iPhone 2.1 Reactions and Additional Features

[MacRumors]

Apple released the long awaited iPhone 2.1 firmware upgrade on Friday. The release has been met primarily with praise from MacRumors commenters. Many existing issues have been addressed including the highly publicized security issue, stability issues and app crashing.

While Apple has provided a official changelog of new features and fixes, forum user justinomg has compiled an extensive list (with screenshots) of additional undocumented changes in the latest iPhone firmware.

Some of these findings include:

- Pause application installations by tapping on the icon.
- Triple clicking on the headset button goes to the previous track
- Podcasts listings indicate partially listened to items.
- iPod song listings show artist and album name
- Additional compatibility with certain bluetooth headsets.

Only one feature that was originally promised for a September release has not yet been delivered: "Push" notifications. These notifications would allow dormant 3rd party applications to process and display background events. Apple removed the feature from late iPhone 2.1 developer releases and has given no indication when it would be reintroduced.

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[Ade-iMac-177]

Apple have 15 days to get push notifications to us before they have officially missed another of their promised deadlines. Apple seems to be really dropping the ball lately. They need to pull up their socks, sort out all of their problems and promises and only then release something new and amazing.

[Alfred.Woodden]

They have 15 days to give us Push, Copy Paste and Notes Sync.

EDIT:

Okay, they promised Push, and have to deliver it within 15 days, but common!! HOW HARD can it be to enable Notes Sync with Mail??????

[EvanLugh]

Give it a year for push.

[Paint.It.Black]

Another feature that I haven't seen mentioned on any site is the (partial) support for SVG that finally has been added to mobile Safari...

[archi17]

Is there enough RAM in the iPhone to run background programs etc"

[some12b]

So is the "push" function working for the "Mail" application? Y! Mail push hasn't been working at all.

[retroneo]

please call it iphone 2.1 software, only the baseband (modem) part of the update is firmware, which isn't these exciting features.

[Piarco]

Nice little additions, liking the backtrack option on the headphones. So far I'm a fan of the 2.1 update, it's been nothing but good to me so far!

[kimhill]

"Only one feature that was originally promised for a September release has not yet been delivered: "Push" notifications."

A weary user base pleads for help with Copy/Paste. How much longer must we suffer?

[vistasucks]

I'm THRILLED with how much faster typing and contact browsing is.

[chrisgeleven]

My iPhone 3G works so much better with 2.1. Much faster and much more stable. Backups take seconds to complete. All in all, a fantastic upgrade.

I hope there will be a couple more bug fix releases before they start adding major features (cut/paste, push notifications) again.

[vvebsta]

I hope there will be a couple more bug fix releases before they start adding major features (cut/paste, push notifications) again.

ARE YOU SERIOUS???

It would be bad form on Apple's part if they didn't give us Push Notification for Apps by the end of this month imho.

Apple should make good on its promises first before giving us things like Genius which, while fun, leaves me feeling like Apple is spending too much time playing with their toys and not enough time working on their responsibilities (although i'm sure this isnt the case...hopefully

[FightTheFuture]

these are great. sadly i don't think anyone really appreciates the subtle UI additions and focus is put too much on features. the lack of copy/paste, mms and flash are basically everything wrong with the iPhone from outside perspective. noone says that the iPhone needs a Notes app cause it has one. but its not at all that great since you can't sync with it.

[chetiboy]

i noticed in 2.1 that the apps icons are now colored gray, instead of the usual white font.

[johnnyjibbs]

I'm really pleased with this release. Even the new 3G/Edge icons look better!

New features - such as the useful triple click backwards on the headphones are really welcome but I'm also glad that they fixed annoying bugs like crashes, App icon repositioning and the infamous ringer volume bug.

Plus - Genius really is genius. I love it!

[chrisgeleven]

Originally Posted by vvebsta

ARE YOU SERIOUS???

It would be bad form on Apple's part if they didn't give us Push Notification for Apps by the end of this month imho.

Apple should make good on its promises first before giving us things like Genius which, while fun, leaves me feeling like Apple is spending too much time playing with their toys and not enough time working on their responsibilities (although i'm sure this isnt the case...hopefully

Yes I am serious. Having a stable/fast phone is far more important then push notifications.

Genius is just a special version of smart playlists. The technical challenges to create it were far less then what it takes for push notifications.

Plus, I rather have push notifications that work well then a buggy release. Get it right before releasing it, regardless of time.

[FullGaz]

I think they should just drop Push notifications and allow background programs. Apple's first blunder was to close the iPhone to programmers. Now they've fixed that, they should avoid making another mistake with this stupid workaround. It would be as simple as adding a little indicator on the icon of the application that is still running on the spring board, a-la-dock if you prefer. No need for task managers of gimmicks of that sort!
Programmers would be happy and users would get all the benefits.
In fact, I can already think of some programs that should be background tasks but don't require constant connection!
Just my 2 cents...

[BWhaler]

After the pain that was this release, I am more than happy to wait longer so Apple can properly build and test the next version which will include push.

Yes, we all want the feature, but your phone is an important device we rely on for business, safety, and fun. Accordingly, we cannot tolerate the bugginess that Apple sunk too.

I think we as a community should calm down and focus first on quality--get Apple back to, "It just works"--and then features later.

Let's not forget that Microsoft is the king of "more and more and more" features. But their bloatware, bugs, complex UI, and general low quality, made many of us Apple people.

Yes, push functionality is needed. So is cut and paste. But without quality, who cares.

Let's give Apple the time they need to do things properly.

[Sweetbike40]

I'm not too thrilled with 2.1. Apps crashing and Safari crashing more than ever. Since i've had the phone (july 14), Safari has quit on me more times since Friday (2.1) then since i've had the phone. And i find the more bars to be sort of fake. I had 6 bars of 3G in my apartment (never had much 3G in here before) and still can barely make a phone call on the 3G network from my apartment.

ps. also my email isn't being pushed properly. had the phone on all night. woke up and had to open mail to get the mail to come in.

pss. also, my phone in general is just running slower.
the keyboard lag is gone at least.

[BWhaler]

Originally Posted by FullGaz

I think they should just drop Push notifications and allow background programs. Apple's first blunder was to close the iPhone to programmers. Now they've fixed that, they should avoid making another mistake with this stupid workaround. It would be as simple as adding a little indicator on the icon of the application that is still running on the spring board, a-la-dock if you prefer. No need for task managers of gimmicks of that sort!
Programmers would be happy and users would get all the benefits.
In fact, I can already think of some programs that should be background tasks but don't require constant connection!
Just my 2 cents...

Battery life would be anemic. Apple's approach is vastly superior.

[crandel]

I wonder if anyone else has noticed that after the 2.1 software update, the sound quality of voicemails seems a bit worse? Not complaining, just wondering if anyone else has noticed anything like this.

Best,
Crandel

[PerElofsson]

Why do I still need to unlock and/or go to homescreen to check if I got any unread emails? Other phones have a small email icon next to the battery icon when new messages.. That works really well.

Anyone else missing this basic feature?

[Full of Win]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

not bad - some of the lag is gone, and apps install much faster

[Morky]

If you're not playing Cro-magnon Rally all day, the battery life after the upgrade is vastly improved. I charged it sunday morning, used it pretty often during they day with push notifications, location services, and 3G on. That would previously have left me with a 20% charge late in the day. When I go up this morning, there was still better than a 50% charge. To me this is bigger than even the stability improvements. Additionally, 3G seems a lot more consistent, I haven't seen an app crash, apps install very fast (unless it is a big download), no more sluggish contacts. It's good to see they focused on the most important things first. Now that the foundational stuff is solid, I think we'll now start seeing some sought-after features appear.