter. If Microsoft wanted to they could make an outstanding OS but the way thier ecosystem works and their perceived value to the consumer of fluff features is what drives them into the ground.

Sadly this seems to be what has happened to iPhone 2.0 in my opinion. Apple have gone all out with the features and on paper it sounded really good didn't it? Its easy to market features, much harder to market stability and reliability from a consumer standpoint. Apple have such a good software update ecosystem around the iPhone. They should have concentrated on the phone functions (3G, GPS) first. When that was 1.1.4 quality, they could have then added the Enterprise features and Mobile Me (they have even admitted themselves that was a major naff up) , then worked out the bugs to get that solid. Finally add the App Store once it had been tested behind doors for a good while to really get the system completely solid also give the Devs a bit of help!! When was the submission date for apps, yea I remember, a few days before the launch, reeks of rushed dont you think??

Yes doing it that way is not as an impressive way to roll out the features but I would put good money on it being a way that would lead to fewer headaches and solid reliability across the board. Unfortunately people relentlessly demanded a slew of new features. It has resulted in 2.0 a very poor quality release by Apples standards and they know it. Thats sadly what consumer demand has done in this case. Just think about how bad it would have been if it was a company other than Apple that undertook what they did, catastrophic fail. We can only hope now that Apple can really get a lid on it before it escalates into a far bigger problem than it already is.

[Glideslope]

2.0.2 last evening. Drove to work as usual. No difference in the coverage, transition zones.

I don't think anyone is qualified to judge this phones 3G ability unless it was on a mature built out network such as Verizon's.

Everyone can say what they want. Sure it's global, so are the networks.

If your on a mature built out 3G your fine. If your on a s*** network like at&t your not.

at&t also needs to go to 850mhz. The 2100 crap does not go through walls.
Talk to those in Oregon where at&t has switched over to 850mhz. HUGE improvement.

[kevingaffney]

I'm wondering reading some of the negative comments, are the majority of the problems caused by the service providers. I my 3g iPhone on launch and it has worked like a dream since. The one exception was while on vacation in Florida, it was hopeless for the last four days of my vacation on the T Mobile network

[Abernathy]

I've experienced the "call failed" scenario about ten times in last week. Eight of those instances were prior to updating. Each time, I had full bars. I've also missed two incoming calls (straight to voicemail) when I've had full bars.

Today I tried to place a call and it failed, so I tried once more (staying in the exact same spot) and it worked.

Do the bars mean anything? I've seen fast download speeds with one bar and super slow with full.

[evillageprowler]

The apps have made the iPhone about a million times better, IMO.

I fully agree with this statement. Without the apps, I'd have purchased a Nokia N95 (8GB) or the N96. I finally chose the iPhone because I felt that I would actually enjoy it more than the N95/6, despite some of the obvious deficiencies.

EVP

[rtdunham]

The phone in its current state is embarrassing to use.

it is embarrassing when the teenagers and preteen nieces and nephews at family gatherings can place/receive/sustain phone calls on their "free"-with-contract phones, and my iPhone is so disfunctional (as a phone) i don't even bother trying it. I'm about to pick up a cheap phone to carry for phone calls, just use the iPhone as an iPod Touch. But boy, it's frustrating to be forced into considering that. I'm holding out hope against hope that a new software update might improve reception.

[manhattanboy]

Try telling that to all the people who have had hosed iPhones because of that.

Adding features, at the price of reliability and stability is a Microsoft style move. The do it to drum up interest in the product, at the same time adding these features sacrifices quality where it should matter. If Microsoft wanted to they could make an outstanding OS but the way thier ecosystem works and their perceived value to the consumer of fluff features is what drives them into the ground.

Sadly this seems to be what has happened to iPhone 2.0 in my opinion. Apple have gone all out with the features and on paper it sounded really good didn't it? Its easy to market features, much harder to market stability and reliability from a consumer standpoint. Apple have such a good software update ecosystem around the iPhone. They should have concentrated on the phone functions (3G, GPS) first. When that was 1.1.4 quality, they could have then added the Enterprise features and Mobile Me (they have even admitted themselves that was a major naff up) , then worked out the bugs to get that solid. Finally add the App Store once it had been tested behind doors for a good while to really get the system completely solid also give the Devs a bit of help!! When was the submission date for apps, yea I remember, a few days before the launch, reeks of rushed dont you think??

Yes doing it that way is not as an impressive way to roll out the features but I would put good money on it being a way that would lead to fewer headaches and solid reliability across the board. Unfortunately people relentlessly demanded a slew of new features. It has resulted in 2.0 a very poor quality release by Apples standards and they know it. Thats sadly what consumer demand has done in this case. Just think about how bad it would have been if it was a company other than Apple that undertook what they did, catastrophic fail. We can only hope now that Apple can really get a lid on it before it escalates into a far bigger problem than it already is.

I agree completely...but sadly feel that the major issues like the reception and dropped calls were completely ignored by this 2.02 fix...
So what exactly is Apple fixing?

[andreab35]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

I've experienced the "call failed" scenario about ten times in last week. Eight of those instances were prior to updating. Each time, I had full bars. I've also missed two incoming calls (straight to voicemail) when I've had full bars.

Today I tried to place a call and it failed, so I tried once more (staying in the exact same spot) and it worked.

Do the bars mean anything? I've seen fast download speeds with one bar and super slow with full.

I've seen the bar issues with EDGE. It seems like for example, with two bars, EDGE speeds are not too bad. With full blown five bars, it seems like pages crawl to load.

I'm still testing things out. :)
Reception here in NH is being a little funny.

I'll post back with my full experience.

[rtdunham]

...new phones DOES NOT solve the problem, well in my case at least...(Note, I am in the Tampa area, and went to International Plaza location.)

I'm in st pete, on the other side of tampa bay from you. I went to my nearest ATT store this afternoon and asked what could be done to improve service. The customer service rep was nice, but checked the map and said i was in a "good" but not "best" service area. "Shouldn't that still provide enough service that i could place and receive calls, and carry on conversations?" Well, she said--and this is the honest-go-god truth, she said it while picking at her teeth with a piece of plastic from a product package--it might not be enough. I told her att has told me each time i've called tech support that they were working to redirect some towers, but that it's done me no good. She said well, they can't add towers, they're busy putting up towers in new places around the world. I expressed the pov that they ought to put up enough that there's service in existing "coverage" areas. She said they had one tower damaged in a storm just before the cingular-att marriage, and they never did fix/replace it, it just created another dead spot in the local coverage.

all frustrating. but not as frustrating as when she told me she didn't think the 3G iPhone would work any better where i am than my first-gen phone, because the signals use the same towers. The nearest tower, btw, is about 12 blocks east and 10 blocks north...maybe 15 or so blocks as the crow flies.

[ZombiePete]

Being in AT&T's home market (for now, anyway) of San Antonio, my 3G reception is always fantastic. Even where I live, thirty miles outside of town, I can connect to 3G.

My biggest gripe is the slow keyboad and slow contacts issue. It is so irritating to be typing a text message and watch the keyboard plod away fifteen to twenty seconds after I'm done typing. I keep hoping with each patch that it's fixed, only to have it rear its ugly head again and again.

I would rather have no apps and a 100% phone than this.

[bboucher790]

I've seen the bar issues with EDGE. It seems like for example, with two bars, EDGE speeds are not too bad. With full blown five bars, it seems like pages crawl to load.



Signal strength does not determine data speeds automatically. You can have full bars, but browse really slow. Just like your home internet, your speed may depend on how many users are on the network. For example, when I go to Angel baseball games, I cannot browse the internet at all. It's awful. Like 10 kb/s. I have full bars, I can make and receive calls, I can text. Browsing? Impossible.

[andreab35]

Signal strength does not determine data speeds automatically. You can have full bars, but browse really slow. Just like your home internet, your speed may depend on how many users are on the network. For example, when I go to Angel baseball games, I cannot browse the internet at all. It's awful. Like 10 kb/s. I have full bars, I can make and receive calls, I can text. Browsing? Impossible.

Wow... I never knew that!
Thank you for giving me a tip of nice information!

Greatly appreciated. :)

[Lightmensendme]

I installed the v2.0.2 update hoping that this would resolve my ongoing/persistent issues. No luck. :mad:

When I turn 'on' the 3G network, when 3G service is lost, I get NO SERVICE indicator and have no phone service. I have to manually turn off the 3G network to get back up and running (with Edge). Simply doesn't work. I don't even bother with 3G and run with either WiFi or the slower Edge network.

Still, very, disappointed...

If your phone isn't working right then I would take it back to Apple. I got mine and it went back and forth from No Service to Full service. My friends who had other 3G phones would get full service and I'd have none so I took it back for a replacement and my second one worked fine. There could be something wrong with the radio. Just a thought.

[bstreiff]

Not sure if it's from the firmware update or not, but the iPod functions crashed on me twice today midsong. I've not had that happen with 2.0 or 2.0.1.

[bobbleheadbob]

Downloading and installing now. Wonder if I should be afraid?? :confused: I guess it can't be any more buggy than 2.0.1 has been -- I had to stop and reboot at least 2x today. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is a better iPhone day! :D

[HarryDG]

I am having a lot of problem after upgrading to 2.0.2. On the initial install it did not synch with some of the items like photos and none of the Apps would work they crashed every one of them and I have quite a few Apps on my iPhone. I had to restore to factory setting and reinstall the firmware and synch from scratch, it worked for half a day after that it started act strange first it would not show my music in my iPod although I knew I had more than 1000 songs and later I lost my contacts but they came back after a while and later it started crashing the Apps none of them works now I have restarted the iPhone several times no use my Apps don't work. I don't want to go through another 3-4 hours of restoring from scratch even after that there is no guarantee that it will be stable.

All I know 2.0.2 is not stable, I want to go back to 2.0.1 anyone knows how and where I can get 2.0.1 firmware?

2.0.2 when and if it works is a little faster than before but it still has issues......
:mad::mad:

[skiphunt]

Before the "update/bug fix" my iphone 3g was working perfectly. It's my 3rd iphone in a week after multiple problems from freezes to horizontal lines in my screen. I was SOOOO overjoyed that my 3rd iphone was finally working properly.

THEN, I updated to this 2.02 version and at first all seemed fine. NOW, most of my emails have disappeared.... none of my 3 POP email accounts work anymore... and I'm faced with possibly having to again... for the f*&%$ing 15th time.... wiping the phone and re-installing EVERYTHING!!!! Jesus age Christ.... my decision to pull the trigger on the iphone 3g has been THE WORST mistake I've made this year. It has cost me FAR more time than it cost. I am really starting to develop a very unhealthy HATRED for
Apple. Thank Buddha I still have a week to return this POS for a refund and cancel my ATT contract. I REALLY wanted this iphone to work... when it works... I love it. But at this point I'm finally at the end of my rope and just want to get back to regular life instead of non-stop trouble-shooting this f#@$%##ing POS that Steve Jobs unleashed on this faithful Apple supporter. It's sad that I will seriously consider NOT buying Apple again after this.... after being a faithful Apple supporter since the MacPlus.

Is there anything out there that's similar... but actually works? Blackberry perhaps?

[ferrous]

Excited about the update to the iPhone, I updated the phone and hoped for improvement.

No change in connection failure or dropped calls, same as before, really bad (I miss Sprint)

People say their iPhones were snappier after the update, mine is more sluggish, for example accessing contacts and trying to dial out takes a few second delay after each click... how do I erase/restore this phone???

[skiphunt]

Excited about the update to the iPhone, I updated the phone and hoped for improvement.

No change in connection failure or dropped calls, same as before, really bad (I miss Sprint)

People say their iPhones were snappier after the update, mine is more sluggish, for example accessing contacts and trying to dial out takes a few second delay after each click... how do I erase/restore this phone???

Mine was working perfectly before the 2.02 update. Seemed to be snappier and still working fine after the update. Then... gradually... throughout the day... the phone got slower... and slower.... all my email had disappeared... and now it keeps flashing a popup saying my password/account info is incorrect. I've changed NOTHING... but it still reports back error. I deleted one of my POP accounts and re-entered everything manually. Still it reports errors.

I'm at the end of my rope. For those of you saying you have no problems at all... congrats! I'm giving this POS until the end of next week. If it's not working by then... or Apple hasn't addressed the issue with something that doesn't just make the situation worse... then I'm throwing in the towel and looking elsewhere.

[alexacker]

Well, I updated our both mine and my wife's 1st gen phones last night (3 hours after the 5pm availability) and mine was flawless on the Mac but my wife's on the PC crashed hard. Error 13.

Tried everything, read the forums everywhere with tons of homemade fixes that didn't do anything. So, I broke down and called Apple. 2 hours later, fixed (they are good, man). He had me build a new profile on the mac and restore the phone on my mac g5. Worked flawlessly. Then, he had sync it to my wife's PC. Worked flawlessly. Then synced her iphone as always. It's back and I find that 2.0.2 is snappier than ever. Everything is better including the EDGE. Grabs a 5 bar signal within in 5 seconds (in NYC and LI areas).

My lesson learned is just call Apple versus struggling for hours.

[skiphunt]

Well, I updated our both mine and my wife's 1st gen phones last night (3 hours after the 5pm availability) and mine was flawless on the Mac but my wife's on the PC crashed hard. Error 13.

Tried everything, read the forums everywhere with tons of homemade fixes that didn't do anything. So, I broke down and called Apple. 2 hours later, fixed (they are good, man). He had me build a new profile on the mac and restore the phone on my mac g5. Worked flawlessly. Then, he had sync it to my wife's PC. Worked flawlessly. Then synced her iphone as always. It's back and I find that 2.0.2 is snappier than ever. Everything is better including the EDGE. Grabs a 5 bar signal within in 5 seconds (in NYC and LI areas).

My lesson learned is just call Apple versus struggling for hours.

Goody for you!!! But when I try to call Apple support... I wait on hold for 45mins... then get a Nigerian who can barely speak English. Then... none of the fixes work... then HIS freakin' phone drops MY call and nobody bothers to call me back!!!! Back to square one.

Also.... my update TOO seemed to go great just like you are reporting... just wait. My started to degrade all on it's own without me doing anything. I was smelling roses just like you are as of last night. After today.... I'm thinking Apple released this POS WAAAAAY before it was ready for primetime. Let us know how well your recovered updated phones are working this time tomorrow.

[nickXedge]

This is the very first time I have been displeased with an update of any kind from Apple. I was one of the lucky, and I don't mean sarcastically, 98% unaffected by the 3G connection issues... until I upgraded to firmware 2.0.2 that is.

EDGE does seem a bit faster than it used to, however I only noticed this because I suddenly don't get 3G anymore at all in certain spots and 1 or 2 bars at most in others. Before this update I had 3G since the day I got the phone and have not had to use EDGE once. I always 3+ bars and it was always incredibly fast. Now... not so much.

Bring on 2.1 as fast as you can Apple, now you're pissing off everyone!

[skiphunt]

At this point... I'd be ever so happy to be shown that I was some kind of idiot and set up something wrong. I'm now forced to try and wipe the phone clean and start over... on my 3rd phone in 10 days..... about my 23rd complete wipe and restore in 10 days. I've so far lost about 30hrs in trouble shooting... 3hrs on the phone with both ATT and APPLE tech support. And hour at the ATT store... and about 7hrs total at the freakin' APPLE store. This $300 phone has cost me so much in time so far... not to mention sleep... that I'm really wondering why I don't just get my money back and wait until Apple and all the other faithful Apple customers work out all the hard/software bugs.

Ok... can someone tell me how the phone could be working perfectly... my 3 POP accounts working perfectly.... then all of a sudden... my emails in one account all disappear? Then I delete one account and try re-entering the POP account info manually.. but the iphone doesn't actually delete the account and the same freakin account is showing up twice? And now the iphone is downloading emails for the last 2 months that I've already gone through about 25 times now? And the other two POP accounts aren't showing emails at all anymore? Nor, downloading any old/new emails at all?

When I went to the Apple store... the "genius" acted like I was just one of those unlucky 2%. He actually used the figure "2%" BEFORE I read it here. I ask him if he could just take a look at all my settings to see if I've done something wrong... he just says the secureserver.net is notoriously problem causing. I tell him it's never caused any problems on my MacBookPro. He says "well, the iphone is a completely different animal... etc." I tell him his theory that my POP accounts are the problem doesn't hold water because I have 3 completely different mail services. ALL of them are having problems. He suggests that they are all obscure mail services and that if I just used something like gmail I wouldn't be having so many problems. I tell him the other two are a Yahoo business account... AND, an ATT.net account.. hardly "obscure" mail services.

Where do they get these so-called "geniuses" anyway? And where can you actually go where there are Apple or ATT folks who actually know anything at all about these POS phones and crappy wireless service?

[winterspan]

What I would really like to know is what percentage of the users experience 3G connectivity issues have actually compared their iPhone 3G performance to that of at least one other 3G phone, preferably in multiple areas? It appears fairly obvious that there may indeed be some real issues, but I certainly don't have a lot of confidence in your average cellphone user to understand the intricacies of cellphone connections.

* How many users that are complaining are just living/working in an area with poor (or non-existent) AT&T 3G coverage?
* More generally, how many users are experiencing connection issues, call dropouts, poor reception, etc that is a natural results of the carrier network and not the iPhone hardware itself? How many users are actually comparing the iPhone 3G's 3G connection to that of another AT&T 3G phone in order to determine this?
* How many users are possibly incorrectly 'comparing' the iPhone 3G UMTS coverage to a 3G phone running on Verizon's/Sprint's 3G EV-DO network?


Can someone point me to knowledgeable users who have done at least quasi-empirical tests with the iPhone's 3G performance and found legitimate issues?
Assuming there are real problems, I imagine they would be related to the GSM/UMTS hand-off. Potentially an algorithm is too aggressive in switching to GSM when there may otherwise be sufficient UMTS signal. Or perhaps in the attempt to extend battery life, the firmware is too conservative in boosting the radio's UMTS power output in low-signal conditions, and instead just shifts it to GSM coverage. With the uproar over 3G battery life from users that don't understand the technology, not to mention the lack of replaceable batteries, it certainly wouldn't be surprising to me.


Funny, I almost always use Wifi so I've never even noticed if I have 3G reception or not.

However, at the moment I can't connect to my Wifi network (hopefully a problem with the router not the iPhone!) so I've noticed it's always on Edge. Turned 3G off and on again, and it comes up with 3G, but only 1 bar. Looks like I might be part of that "2%".

Are you being serious? That is the sole observation from which you then deduce that your iPhone must be faulty? Are you even in a decent 3G coverage area? Have you even compared the reception to another UMTS Phone running on AT&T's 3G network? In more than one location? I hope that this is more a case of leaving information out of your post than the alternative..


Try telling that to all the people who have had hosed iPhones because of that.

Adding features, at the price of reliability and stability is a Microsoft style move. The do it to drum up interest in the product, at the same time adding these features sacrifices quality where it should matter. If Microsoft wanted to they could make an outstanding OS but the way thier ecosystem works and their perceived value to the consumer of fluff features is what drives them into the ground.

Sadly this seems to be what has happened to iPhone 2.0 in my opinion.

I disagree. Yes, they do indeed have some issues to work through with the iPhone's firmware, much as any brand new product has with immature software. I don't believe however that the iPhone project is a zero sum system, where if you add features then you are taking away resources from fixing other issues. The 3G reception problem, if there really is one that is the fault of the handset itself and not the network, could be caused by many things. If it's an issue of the firmware being too aggressive in switching to GSM, or too conservative in boosting output power in poor signal conditions, or one of any number of possible things, then obviously more resources would have had no effect whatsoever. The same principle applies if the problem lies in the UMTS chipsets. Perhaps there is a small percentage of defective chipsets sourced from Infineon or a contract manufacturer --- again, more resources (diverted from feature development) wouldn't have had an impact on this.

I do agree that they are rushing releases out a bit, without enough troubleshooting and debugging. And that type of problem may or may not be responsive to deploying more resources. Sure, you can possibly add manpower to do more testing, but software development is not a assembly line. You don't get a linear increase in output from adding manpower and other resources. Developers in the room will know exactly what I'm talking about.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month).

it is embarrassing when the teenagers and preteen nieces and nephews at family gatherings can place/receive/sustain phone calls on their "free"-with-contract phones, and my iPhone is so disfunctional (as a phone) i don't even bother trying it. I'm about to pick up a cheap phone to carry for phone calls, just use the iPhone as an iPod Touch. But boy, it's frustrating to be forced into considering that. I'm holding out hope against hope that a new software update might improve reception.

Wow is it really that bad for you? Nearly all the problems I have heard of have involved UMTS/3G reception issues, nothing with GSM itself. You actually aren't able to make or receive phone calls? Can you describe the problem in more detail?

[copland007]

Update didn't work for me, after waiting 2hrs for the initial 'backup' it downloaded 2.0.2 then after a few moments I got the dreaded "the iphone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (1604)".

Three 'restore and update' attempts have also failed. Great thanx Apple, I will go to bed with a bricked iphone and deal with it tomorrow :mad::mad::mad:

[MimChe]

I had a similar experience. I feel a bit bad for them because there is no fix and I assume they have been told to avoid admissions at all costs, and try not to exchange the phones - at least that's the approach my "genius" took. This has SO soured me on Apple. The genius bar just blew me off.

ATT on the other hand tried hard to help, to the point that I actually got two call backs today following up. Amazing.

At this point... I'd be ever so happy to be shown that I was some kind of idiot and set up something wrong. I'm now forced to try and wipe the phone clean and start over... on my 3rd phone in 10 days..... about my 23rd complete wipe and restore in 10 days. I've so far lost about 30hrs in trouble shooting... 3hrs on the phone with both ATT and APPLE tech support. And hour at the ATT store... and about 7hrs total at the freakin' APPLE store. This $300 phone has cost me so much in time so far... not to mention sleep... that I'm really wondering why I don't just get my money back and wait until Apple and all the other faithful Apple customers work out all the hard/software bugs.

Ok... can someone tell me how the phone could be working perfectly... my 3 POP accounts working perfectly.... then all of a sudden... my emails in one account all disappear? Then I delete one account and try re-entering the POP account info manually.. but the iphone doesn't actually delete the account and the same freakin account is showing up twice? And now the iphone is downloading emails for the last 2 months that I've already gone through about 25 times now? And the other two POP accounts aren't showing emails at all anymore? Nor, downloading any old/new emails at all?

When I went to the Apple store... the "genius" acted like I was just one of those unlucky 2%. He actually used the figure "2%" BEFORE I read it here. I ask him if he could just take a look at all my settings to see if I've done something wrong... he just says the secureserver.net is notoriously problem causing. I tell him it's never caused any problems on my MacBookPro. He says "well, the iphone is a completely different animal... etc." I tell him his theory that my POP accounts are the problem doesn't hold water because I have 3 completely different mail services. ALL of them are having problems. He suggests that they are all obscure mail services and that if I just used something like gmail I wouldn't be having so many problems. I tell him the other two are a Yahoo business account... AND, an ATT.net account.. hardly "obscure" mail services.

Where do they get these so-called "geniuses" anyway? And where can you actually go where there are Apple or ATT folks who actually know anything at all about these POS phones and crappy wireless service?

[MimChe]

Not exactly "cool" but my blackberry works fine 100% of the time for email, and the iphone was so inconsistent (when it was working at all) you could never feel confident that you were receiving all the emails. So, if your main need is email, go with blackberry. I hate using the phone on the blackberry, however. I feel like I am holding a calculator to the side of my head. But, hey, it works.

Oh, and Jesus's middle initial is H. Jesus H Christ. Not Jesus Age Christ. . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_H._Christ



THEN, I updated to this 2.02 version and at first all seemed fine. NOW, most of my emails have disappeared.... none of my 3 POP email accounts work anymore... and I'm faced with possibly having to again... for the f*&%$ing 15th time.... wiping the phone and re-installing EVERYTHING!!!! Jesus age Christ....

Is there anything out there that's similar... but actually works? Blackberry perhaps?

[skiphunt]

Not exactly "cool" but my blackberry works fine 100% of the time for email, and the iphone was so inconsistent (when it was working at all) you could never feel confident that you were receiving all the emails. So, if your main need is email, go with blackberry. I hate using the phone on the blackberry, however. I feel like I am holding a calculator to the side of my head. But, hey, it works.

Oh, and Jesus's middle initial is H. Jesus H Christ. Not Jesus Age Christ. . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_H._Christ

I'm doing one last complete wipe and reset, etc. I have until the 28th on this current phone to get a full refund and cancel my ATT account. If everything isn't completely smooth by then... I'm just going back to my old Motorola phone and check email when I'm near a machine like I've been doing for years. I thought it'd be great to be able to do it on the iphone.. and that I'd save time.. yada, yada... but I've lost so much time at this point.. it's a wash.

And sorry about getting Jesus's middle initial wrong. What does the "H" stand for anyway? "Hope" that Apple makes good on this whole iphone 3g fiasco? ;-)

[ebony]

I'd love to know what Nokia phone you were using.

My last 4 phones (N70, N6680, N6600, N7650) were all Nokias, and none of them were even remotely as responsive as my iPhone. I'm thrilled to see the back of them.

A nokia 6310i. It was great, I could make a phone call on a phone, without any lag or crashes and it had a battery life of about a week.

I know its an old phone and its not really comparative to an iphone in form or function, but I'm just so disappointed in the current software for the iphone. Its like when you know something could be great, but the details are muddying the overall quality.

[betaboy78]

Oh, and Jesus's middle initial is H. Jesus H Christ. Not Jesus Age Christ. . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_H._Christ

Seriously . . . too funny! I don't know why that made me laugh soooo hard just now, but it did. Thanks, I needed that.

[gpfradgley]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

apps still crash!!!! After update arrrrrrrrrrh

[Millah]

Honestly, why does it feel like, at least for me, that with every new update (2.0.1 and 2.0.2) things progressively get worse and worse. 2.0 itself worked better for me than either update has right now lol.

[Trajectory]

Today I gave the iPhone 3G (with 2.0.2 update) a test and used it for various things while in a car being driven for about an hour outside of Vancouver. I was able to make 2 phone calls without being dropped. Checked and sent 3 emails. Browsed a few websites, and sent a text message.

The only problem was the slow loading pages while browsing, but, everything else worked perfectly. So, I guess my carrier Rogers has pretty decent 3G coverage here.

[Mastidon]

Well last night my phone nuked itself. I first noticed a problem when I went into the iPod functions and found I had no music despite iTunes confirming I had 10 gigs of music installed. How nice. Then all 3rd party apps stopped working. Reboots fixed nothing.

Went to restore from last backup taken the day before when 2.02 happened. Backup corrupt! So typical. Why can't Apple get their acts together aroudn this issue? Backups take forever and are still corrupt?

Nuked, reinstalled everything again. I am running about 120 apps so I am guessing Apple never tested such a load. Which brings me to another issue, I have passed 144 at some point which is the max allowed. 145 apps will install but the icon for 145 will not display until after you delete 144. How stupid of a bug is that?

iPhone 3G w/ 16 megs

[copland007]

So I finally got 2.0.2 installed on the iPhone, but now EVERY time I connect it I only get the choice of 'Restoring from backup' or 'Set up as a new device'...

I am sick and tired of these 2.x releases, back to 1.1.4 for me!!!

[macker]

A little off topic, but if I want to upgrade to this firmware from a PC (my powerbook is down at the moment, power cable failed and waiting on a new one), will it wipe all of my songs etc from the iPhone? The PC has no music or anything on it so I can't reload.

Cheers.

[skiphunt]

Hey, I have an idea...

Remember that first Apple commercial that had that female athlete throwing something into a giant 1984 Big Brother screen and shattering it?

And you know those GIANT glass windows in the fronts of Apple stores? I'm sure you do since many of us stood in line right next to them... wasting several hours of our lives to pay good money for a POS. But, I digress ;-)

Howz about we all tether these cheap plastic POS iphones to an actual brick and shot-put them all at some given time into those giant Apple store windows? You know... kind of a symbolic rebellious gesture of breaking free from "Big Brother".... just like that first, cute Apple commercial. ;-)

[shane1598]

i cant keep a steady 3g signal at my house. it switches to edge and even gprs!!!

i had a 2g iphone for a year before this phone and it never went to gprs. I didnt even know what the gprs icon looked like until 2.0.2

i am sick of backwards updates:mad:

[Lopes]

i cant keep a steady 3g signal at my house. it switches to edge and even gprs!!!

i had a 2g iphone for a year before this phone and it never went to gprs. I didnt even know what the gprs icon looked like until 2.0.2

i am sick of backwards updates:mad:

I've been having the same exact problem as you! Last night, outside my apt, i saw my phone go from full 3G to full edge to no service then up to half 3G. Even then the 3G wasn't doing anything until i rebooted the phone. Then while inside my apt, I dropped a call 3 times because of the 3G to edge handoff.

I'm in the DC area...anymore washintonian experiences from this thread?

I never had these problems before 2.02. I even noticed 2.0.1 was a little wonky, but not this bad. I've been an apple user and evangelist for over 6 years now, but iphone 2.0 really has been pissed off, to the point of perusing at&t's blackberry selection right now...

[andreab35]

Well... I said I'd post back- so here is my experience! :D

~ Just remember I have the 1st Gen. iPhone. ~

I downloaded the update and backed up my iPhone the night it came out in less than a half hour. Update went successfully.

I've seen a great improvement in speed and responsiveness. I have not seen Safari crash yet and scrolling and zooming is much smoother. Additionally, none of my app. store applications have crashed.

Typing is a little less laggy, but it still lags on. It can be a really frustrating for me sometimes since I am a fast iPhone typer.

Maps seem to be more accurate and provides information faster.

When I am on WiFi at my house, I do not get kicked off as much as I did. Before when I was in my room, I'd keep getting knocked off WiFi and would have to always try to connect again. Now the WiFi isn't that much of an issue.

The latest problem for me (it doesn't bother me too much) is that I've noticed if I do some heavy duty stuff on the iPhone with music playing at the same time, the music sometimes starts to lag or stall for about three seconds, but then all is good after those three seconds with the music. I find it odd, because my music never did this weird behavior before when I had 1.1.4...

Reception I really can't tell a difference. I've seen it to be always different. Where my home is, it's not in a great area for reception, but I can make calls ok.
One day in my room I will have 3 bars, then the next day I'll have one. It's odd. Of course when the thing is on the dock it flies up to five bars. But I really don't feel like talking to someone with my phone on the dock... :o Once in a power outage, I had to talk with my iPhone on the dock next to the window crouched in a ball just to get a bar.

Every day my reception acts different...

---

Mainly, I have to say that reception has been my biggest bother with the iPhone. I paid $400 for the phone, and I pay about $70 a month for service. I expect to get some decent service usage with it. But it makes me a little annoyed when I get five bars outside of Walmart, and I walk into the store and get nothing... not even a bar. And then I see all those happy Americans talking away on their cheap $50 phones opposed to me paying a good amount for a phone and cell service, and I can't even talk! :confused:

Hey, when I need the phone the most, I get no service. When I don't need it, sure, I get 5 bars in a heartbeat.

But as a lot of people have said, this update probably isn't a fix for reception issues, and I agree to that. Hopefully a future firmware update soon will do some reception fixings and fix other bugs and problems that people are having

Overall, I've had good luck with every single iPhone firmware update that has come out. I definitely feel for those who do not have success.

I guess everything with technology can't be perfect... ;)

So that's my $0.02!

[fmiddleton]

Hey, I have an idea...

I miss the IGNORE button from Usenet.

[whooleytoo]

A nokia 6310i. It was great, I could make a phone call on a phone, without any lag or crashes and it had a battery life of about a week.

I know its an old phone and its not really comparative to an iphone in form or function, but I'm just so disappointed in the current software for the iphone. Its like when you know something could be great, but the details are muddying the overall quality.

Weird - I've had my share of problems with the iPhone (had to restore 3 times, some apps used to crash a lot, 3G coverage is patchy), but am willing to tolerate these mostly because the interface is so much quicker (as well as intuitive) than Symbian on my old Nokias.

[whooleytoo]

Are you being serious? That is the sole observation from which you then deduce that your iPhone must be faulty? Are you even in a decent 3G coverage area? Have you even compared the reception to another UMTS Phone running on AT&T's 3G network? In more than one location? I hope that this is more a case of leaving information out of your post than the alternative..


I'm based in Cork city centre, which should have excellent 3G coverage.

I also find it odd that by I can get 3G coverage by turning 3G off and on again (or by turning airplane mode on and off).

But, you might have a point. It's occurred to me that many people will be using their phones a LOT more for data than before, so if there is any issue with patchy network coverage, it is going to be highlighted by using the iPhone. Hence it's POSSIBLE (can't emphasise that word enough) that some of the 3G issues are down to the fact that several 3G networks are being hit & tested harder now than ever before.

[skiphunt]

I miss the IGNORE button from Usenet.

poor thing! no sense of humor eh? :cool:

ps... I'd like to see what YOUR demeanor/attitude would be after 3 iphone exchanges in 10 days.... 30hrs of troubleshooting... 26 restores.... 3hrs on the phone with a Nigerian Apple tech support who barely speaks English, who then "drops your call" and no-one bothers to call you back forcing you to call back in and start from scratch with your miserable iphone 3g story... spend an hour at ATT counter for SIM switch and tech support... 7hrs at the "genius" bar....

and.... you still can't send or receive emails, and after a recent "bug fix" install... everything that had finally started working properly, goes to crap. Tell me that wouldn't send you over the edge chief.

[hobbbz]

So I finally got 2.0.2 installed on the iPhone, but now EVERY time I connect it I only get the choice of 'Restoring from backup' or 'Set up as a new device'...

I am sick and tired of these 2.x releases, back to 1.1.4 for me!!!

Just do restore from backup and chose the backup your phone just made. i promise it will work. it scared me too.

[saminsocks]

Has anyone noticed a difference in mail? Mine now no longer wraps text. I also had to restore my phone, so it's possible that's a setting I forgot to reset, but I don't remember having to do that before.

[copland007]

Just do restore from backup and chose the backup your phone just made. i promise it will work. it scared me too.

I've done it three times now, that's the problem, anytime I want to sync my iphone now I have to restore it first, retarded.

[mBox]

I've done it three times now, that's the problem, anytime I want to sync my iphone now I have to restore it first, retarded.same prob here :P for some reason there was two other restore dates a 15 min apart from each other. I gave up and just started a new one. of course with all that bs I had re-import all my apps, tunes,videos and etc... the last two days reminded me of Windows 98 :P

[hotshotharry]

So far so good, i havent had any troubles with lagging keyboard and everything is still snappy!!

Also i noticed that you can now update the dictionary! yeehaw :-)

( correction it also remembers the stuff from before the update when you canceled the suggested word !!!!!! )

[cmichaelb]

Well last night my phone nuked itself. I first noticed a problem when I went into the iPod functions and found I had no music despite iTunes confirming I had 10 gigs of music installed. How nice. Then all 3rd party apps stopped working. Reboots fixed nothing.

Went to restore from last backup taken the day before when 2.02 happened. Backup corrupt! So typical. Why can't Apple get their acts together aroudn this issue? Backups take forever and are still corrupt?

Nuked, reinstalled everything again. I am running about 120 apps so I am guessing Apple never tested such a load. Which brings me to another issue, I have passed 144 at some point which is the max allowed. 145 apps will install but the icon for 145 will not display until after you delete 144. How stupid of a bug is that?

iPhone 3G w/ 16 megs

I have this same problem on my Touch. Try restoring but loading no apps. See if the problem remains.

The first sign mine is doing this is when apps stop launching. Then the iPod can't find the music and movies.

I've been to the genius bar and they have no idea what to make of it.

[ebony]

Weird - I've had my share of problems with the iPhone (had to restore 3 times, some apps used to crash a lot, 3G coverage is patchy), but am willing to tolerate these mostly because the interface is so much quicker (as well as intuitive) than Symbian on my old Nokias.

The nokia 6310i does not use symbian os.

I'm not sure what it is, probably a proprietary nokia os, but thats not important.

The point I was trying to make is that the iphone does a lot, but struggles to do the basic function of making a phone call.

Typical problem is I select the phone icon, wait 2 seconds, select contacts wait 2 seconds, try and scroll the contacts, wait a second, and then I can select a number and make a call.

Don't get me wrong the phone is ( or could be, and even was with 1.1.4 ) great, the software is currently a joke.

[whooleytoo]

The nokia 6310i does not use symbian os.

I'm not sure what it is, probably a proprietary nokia os, but thats not important.

The point I was trying to make is that the iphone does a lot, but struggles to do the basic function of making a phone call.

Typical problem is I select the phone icon, wait 2 seconds, select contacts wait 2 seconds, try and scroll the contacts, wait a second, and then I can select a number and make a call.

Don't get me wrong the phone is ( or could be, and even was with 1.1.4 ) great, the software is currently a joke.

Fair enough, that's probably the difference. More recent Symbian phones probably are actually more sluggish.

I too have noticed there's a lag when opening the iPhone's phone "app", moving from tabs to tab, though it does seem to get cached so subsequent launches are much zippier. It's still better than my old Nokias, so I'm still happy.

[jmelrose]

Inside the apple store, we had PERFECT reception, kind of like the store had its own tower. However, once we left, the phones' service dropped significantly, leaving us now with <3 bars at any given location.

THe Apple Stores have 3G cell phone repeaters in them. The one in Northbrook Ct outside Chicago has GREAT reception inside the store, but in the mall just a few yards out it drops off considerably. When I was in the store asking about a fix for the Black Screen of Death issue, the Genius told me some of the stores with poor reception got the repeaters to be sure they activate properly in-house.

[thecypher]

Mainly, I have to say that reception has been my biggest bother with the iPhone. I paid $400 for the phone, and I pay about $70 a month for service. I expect to get some decent service usage with it. But it makes me a little annoyed when I get five bars outside of Walmart, and I walk into the store and get nothing... not even a bar. And then I see all those happy Americans talking away on their cheap $50 phones opposed to me paying a good amount for a phone and cell service, and I can't even talk! :confused:


This Walmart Syndrome is not an iPhone issue. This is an inherent problem with GSM. GSM signals do not penetrate walls as well as CDMA signals for whatever reason. Those people happily talking inside a Walmart on their cell phones are definitely not on a GSM carrier. You will have the issue whether you have an iPhone or a Nokia phone. Something to do with the large metal structure around you. You will see this problem if you are in a Walmart or a Home Depot or a Sams Club or inside a similar structure.

[Rockhead]

Any easy way to test your connectivity is to see how long the iPhone will hold an internet audio stream. I have no issue at home with wi-fi but without wi-fi it will barely hold a stream for 30 seconds.

Also, has anyone noticed that you cannot leave the Pandora or Tuner apps and go to the main screen without losing the music connection?

[whooleytoo]

Also, has anyone noticed that you cannot leave the Pandora or Tuner apps and go to the main screen without losing the music connection?

That's because presumably the app quits when you go to the Home screen.

[radiotowers]

Whether it's the iPhone or AT&T's network really doesn't matter to me anymore. I'm dropping calls left and right, inside and outside, and reception sucks inside of buildings (including my house). I absolutely love the iPhone but the reception is so unreliable, that I'm unfortunately seriously considering going back to Verizon just so I can actually make a phone call. Ugh.

For what it's worth, my wife's RAZR2 generally works fine, has good 3G reception, and rarely drops calls. And we're both on AT&T's network. Verizon does have far better coverage in my state, but making a call shouldn't be a recurring problem in an area with supposedly good to excellent coverage.

[hotshotharry]

So far so good, i havent had any troubles with lagging keyboard and everything is still snappy!!

Also i noticed that you can now update the dictionary! yeehaw :-)

( correction it also remembers the stuff from before the update when you canceled the suggested word !!!!!! )

UMMMMM seems to be intermittent at best :-(

[tdhurst]

Hey, I have an idea...

Remember that first Apple commercial that had that female athlete throwing something into a giant 1984 Big Brother screen and shattering it?

And you know those GIANT glass windows in the fronts of Apple stores? I'm sure you do since many of us stood in line right next to them... wasting several hours of our lives to pay good money for a POS. But, I digress ;-)

Howz about we all tether these cheap plastic POS iphones to an actual brick and shot-put them all at some given time into those giant Apple store windows? You know... kind of a symbolic rebellious gesture of breaking free from "Big Brother".... just like that first, cute Apple commercial. ;-)

Don't like it, then don't buy it. Why do so many people think Apple owes them a certain kind of experience? Why don't you just return the phone?

I assume this was an attempt at humor or possibly satire, but it misses the mark.

[skiphunt]

Don't like it, then don't buy it. Why do so many people think Apple owes them a certain kind of experience? Why don't you just return the phone?

I assume this was an attempt at humor or possibly satire, but it misses the mark.

Sorry, but Apple has a reputation to live up to. WE pay MORE for Apple products because in the past... they were worth it. AND, the customer service was top notch.

Then comes along this iphone experience. Sorry friend, but Apple has sorely dropped the ball. I expect MORE from Apple and I've always paid more for it. If it were some no name Korean company hawking cheap Chinese knock-offs.... then I'd say I get what I pay for. BUT, we PAY through the nose for Apple's reputation.

And yes... I'm keeping the faith a couple more weeks... and if the problems have not been resolved... I will do EXACTLY as you suggest... take my phone back and not buy Apple again.

Oh and sparky... to answer your question "Why do so many people think Apple owes them a certain kind of experience?" BECAUSE I waited in line two days in a row.... I paid $300+ for an iphone 3g that Apple advertises as being "twice as fast, etc." And I signed an agreement to pay and extra $30 a month for two years. For this... I think Apple owes me a freakin' iphone 3g that'll at least do what they claim it will.. and not cost many, many lost hours in trouble shooting and phone exchanges. An iphone 3g that does what Apple claims it will do and live up to their reputation of quality product that's elegantly designed, simple to use, and stellar customer service.

How is THAT too much to ask for?

[cmichaelb]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/20/more-on-iphone-app-crashing-how-to-downgrade-itunes

Just read this article, I plan on trying this tonight.

[ultrgratim]

I have an Edge iPhone. When I updated to the latest firmware 2.0.2 I lost the ability to access my voicemail. I get NO error message on the phone. I can playback old messages I haven't deleted. But no new messages show up in the box! I have to call from a landline to play them!
Is this a coincidence or is anyone else having this problem???


Update:
Now suddenly my voicemails are appearing. I don't know what fixed it, but it lasted about 5 hours. Now it works fine.

[DiamondMac]

Why do so many people think Apple owes them a certain kind of experience?

Are you saying people shouldn't expect quality service from their cell-phone?

I loved my original iPhone and love my 3G iPhone but the reception on both were incredibly average at best. Dropped calls are apparently a big problem with the 3G and people with an iPhone have a right to complain and complain bitterly if their phones are dropping often.

When the iPhone problems are fixed, the massive amount of complaints will stop.

So instead of going after the people issuing the complaints, fixing the actual problem will be much more beneficial for the company

[benvon]

I just did the 2.0.2 update an hour ago, hoping that it might help hold the 3G signal a bit better, but the opposite happened.

In my home, I now get "No Signal" where I once got 1 or 2 bars of 3G and it seems to refuse to drop down to Edge.

I've now forced the phone off 3G and get 5 bars and excellent data connectivity, albeit slower.

I'm disappointed, to say the least. I'm not sure what recourse I have, if any.

[yagrax]

Performed the update today.

Got the "2.0.1 iphone could not be update unknown error occurred (9)"

But I just pulled the USB cable and plugged it back in, and good to go.


I have 328 contacts. Hit contacts after the update, and there's about a 1 second delay then the scrolling works really good. Better I think than 2.0.0 or 2.01.

SMS app seems faster too, and typing seems faster where before it would lag upon hitting the spacebar searching it's dictionary to see if what I typed was spelled right.



I did notice maybe something different between at least 2.0.1 and this 2.0.2. I have a playlist that I have both music and music-videos in. I started the playlist in iPod and it was playing just a music file, then I home paged back to the main screen and went into something like mail or safari. Then, as expected, a song played in the list that I know has a video on it, curious I went back to iPod, then music paused for a sec and then the video picked up right where it briefly paused. I remember in 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 that the video when you went back in didn't play, just the music part.

I'll test tonight on my wife's 2.0.1 3G 16gig white iPhone and double check.


Later

[yagrax]

I can live with all the bugs JUST FIX THE DAMN 3 HOUR BACKUP SESSIONS!!!:mad:

Are you using USB 1.0 or 2.0? USB 1.0 will not backup as quick.

[mobilepeck]

Ok so i click on Appstore and we wait and wait and either it says can not connect to appstore or the apps list but no icon pics it just spins and spins same with safari and other apps. so i turn off 3g and the appstore icons pop right up. then i turn 3g back on and it kicks but for a while. like as we speak i just got can not connect to itune store. so touched features it started loading and id say came up no faster than edge.tuned off 3g and edge worked great turned 3g back on and much better again. I did not have these issues untill this update itune store always connected and safari pretty much always did too.:confused:

[retroneo]

I too have noticed the 'no service' message that has been coming up on screen

I have to say I hadn't seen No Service before (over a month). I have seen it a couple of times since 2.0.2 already.

[skiphunt]

I have to say I hadn't seen No Service before (over a month). I have seen it a couple of times since 2.0.2 already.

Same here. Hadn't seen it since I got the phone 11 days ago. But, since 2.02... have seen it 3 times today.

[saminsocks]

Are you using USB 1.0 or 2.0? USB 1.0 will not backup as quick.

People still use 1.0? I haven't had to do that since I used my laptop from 2000. I have a MBP and my backups take forever. They did before I even had music or video on there. Now 50% of my space is used and most of the time I have to cancel the backup because I need to leave before it finishes.

[TonyV125]

I've been holding off on updating my iPhone 3G based on the number of people who have reported actually experiencing a downgraded in 3G performance, even though most don't notice any change, and a few seem to have improvements.

If anyone knows much about 3G networks, I'm wondering if networks could possibly be configured differently from one cell tower to the next (even if owned by the same carrier). Is it then possible that the tweaks that are made in each firmware upgrade may only help with some tower configurations and not others?

If someone can confirm whether this is indeed possible it would be great if people started reporting their 3G performance (better, worse, or the same) after the upgrade, along with their location (perhaps start another thread).

[joeyluong]

I had this problem also, starting with the 2.0 firmware. The problem is related to having tons of pictures on your phone. I had 1,500 photos, and it would take seemingly forever to open the Camera app as well as to take pictures. It was so bad as to be pretty much unusable. I finally removed all the pictures on my phone and that "solved" the problem. This is certainly something Apple needs to address, but at least you can work around it by dumping the photos off your phone now and again.

..Al

mine lagged from the very beginning, even when i didn't have any pictures.
do you know what might be wrong with it? mine is the 1st gen, 8 gb running on 2.0

[alexacker]

Goody for you!!! But when I try to call Apple support... I wait on hold for 45mins... then get a Nigerian who can barely speak English. Then... none of the fixes work... then HIS freakin' phone drops MY call and nobody bothers to call me back!!!! Back to square one.

Also.... my update TOO seemed to go great just like you are reporting... just wait. My started to degrade all on it's own without me doing anything. I was smelling roses just like you are as of last night. After today.... I'm thinking Apple released this POS WAAAAAY before it was ready for primetime. Let us know how well your recovered updated phones are working this time tomorrow.

Well, funny you should mention... all is technically good but email takes much longer to send/receive. Couldn't send today for about 2 hours. Had to text... Does Apple read these boards? Sheesh....

[furrina]

Well, funny you should mention... all is technically good but email takes much longer to send/receive. Couldn't send today for about 2 hours. Had to text... Does Apple read these boards? Sheesh....

yeah it's weird. i had nothing of note wrong with my 3g phone (other contacts lag, whatever), switching btw 3g/edge was fine, no dropped calls. i updated and while the calls seem ok, the mail thing is happening, seems to take forever to receive mail if at all. i'm coming from years of using HTC, symbian, etc. phones even when mobile OS's were really in their infancy, so i'm used to stuff, (and actually i really like symbian s60, my recent phone was an e61 which did everything this iphone does except US 3g, thinking of getting the e71 because the touch keyboard drives me nuts, though that's a preference, not a malfunction). but i'm hoping they fix stuff that just plain doesn't work.

one thing that drives me nuts that i'm used to doing–it seems weird that you can't quit out of an app. are they just always running in the background? in fact, you can't even shut off the damn phone, really. just kind of put it to sleep. it seems weird, i'm used to, when something would crash you could just quit the app or at worst just power off and on. i miss that from s60–you know what's running (so you just go back to it quickly from the home screen and it's still running whatever you were doing), and you can quit out of it.

[daneoni]

So since everyone was having wildly different experiences I decided to install the darn thing myself and get a first hand view...particularly since I'm comfortable downgrading back to 1.1.4 should things get unbearable

It's only been 6 hrs-ish but I don't have contacts lag nor keyboard lag either both in safari (typing this from the phone) and the SMS app (tried to recreate this by typing very quickly but it registered all taps no problem). Although Safari seems a tad slower at loading pages go figure. The whole OS still has that lethargic feel to it sometimes but mostly it responds

There's still a very annoying bug whereby the ringer volume reverts to less than half from any custom setting after a reset/reboot.

All my apps work without a hitch...I played crash and tris without any issues as does email. My signal is as always been...full bars

Overall it seems ok granted it's nowhere near 1.1.4 but it seems doable...for now

PS- I have an iPhone EDGE 16GB...if that matters

....one thing that drives me nuts that i'm used to doing–it seems weird that you can't quit out of an app. are they just always running in the background? in fact, you can't even shut off the damn phone, really. just kind of put it to sleep. it seems weird, i'm used to, when something would crash you could just quit the app or at worst just power off and on. i miss that from s60–you know what's running (so you just go back to it quickly from the home screen and it's still running whatever you were doing), and you can quit out of it.

When you leave an app and go to the home screen it stops running there are currently no background processes allowed on the iPhone so once you exit you effectively quit the app. You can shut off the phone by holding the power button. To force quit an app hold down the home button.

[Elloise]

Indeed, most phones give you a warning if the message is long enough to cost you double (or more). That's quite an oversight on the SMS functionality of the iPhone.

Errm. Delivery reports and the ability to forward messages please. I agree that a counter is useful, but with free text bundle sizes being what they are is it really core functionality?

Edit - Oh, I suppose I should say for the record that apart from the cover flow transition I notice no difference at all after upgrading to the 2.0.2 firmware. I still experience the common annoyances that everyone else seems to experience, you'll forgive me if I don't post an identical screenshot.

[reboad]

2.02 actually improved the 3G reception with my phone. I live at the edge of 3G network, and before it was apparent, 3G dropping off constantly. Now, however it stays on all the time, bars going from 1 to 4, but it doesn't drop! Now, I can only wish there was an edge network around when 3G isn't...

[furrina]

GE 16GB...if that matters
When you leave an app and go to the home screen it stops running there are currently no background processes allowed on the iPhone so once you exit you effectively quit the app. You can shut off the phone by holding the power button. To force quit an app hold down the home button.

Thanks! The force quit thing is useful and sorta kinda fixes the mail problem sometimes.
The power button thing seems to only put the phone in some sort of purgatorious sleep mode (it's at the sleep screen when i touch it even when the power button's been hit.). Takes a bit of getting used to. Weird that it doesn't run the apps in the background. I kind of miss S60.

[marcmec]

ok, so it was fine before, i figure i was one of the lucky ones, no dropped calls, no unusual 3G/EDGE behavior, picked up the signals fine wherever they're available (i live in NYC). Updated last night and NOW i'm getting "call failed" and dropped calls. This SUCKS. I'm gonna ignore it for a while and see if it straightens itself out. if not im gonna be pissed.

p.s. updating took about 20 minutes. i don't think i needed to back anything up. that seemed to go smoothly.

I was also getting the dreaded "Call Failed" message. I turned 3G off in preferences and I can send and receive calls again. A temporary solution at best.

[TonyV125]

Thanks! The force quit thing is useful and sorta kinda fixes the mail problem sometimes.

Yes. Thanks for the force quit info, especially for the email hangups. The strange thing is... I haven't yet upgraded to 2.0.2 yet (still 2.0.1 due to fear of things getting worse), but I started having problems a few days ago with email (verizon & yahoo) not being pulled in. I had to power off and then once restarted, everything was fine. Happened twice so far.

[jsdoyle]

I have had an issue with my 1st Gen iPhone from day one. Prior to the 2.0 upgrade the email client would not time out trying to connect to the server when I had bad reception. The back of the phone would get hot and it would suck all of the battery power out in short order.

Now with the 2.0 and 2.0.2 updates I continue to have the issue above but not as frequent. Problem is now I see this with other apps. App Store will freeze up at times and there goes the battery!

I probably have to power off and power on several times a day. When you feel the back getting hot (not when charging) it's time to power down.

I really hope they can get the software straightened out. Apple made a big deal about how they wanted the iPhone to handle memory better than the Windows Mobile OS but...

I don't ever plan on going back to the Windows Mobile platform but come on Apple, get this phone to run right!

[Santa Rosa]

I have had an issue with my 1st Gen iPhone from day one. Prior to the 2.0 upgrade the email client would not time out trying to connect to the server when I had bad reception. The back of the phone would get hot and it would suck all of the battery power out in short order.

Now with the 2.0 and 2.0.2 updates I continue to have the issue above but not as frequent. Problem is now I see this with other apps. App Store will freeze up at times and there goes the battery!

I probably have to power off and power on several times a day. When you feel the back getting hot (not when charging) it's time to power down.

I really hope they can get the software straightened out. Apple made a big deal about how they wanted the iPhone to handle memory better than the Windows Mobile OS but...

I don't ever plan on going back to the Windows Mobile platform but come on Apple, get this phone to run right!

That might be a problem more than software. I would take it to the Apple Store to get checked out.

[Santa Rosa]

Sorry for the double post.

I have now updated to 2.0.2. The install went fine with no problems thankfully!! So far nothing has really changed apart from the SMS lag being a bit less apparent but the contacts lag being more apparent at certain times. The firmware does feel slightly more polished, but that is a very slight slightly if you get me!!

Looking forward to 2.1 to see what can be done there. This latest one isnt a great release lets be honest. Will report back after a few days use if anything crazy comes up!! :rolleyes:

[supmango]

i cant keep a steady 3g signal at my house. it switches to edge and even gprs!!!

i had a 2g iphone for a year before this phone and it never went to gprs. I didnt even know what the gprs icon looked like until 2.0.2

i am sick of backwards updates:mad:

I am holding out for 2.1. I hope that Apple reads these posts because obviously there are still serious issues with the firmware. Personally, I haven't experienced any of these issues (with the exception of an occasional application crash and lagging keyboard on some apps), but if Apple releases a product, it needs to work (just like their slogan "It just works").