Apple Seeds iPhone Firmware 2.2 Beta 1

[costmo]

Beta firmware only available to...

Here's to copy & paste!

Also, kinda disappointed I can't get the beta. I have an iPhone development thing (the $99 thing) as well as an ADC Select membership, but it doesn't appear for me. Guess I'm not special enough.

The beta firmware is only available to folks in the Enterprise Development Program. Unless you pony up $300 annually - and since a change in program qualifications by Apple, belong to a company with 500 or more employees - then no, you aren't special enough.

 

[Garissimo]

You have to understand, this is Steve Jobs we are talking about. Since coming back to Apple, he wants everything his way.
Now in some aspects this is great, in others, not so great.

Uniformity. Jobs is a perfectionist. He helped to design the iPhone UI to look and function like Apple.
Allowing users to set their own wallpapers is 'tacky'. It doesn't fall in with Apple.

I doubt we'll ever see this feature.

I think his basic intention is to not degrade the "Apple experience". But for the life of me, I don't see how setting custom backgrounds and different icons would degrade the look and feel of the user interface. Those sorts of things have been standard in OS X for years. I mean, you can always have a "defaults" button to restore everything back to the standard presets. It is unforgivable for Apple not to include this capability at some point.

One thing I do want to see is VIDEO RECORDING.
Surely this is a software fix?

R-Fly

Me too. The iPhone's camera does a passable job of recording video. Google "Cycorder". I've seen a live demo of it and was pretty impressed. It does require you to jailbreak the phone, which is something I'm very reluctant to do.

 

[wizard]

Strange. Hopefully Apple will get to the bottom of it.

It's really weird how difference peoples' experiences are on a simple, standard, single-tasking system like the iPhone.

My Safari hasn't crashed once in 2 months. Similarly, I've had (I think) 1 crash in Mail, whereas my boss can hardly fetch email without it hanging indefinitely; and we're both using the same mail-server.

2.1. Has been a mixed bag for me! Several things have been improved thankfully. For example Mail has only crashed once for me since 2.1 arrived.

The bad part is that Safari got much worst. Now it will crash on the simplest web sites in a very random manner. The randomness is what is frustrating as it makes it hard to even send a bug report in.


Dave

 

[Hooka]

Apple can't do anything right the first time these days. If you all would take a step back and look at the recent history with Apple and their product releases and see they have not been up to par. This is just another example of how Apple over extends it's self in order to make their products look more advantageous, but they haven't been delivering as of late. The iPhone is taking up way too many resources and they need to spin off the iPhone into it's own company to save itself from their own product...

I just remembered, Apple can't even get the way you charge your iphone right by having to recall the mini power cube that shipped with the 3G model, too funny...

 

[muthuka]

Safari - Changed in 2.2

I heard that the Safari browser has a new search box on the top and the other one is to enter the URL on the side. It used to be on 2 lines, i guess.

 

[muthuka]

It's not right

The beta firmware is only available to folks in the Enterprise Development Program. Unless you pony up $300 annually - and since a change in program qualifications by Apple, belong to a company with 500 or more employees - then no, you aren't special enough.

I paid only $99 and i have access to the 2.2 firmware and have it on my phone already.

 

[arkmannj]

What I'd like to see

* Copy & Paste - even if it's just text only this would be a huge help. I don't need a fancy copy/paste that can try and guess stuff, I just need to copy text and paste it.

* Profiles - I'm on the go, having profiles with different settings (brightness, sound settings, even home page layouts, etc.) for home/work/whatever would be very nice

* make the auto word guesser have some settings, my preferences would be (on, off, Reverse behavior) reverse would be where it shows the word it's guessing but only drops it in when you tap the word (instead of clearing it)

* a more integrated backup solution, for example: text messages could backup/sync to your iChat archives and notes backup to notes in mail or stickies. (as a side note I deeply miss that SyPhone no longer works)

* Be able to browse the iTunes store over Edge/3G - even if you can't buy and download the songs it would be nice to be able to add them to a shopping cart type holder.

* more places where you can have a wide keyboard (like text messaging)

* oh and I know this won't happen, but how cool would it be if I could use a portable keyboard (collapsible even ?) or even just the regular wireless apple keyboards. I do a lot of text messages and email this would save me from needing to pack a laptop around everywhere with me.

I've sent my wishes in, Have you ?
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

 

[RoboCop001]

How bout this?

Be able to move the pages of the home screens around. That way you don't have to move each app one by one.

 

[JPyre]

The beta firmware is only available to folks in the Enterprise Development Program. Unless you pony up $300 annually - and since a change in program qualifications by Apple, belong to a company with 500 or more employees - then no, you aren't special enough.

I paid only $99 and i have access to the 2.2 firmware and have it on my phone already.

Only devs that signed up before 2.0 Beta 4 or 5 was released can get the early betas, if you signed up after 2.0 you must pay the $300.... I think....

2.2 seems much snappier.... might be because I don't have the Silent Hill winterboard theme installed now though

 

[slycrel]

I can assure you that there is no Push-Notification in this Beta release. Otherwise Apple would have stated this in its release notes to get developers testing this feature. It is definately not in there.

I haven't checked for push notification, so I can't say if it's there or not. But there are API changes in this release that are not available in previous releases. Not sure if I even should say that under the NDA though.

 

[slycrel]

The beta firmware is only available to folks in the Enterprise Development Program. Unless you pony up $300 annually - and since a change in program qualifications by Apple, belong to a company with 500 or more employees - then no, you aren't special enough.

This is not true. The company I work for recently got accepted (after 2 months!) into the developer program as a company and they do not have access to the new beta. I have a personal account and I was accepted into the original beta and have access to 2.2.

 

[VaMac]

If apple were to finally come out with Copy/Paste and MMS I doubt they would release it in the beta firmware. I think they would go for the surprise factor.

 

[Hooka]

If apple were to finally come out with Copy/Paste and MMS I doubt they would release it in the beta firmware. I think they would go for the surprise factor.

This would constitute a "surprise," wow your expectations for Apple are so low, lol...

 

[Mr. Zorg]

I think his basic intention is to not degrade the "Apple experience". But for the life of me, I don't see how setting custom backgrounds and different icons would degrade the look and feel of the user interface. Those sorts of things have been standard in OS X for years.

On your *desktop* yes, but don't think of the springboard as your desktop, it's more the the Applications folder. Can you set a background there? No. Depending on the background, it could be *very* visually distracting and make it hard to find the icon you want.

*But* I do agree with the sentiment that it should be *my* choice. It's *my* fault if I choose an annoying background.

 

[Garissimo]

On your *desktop* yes, but don't think of the springboard as your desktop, it's more the the Applications folder. Can you set a background there? No. Depending on the background, it could be *very* visually distracting and make it hard to find the icon you want.

I understand your point but don't quite agree. The iPhone GUI, to me, is basically a bunch of quick launch icons on a desktop. I don't have a file hierarchy, much less a dedicated applications folder. But we're splitting hairs here.

*But* I do agree with the sentiment that it should be *my* choice. It's *my* fault if I choose an annoying background.

Absolutely. I guess what really set me off was when I saw a friend's jailbroken iPhone running Winterboard. See screenshot (wouldn't be what I chose but shows you how you can really differentiate your phone):

 

[vandy1997]

Many of the features that we are asking that Apple provide are already available on jaibroken phones (e.g., an app that provides details of e-mails, SMS messages, and calendar info on the lock screen; an app that puts up notifications of missed calls, e-mails, and SMS messages on the task bar; a better SMS app with which one can forward and delete individual SMS messages and create custom SMS messages that the user utilizes often; an app that blocks calls and/or SMS messages from certain numbers; an app that permits tethering via the iPhone; a video recording app; a better camera app with more features; a voice dialing app; an app that permits the changing of themes and the changing of wallpaper on the homescreens; an app that permits the creation of folders to categorize apps and decluttering the homescreens; an app that does search of calendar, e-mail, SMS messages, AND contacts - as requested by the user; an MMS app; and even copy/paste was developed before Apple disabled it with an update to the firmware). The only desirable feature that hasn't been developed is a modified Bluetooth profile to permit stereo headphones and external Bluetooth devices to be utilized (such as an external keyboard and/or mouse). So Apple can develop those apps or assist third party developers in optimizing them so that they will work flawlessly on the iPhone. It is a matter of desire on Apple's part, at this time!

 

[mthoroughbred]

I hope this isn't a stupid Q but... Will apple continue to release updates for the first gen iPod touch even tho the second gen is out? Or will they stop releasing updates for it like they do all the other iPods?

The 1st gen iPod touch, 2nd gen iPod touch, iPhone are all built on the same os x the only difference between them is some hardware features. So the answer to your question is yes. If apple stops updating the 1st iPod then that would mean that the updates will stop for the second as well and when this happens it'll be because the touch would get revamped with a new os x.

 

[bassproguy07]

I want to be able to wake to songs on my iPod app. with the alarm. also battery life still sucks even after 2.1, in fact I think it is worse than before but maybe i just have a bad battery

 

[Turner]

Decent Mail App

I just want to see a decent mail app. This is make or break for many people myself included.

Universal Inbox view, Smart Folders, Open a mail and view contents in less than 5 seconds (!), Reliable exchange push, etc. Landscape view and Landscape Keyboard, Cut and Paste and of course....Search mails in inbox by criteria.

At the moment it just doesn't cut it and makes the device non-viable for corporate users. It's a shame really, but i guess Apple just don't want to listen. I think they see a clear line between corporate and 'consumer' whereas the reality is that consumers are also corporate users at the same time. This is not an either or type of device.

 

[Shireoaks]

Download link?

Does anyone have a link so that we could download this update? Alternately, has anyone seen a 2.2 torrent? I am very keen to try this update...

 

[MrCrowbar]

Actually, I wanna go back to FW 1.1.4.
2.1 has so many annoying bug and it's way less responive.

Some bugs I found:
- When watching a video and adjusting the volume with the volume rocker, the gray popup has about 2 seconds of delay
- When I was in iPod mode, played something, locked the screen and the unlock it, half of the time it brings up the iPod screen for just half a second and goes back to the home screen.
- scrolling in videos is very unresponsive now (that might be to save battery though)
- Old SMS notifications pop up randomly
- The white-on-black status icons on the lock screen are sometimes dim gray and hard to read
- Calendar Colors are not the same as in iCal

Oh, I didn't update the iPhone and restore my old data. I did that first, but then it would pause audio for a second every time I hit the home button, not play variable bitrate stuff, crash when opening videos etc...

When is 3.2 expected?

 

[MrCrowbar]

I just want to see a decent mail app. This is make or break for many people myself included.

Universal Inbox view, Smart Folders, Open a mail and view contents in less than 5 seconds (!), Reliable exchange push, etc. Landscape view and Landscape Keyboard, Cut and Paste and of course....Search mails in inbox by criteria.

At the moment it just doesn't cut it and makes the device non-viable for corporate users. It's a shame really, but i guess Apple just don't want to listen. I think they see a clear line between corporate and 'consumer' whereas the reality is that consumers are also corporate users at the same time. This is not an either or type of device.

Agreed, Mail on iPhone is a joke. I'd use it if it had junk filter, rules and sync POP3 accounts with Mail on the Mac.

Safari is similarly useless to me... no tabs, no passwords are remembered, it's ridiculously slow compared to a normal computer on the same network...

To me the iPhone is really just an iPod and a regular cell phone (with texting , alarm clock and a calendar). I don't need nor want to be online all the time. I use airplane mode a lot when I don't wanna be bothered.

 

[el3ktro]

Agreed, Mail on iPhone is a joke. I'd use it if it had junk filter, rules and sync POP3 accounts with Mail on the Mac.

I agree. The best would be server-side filtering rules on MobileMe. I hate it when all my mails are unfiltered on the iPhone or in the MobileMe webapp and get only filtered when I open up Mail on my MacBook, select all mails and re-apply the rules. Server-side rules would pre-sort all mails into the right folder right away, that would be so cool.

Safari is similarly useless to me... no tabs, no passwords are remembered, it's ridiculously slow compared to a normal computer on the same network...

I agree with you that Safari is pretty useless sometimes, but for different reasons: It crashes. It crashes all the time. It sucks so badly. In fact I can't seem to read a normal website without Safari crashing on me - many different websites. This sucks so badly. Safari MUST BE STABLE!!! Btw, Safari DOES have tabs, what I'm missing though is the ability to open a link in a tab - did you mean this too?

 

[MD5Hash]

I'd like to see some simple biometric functionality enabled, if possible. I agree with the other users that it's just dumb to have to try to use the keyboard to type in usernames/passwords on sites that don't allow saving.

So, what if when you got to a site that asked for a username, it would store your username, and then when you clicked the password field, a little box just rose up on the screen that said "press thumb here" - then it would read from an encrypted password store and put it in for you. That would save me a lot of time, especially when I'm working on sites that require passwords every 15 minutes because of "time outs." Do you think this would be possible? The touchscreen is extremely sensitive, but is it sensitive enough to read a unique thumbprint?

That, and true Arabic language support. Come on, Apple - you support Chinese, so why not Arabic? Hopefully when they release the iPhone in Jordan in a few months, Arabic will be there...

 

[Trajectory]

It would be nice if Safari Mobile didn't crash every 10 minutes and freeze the entire iPhone.