iPhone 2.1 Firmware Now Available

[jmadlena]

Unbelievable...I'm in shock...ever since I got this phone (3G) and seen the cowardly way in-which Apple has handled the reception issues I'm afraid I am starting to lose my long standing faith in Apple...and Wall St seems to agree with me. Sad SAD day; this last pathetic move, which pretty much amounts to Apple DECEIVING its customers by MISLEADING them to believe they have a FULL SIGNAL where in reality -95db—quoted by a user to amount to full bars in 2.1—is a weak signal that yields poor call quality and data speeds.

Yeah, it's not like anyone is stating an improved signal strength after the update, or have better reception from the field test application. No one at all...

Perhaps you don't know how cell phone technology works? I doubt Apple is just upping the bars. The tin foil hate does not suit you.

 

[jdovejr]

no 3g service

at the office, where i had 3g service now gets a no service. i guess i will take a drive at lunch to see if it improves.

 

[LAX2TLV]

enjoy the blackberry. some people just don't have luck with signal. in these cases, you go with the provider who offers you the best signal. but a blackberry with att will be the same as an iphone with att. your solution is to switch to sprint, verizon, t-mobile, etc.

You are flat wrong buddy! I have compared db of AT&T HSDPA reception between the iPhone 3G and an HTC TyTN/AT&T 8525—which is not known to have THAT GOOD of reception—and the results were staggering; I don't remember the exact results but the iPhone was <-100 while the TyTN was >-80. Don't make unbacked claims; while at&t's 3G network is far from perfect, the iPhone is very much to blame here.

 

[Excellerator]

For those of you with non-working apps BEFORE upgrading to 2.1, did upgrading to 2.1 fix it? I am wondering do I have to reinstall everything or will they now just work? That way I don't loose all the data with them.

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

ATT sucks. Bring the iPhone to T-Mobile!

 

[DyingSun]

Why are some people restoring their phones prior to updating, while most will simply apply the update? Aren't updates supposed to install flawlessly and leave everything intact afterwards?

 

[imacdaddy]

Unbelievable...I'm in shock...ever since I got this phone (3G) and seen the cowardly way in-which Apple has handled the reception issues I'm afraid I am starting to lose my long standing faith in Apple...and Wall St seems to agree with me. Sad SAD day; this last pathetic move, which pretty much amounts to Apple DECEIVING its customers by MISLEADING them to believe they have a FULL SIGNAL where in reality -95db—quoted by a user to amount to full bars in 2.1—is a weak signal that yields poor call quality and data speeds.

dude...it's your mobile carrier who's the problem.

There hasn't been any complaints in Hong Kong regarding reception. I guess it's because of the density of the cell towers/sites...they're installed on almost all buildings/structures.

 

[kaidoy021]

Has anyone had problems updating the software. When itunes tries to backup the iphone before updating, I get error (-30). Does anyone know what the problem is? Thanks for your time.

 

[Cheekz185]

So.... Apple is lying to you because some random joe on a web forum who has no connection to the Apple iPhone team told you so? That's great logic there buddy.

How is your call quality? That is what is important. I'm afraid that how many bars you have has very little to do with how fast of a speed you will get with data since that depends more on network congestion than signal strength although that can play a factor as well.

Cellular data has more in common with a cable internet provider with a lot of people in an area than DSL. The latter is a dedicated connection to the internet while the former is shared by all people on the same node. The more nodes (towers) you have in in an area will give you a chance to have higher speeds assuming that those towers themselves are not sharing the same hardline to the wireless provider ISP infrastructure.

Well before I updated to 2.1 and when I would have 5 bars, I would get speeds inbetween 800kbps and 1000kbs. from 800 to 330, that is a BIG difference buddy. I never had a problem with call quality, just a lot of dropped calls.

 

[Riemann Zeta]

On my iPhone 1st gen, keyboard entry finally seems faster (as in the keyboard seems to work in real-time, as a keyboard should), and App launch times seem reduced.

 

[Fafafoooey]

Based on reading quite a few responses here-the update does not seem compelling-I am still at 2.0.1 (jailbroken). Doesn't seem like any reason to upgrade for me...

and you are one of many of the causes of people's problems with 3G call drops and data issues, as 2.0.2 was to remedy the call/data issues, and people on 2.0 or 2.0.1 were causing power drains on the towers. Update your jailbreak to 2.0.2 and stop messing the rest of us up!

 

[danbirchall]

Looks good so far.

I wasn't particularly having problems before, but the user interface does feel sn... er, more responsive, in some areas. Contacts still feels a little slower to react than some other parts, but may be a bit faster than it was.

 

[JoshHawn]

I used to have 3 bars of 3G, and now it's showing 5 bars of 3G.

CONTACTS LAG IS GONE !!!!!!! Keyboard Lag is GONE!
IT'S SNAPPIER!!!!

From start to finish (I only had 2.0.0 on mine), it took about 12 minutes total. That included "setup" since I had never synced my phone with a computer before (6 weeks).



The "3G" logo is different.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/561584/

WTF DUDE???? why did you still have 2.0???


didn't you know that 2.0.2 makes it better for all of us???

 

[scaredpoet]

We still don't have:

video
copy n paste
Sending & receiving of bluetooth files
along with many other BASIC functions.

I came home expecting something spectacular no just bug updates great!

So go get a different phone.

Here's a tip to those who keep griping after EVERY stinkin' update about not getting these features: just assume they will never happen. If that's not acceptable to you, eBay your iPhone and get something else.

Video, copy/paste/MMS was never promised by Apple, and never has been. It keeps cropping up in rumors, but like many rumors, they tend to not be accurate.

So your cell phone from 1922 allegedly has these features? Oh, that's nice. Go use that phone then. Talking about how MMS has been around since The Brick doesn't change a thing. If that makes the iPhone inferior, fine. Don't use it.

Stop waiting for the next update. It's not coming. 2.1 is what it is. Either cope, or get something else.

 

[montecarloss919]

how do you get to the new txt option

for the new 2 beep thing? i cant seem to find it?!!?!?

 

[dezeinstein]

airplane mode

Does it need to have contact with the network though while doing this update?

I took the bad advice of putting the phone into airplane mode, and after updating, itunes does not recognize the phone. I only get the slide for emergency button. Any advice before I flip out and call apple?

 

[whooleytoo]

just did the update. This is what I noticed so far:

-Back up is much faster. I have a macbook so it would obviously faster for macs, not sure about PC's.
-no lag in between going to home screen and applications.
-less lag between going through phonebook, keypad, and favorites. It's not lighting fast, but faster than before.


Wait and See:
-we'll see how the battery really is.

I think backup should be "wait and see" as well - it's bound to be a much quicker backup when the previous backup was just a few minutes beforehand. Wait a few days, try downloading a few apps and songs on the iPhone and then see if the backups are still quick.

It's far, far faster at installing apps too.

As for 3G, I seem to be getting a bar or two extra, but it still just disappears and drops me to edge when it feels like it.

 

[jk000]

I have just applied the 2.1 update and have noticed the following changes:

- The screen seems more yellow
- iPhone is definitely snappier
- The internal speakers are definitely louder
- The second speaker now works on the bottom of the phone (it has never worked since purchasing iPhone)
- If you shake iPhone when playing music, it shuffles the current playlist
- 3G signal strength is vastly improved, before I could only get the 'washing machine' icon now I get full 3G coverage!
- Battery life is MUCH improved. I haven't had to charge iPhone since the 2.1 update!


A big pat on the back goes to Steve and the team.

THE SECOND SPEAKER IS NOT A SPEAKER, CHRIST, READ YOUR MANUAL IT IS A MIC

 

[papiti]

For an accurate test of your 3G signal strength, and to see if the 2.1 update really does someting, other than just bump the bars up visually, put your iPhone into "Field Test Mode" prior to the update and then after the update. Example:

To do so, go to the number pad and type *3001#12345#* hit send.
Look at the numeic indicator next to your carrier logo in the upper left of the screen. The lower the number, the weaker the signal. Keep in mind that all numbers are actually - negative. The closer to 0 the better the signal. This is resulted from the carrier, not from Apple.

-75 gives all 5 bars of strength. Call quality is perfect.
-105 no bars, just barely hanging on to 3G. Call quality is sub par.

to exit field test mode, just hit your home button. Ther are a slew of other things in this mode that you can see, but unless you are a UMTS technician, most of it will be gibberish to you. This will really tell you what is going on behind the scenes of the signal bar.

OK did the test. Here are my results:

My phone currently has 5 Full bars but the number is -97. So I just think they bumped up the visual bars so that we think we are getting bettr 3G signal.

 

[cal6n]

As I told all of you, I just synced for the first time to update to 2.1, which only took 12 minutes (because I had no Apps and no songs to backup).
I have a question though ... how do I transfer photos from my iPhone to my computer? I created a new (empty) folder on my computer and clicked "sync" but it didn't transfer the images. I want them deleted from my phone also; hence "transfer" the photos.

Should I use iTunes or "My Computer?" Can it be done in iTunes?
Thank you.

No. Use iPhoto.

 

[Bistroengine]

Thank you!

Finally, when you update an App it automatically puts it back into it's proper place. I was getting really tired of rearranging my icons all the time.

 

[gentlegiantcrai]

I'm getting the name on the txt popup -- sent myself a txt and had a bud send one. I cannot get the repeat reminder to happen though. (Probably because I'm sitting here staring at the phone...)

I might be misunderstanding you though...

if you just leave your phone alone when you get a text for about a hour. It will beep again. I heard myphone beep twice, figuring I had two texts and when I check there was only one new text.

 

[chimpboy74]

Piss off.

MMS was new in late 2003. You needed a Sony Ericsson T68i and the add-on camera. The camera wouldn't do video.

Ouch!

I personally think that MMS is outdated. I agree that if you have email why do you need it. Most phones have email now just some are better at handling it than others

 

[jk000]

I think backup should be "wait and see" as well - it's bound to be a much quicker backup when the previous backup was just a few minutes beforehand. Wait a few days, try downloading a few apps and songs on the iPhone and then see if the backups are still quick.

It's far, far faster at installing apps too.

As for 3G, I seem to be getting a bar or two extra, but it still just disappears and drops me to edge when it feels like it.

BACKUPS will be shorter in the weeks/days to come as the reason the backups are so long now is the amount of bugs in the phone being reported online through iTunes (whilst backing up) to Apple.

So when the bugs die out, backing up will become much much much shorter!

 

[dwsolberg]

Much faster

The iPhone is much faster. I'm very happy with this update. It's much closer to the old days of 1.1.4. I hope they continue to optimize it and speed it up over time. This is a good example of Apple making a mistake (releasing a buggy and slow iPhone 2.0 OS), and fixing it. All past problems are so quickly forgotten when we finally get what we want.