iPhone 2.1 Firmware Now Available

[Chefanim]

iPhone 2.1 was released today, and is now available in iTunes:


Update includes:

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




UPDATE:

iPhone Dev team has released Pwnage tool and QuickPwn for Jailbraking 2.1 Firmware.
Currently only available for Mac users
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

[nodramachicks]

Apple released its latest update to the iPhone 3G this morning. As I was drinking my morning coffee and reading news, I kept hitting the Update button in iTunes once in a while. Sure enough, my patience was rewarded and I was informed there was an update available.

I started the download (which weighed in at about 237 Mbytes) and waited for it to finish. I had no problem installing the update and it took about five minutes or so for it to be complete. Short take: backing up and syncing seems a bit faster, as does updating applications. Thank goodness for that – I remember when it used to take forever just to back up my iPhone back in the days of its initial release.


Before I went to install the 2.1 update, applications would update and it would seem to be take forever. After the new 2.1 upgrade the rest of the updates went faster. I updated eleven applications and it took approximately three minutes for iTunes to update them onto my iPhone. That's much better before the update.

Since I just installed the update I haven't yet seen whether or not it improves battery life. But I'll find that out as I go. I don't have 3G in my area so that isn't an issue for me (I use Wi-Fi at home so it doesn't matter in that regard) but it will be interesting to see if this update generally makes the battery life longer. If you're an iPhone owner, please post your experiences - good or bad - with battery life on your phone.


I did not experience the reported call drop problems either, so that's not something that will matter to me. My calls have been very good except for when I accidentally hit the back of my Jawbone and hang up the call. But hey, my own stupidity isn't Apple's fault.

After the update I tried opening and using one app after another, but none of them crashed. I'd like to chalk this up to the 2.1 update but I wasn't getting a lot of crashes before, either.


However, I noticed that the keyboard stuttering that I'd noticed before seems gone. I tried typing an email and the keyboard kept up with me just fine. That was a small but very annoying problem when using my iPhone to type email or otherwise write something. It slowed everything down considerably. I'm glad to see it's gone.

The Genius playlist feature is neat although not something I'd probably use a whole lot. It's still cool though. The first song I tried it with was Dean Martin's "Ain't That A Kick in the Head" and I got a "Try Again - This song does not have enough related songs to create a Genius Playlist" message. Okay, so I tried Elvis' "All Shook Up" and I got a nice Genius playlist. Apparently Genius doesn't like Dean Martin. Who knew?


So far, so good with the 2.1 update. It's not earth shattering (at least for me) but it does seem to have fixed some of the more annoying problems with the iPhone 3G.

Story:

[Chefanim]

A few days later.

I upgraded this weekend to 2.1, and so far what I have noticed is battery life seems to be a bit better, nothing extraordinary, but butter none the less.

The biggest improvement I've noticed is Sync times, It would take hours to backup before the upgrade, now its done in just minutes. Kudos to Apple for fixing this.

I havent noticed any increase or decrease in signal strength, although I dont believe this was ever an issue with the 1st Gen phones.

There is less lag in the keyboard for text messaging, but again, I didnt have much trouble with this either.

And, then there is the genius in the iPod..... this is neat..... the first time

[cba]

Hi

kindly advise when will dev team release Pwnage tool and QuickPwn for Jailbraking 2.1 Firmware. - for windows...tks

[Chefanim]

I wish I had the answer to that. BUT, if your iPhone has been 'Pwned' before and you want to upgrade, you can do it in windows with iTunes 8, and the firmware here: Send big files the easy way. Files too large for email attachments? No problem!

This link is for 1st gen (not 3g) non AT&T phones, if you need a different one let me know.

Do not use DFU mode for this, just connect with iTunes, and use shift+restore, and select the custom firmware.