As promised, today Apple launched the iPhone 2.1 Firmware. They actually surprised us by including details on exactly what it was that they changed with this firmware instead of vaguely saying “bug fixes.” This update has been highly anticipated, simply because it is supposed to fix issues with dropped calls, battery life, and accuracy of the 3G signal strength.
So what does this update include? Straight from Apple…
- Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
- Significantly better battery life for most users
- Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
- Faster installation of 3rd party applications
- Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
- Improved performance in text messaging
- Faster loading and searching of contacts
- Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
- Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
- Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
- Genius playlist creation
Just note that you have to be running iTunes 8 before you can get the update. I’m still in the process of waiting for my iPhone to back-up (I sure do hope backup times are improved!) so I turned to the web to see what people were saying about this. Overall, it sounds as though people are finally satisfied, offering positive feedback. It’ll take some time though to really put the update to the test. We’ll update you later after we’ve had some time to see the improvements that the iPhone 2.1 Firmware offers.
How come it doesn’t say anything about Push notifications?
The push notification system was removed from the Beta releases of the firmware a few weeks ago. There’s no word as to when the push notifications will be available now. It’s supposed to be this month though.
how on earth can people be satisfied beacuse the iphone shows more bars ? the reception is still the same and it’s still crappy…
Lars, after several comments I made to you back in previous iPhone articles about not have reception issues, wouldn’t you know, I started noticing reception issues and getting dropped call after dropped call. With this update however, I haven’t had one dropped call and reception seems to have improved some. I also haven’t been on the phone THAT much since installing the update, but enough where I think I would have experienced a dropped call. I am hopeful that this update has fixed at least some of the issues that iPhone users have been experiencing.