TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that’s why we have them forums!). Today’s question comes from Brenden:

quick question – are you still hearing about widespread reception issues with the iPhone 3G? I bought one and took it back because of poor reception, but i’m considering getting one again if the reception issues are fixed ..

TiPb Answers, after the jump!

There hasn’t been nearly the outcry about reception problems, or network connectivity problems since Apple released firmware 2.1. Your carrier and the region you’re in, however, could play a roll in the ultimate equation.

Anyone else having reception problems under 2.1? If so, what carrier and area are you in? Please let us, and Brenden, know!

While this might be iPhone 101 to some, Apple pretty much snuck this feature into their 2.0 firmware, and while we’re now at 2.1, not everyone may yet know that they can capture their iPhone screen contents with just the touch of a button — well, two buttons actually.

To take a screenshot with your iPhone or iPod Touch, just press the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time. On 2.0, the screen will flash white, while with 2.1, you’ll also get the camera shutter sound, and your screen will be captured.

To access your screenshots go to Photos and on the iPhone, look in Camera Roll, while on the iPod Touch, check out Saved Photos. (see, poetically, screenshots after the jump!)

Reader Karl writes in to let us know his twelve year old son discovered a glitch in SMS security:

Being security conscious he turned on the passcode lock and disabled SMS Preview. [...] If a message is received during the passcode entry or while the screen is locked, a generic message of “New Text Message” appears, to prevent viewing of messages without unlocking the phone. [...] If however the phone is placed in emergency call mode, any incoming SMS messages are previewed instead of presented as the generic messages.

Next comes two issues concerning the implementation choices Apple made in the iPhone Mobile Mail client. According to Ars Technica, as disclosed by Aviv Raff, the first involves the way Mail truncates URLs for display on the iPhone. If a malicious URL is properly crafted by an attacker, the truncation can cause a fake URL to be non-obvious to the users, and thus more likely to result in phishing.

The second results from the lack of an option to display images in the full HTML Mobile Mail client. Since images are automatically displayed, spammers can gain confirmation that the email account that received it is active and ripe for spam attack.

As always, malicious attacks evolve and propagate at an alarming rate, and while we hope Apple fixes these immediately if not sooner, the onus is ultimately and always on we end users to pay attention and do everything we can to avoid them.

Since upgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1, from time to time my camera preview — and the pictures themselves — have taken to breaking apart and re-arranging themselves into something pretty much unusable (though likely to fetch a pretty penny at the snootier, more vacuous galleries, no doubt).

The above picture was of a plain surface, now broken into a patchwork of planes. Happens with faces, people, and just about everything. It’s not happening regularly enough, however, that I’m close to considering the nu-cu-lar option — full on restore.

Anyone else having this problem?

Is it possible that web apps can return from the dead? It seems to me that the 2.0 firmware pretty much buried the poor web apps six feet under. Even if they are not used nearly as often since we have 3rd party apps along with the App store, it seems as if Apple are quietly tweaking the iPhone for them.

According to a reader over at AppleInsider.com:

One unpublicized feature introduced by Apple’s latest iPhone software updates is the ability save Web Apps to the home screen and have them launch in full-screen mode without the Safari wrapper, essentially mimicking the experience of a native app.

The reader also notes that the capability is “only present in Web applications specifically authored to include the full-screen code”. Pretty clever trick Apple. But is this enough for you to start using web apps again? Or have you never given up on them even though we have the App Store?

We here at TiPb are curious what you think, sound off in the comments!

[Via AppleInsider]

TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that’s why we have them forums!). Today’s question comes from Brandon:

I think it was universally acknowledged that September was when Apple promised is background notifications for the iPhone 2.x. September has come and gone and I don’t know about you guys but I still don’t have background notifications on my iPhone. Would be nice if you guys posted something busting apple’s 3@!!$ for missing the date and hoping we wouldn’t notice. I think alot of people like myself bought iPhones with the promise of these notifications in mind.

TiPb answers, after the jump!

We posted about the lack of push-notification when it disappeared from 2.1 Beta 4, and again when it didn’t show up in 2.2.

However, our take is that 2.0.x was so beset with bugs, that Apple had to focus on stability first, and then worry about new features later.

We think Apple was humbled on July 11th, and they’ve chosen to take some extra time with Push Notification and get things right, rather than rush out new, likely buggy features just to make self-imposed deadlines. (Do we really want a Push Notification Service as broken as MobileMe was at launch? Hopefully not!)

Of course, TiPb would love us some working Notifications, so we really do hope we get them — stable and properly polished — in 2.2.

As opposed to “push” style ActiveSynch, MobileMe, or Yahoo! iPhone mail, traditional POP or IMAP accounts, like Gmail or ISP mail, needs to “fetch”, or check the server on a certain schedule to see if there are new messages.

Reader Mike wrote in pointing us to a thread on the Apple Discussion Forums about “fetch” email being broken with iPhone 2.1. I only fetch mail from Gmail, and Gmail IMAP is a strange and buggy implementation which gives me considerable problems beyond the iPhone, so I can’t say whether anything is really broken or not in 2.1.

Reader Steffen, however, after thinking the problem could just be undocumented IMAP IDLE behavior, decided to run some tests:

Finally, I had some time to look into this thorougly. I dumped IP traffic all night to see what iPhone does. My iPhone is set to retrieve data every hour. Here’s when the iPhone actually connected to my IMAP server:

09:36 PM, 10:44 PM, 11:02 PM, 12:36 AM, 06:36 AM, 09:38 AM, 09:45 AM, 09:57 AM

Looks like everything but an hour to me… Oh yeah, forgot to mention… I’ve turned off everything except for GSM radio do be sure to get all traffic. The last three connections occurred when I started to play around with the iPhone this morning. So, the effect that lead me to the assumption of IMAP-IDLE on the iPhone seems to be something else. It appears that the iPhone will contact IMAP more often while using it and somehow random while idling… So, no IMAP at this time, but maybe interesting as well…

Definitely interesting! Thanks Steffen!

Any other readers out there got “fetch” problems? Wacky behavior? Please let us know!

Today on the forums we have a couple of newly started threads that you should enjoy. There has been a lot of talk about jailbreaking lately with the new QuickPwn’s released for both Mac and Windows. Have you given jailbreaking a try? Let us know in this thread.

Most everyone who has a iPhone has it protected in some way, shape or form… Rene wants to know, “To Case or Not to Case?”. What’s your style?

I really like having the auto correction feature on the iPhone. If it tries changing a word you just tap the “x” on that word and it goes away. Tap it 3 times and it will never predict that word again. Simple right? Well someone has started an online petition for Apple to disable auto-correction. Yes, you heard right… check it out.

Last we have a thread that revolves around the 2.1 firmware. The dust has now settled and I know what some of my favorite features are, how about you? Let us know!

As always, you can sign up for our forums here! It’s simple to register and it’s free!

See you on the forums!

About a month ago Dieter reported about a fairly large security flaw in firmware 2.0.2 that gave access to Safari, Email, and a frightening amount of personal data. Apple patched it in 2.1. Or did they?

This could be a flaw, or feature, but it turns out you still have the ability to make a phone call, to any number, while the iPhone is locked with a passcode. Wasn’t the “emergency” call feature meant to call “emergency” numbers such as 911 only?

Apple can you please put this on your “need to fix” list? Thank you!

(Via Macrumors, as discussed way back in 2.0.2 on the forums of iLounge.com)

Today on the forums we have a few good topics we would encourage you to check out.

First up, is Apple giving us the run around regarding 3G signal strength in firmware 2.1?

Next up we have yet another thread that revolves around which future gadget or device can compete well with the iPhone 3G? We are seeing more and more devices emerge out of the woodwork every day. The latest one being the HTC Touch HD. That looks to be a impressive device to say the least. Competition is a good thing. Remember that.

Then we have a thread started by forum member cjvitek who wants to know how you surf the internet on your iPhone?

Lastly I would like to remind everyone about our Lightning Reviews, keep reviewing all the apps that are released on the App Store for your chance to win a coupon for the TiPb Store! Check them out and post your own!.

So join us in our growing community!

See you on the forums!

In the latest firmware, 2.1, Apple implemented a nice safety feature: the ability to have your iPhone erased if the wrong pass code is entered 10 times. It is a great feature if your phone is stolen or lost and you have vital information that should not be seen by anyone else.

I received the above picture from forum member cgov this morning. Seems as though he only gets 5 tries to unlock his phone before it gets erased compared to 10, which is supposed to be the standard.

Anyone else seeing that?

(Thanks for the tip cgov!)

iTunes 8 is here and 95% of y’all are definitely going to want to get your upgrade on. A few of you might not until the pwnage situation clears up. A few more might want to avoid that Blue Screen of Death thing on Vista, although the good news there is we now have a decent fix (check that link).

Ok, so now what are we getting with iTunes 8? Follow us after the break!

iPhone Features

First up and dearest to our hearts — iTunes 8 combined with the 2.1 update to the iPhone will give us backups that don’t last for hours and hours (and hours).

Another nice bit: your iPhone info screen now shows more information about what’s taking up space on your iPhone. Namely — it has a new color for ‘apps’ instead of burying that information within ’0ther.’

Better podcast settings

iTunes is still our favorite way to grab podcasts on the desktop, but the options for how and what to download and keep were always a little too broad. That issue has been resolved with a little shuffling of the Preferences dialog. Podcast settings are now editable on a podcast-by-podcast basisi instead of globally in the Pref’s screen.

New Browsing View: Grid

1. It manages to cram more information (your media) on to one screen while simultaneously making that information easier to quickly browse.
2. With stuff like TV shows and podcasts, it shows you number badges indicating un-seen or un-listened to media.
3. Much like iPhoto, Artist view lets you ‘scrub’ your mouse across a thumbnail to get a quick glimpse of the albums to be found within.

Though we at TiPb are hopeful that Genius (see below) will become more and more useful as time goes on, for now Grid View is our favorite iTunes 8 feature.

Genius

The biggest new feature in iTunes 8 has to be Genius Playlists. Apple has taken a page from the Pandora and Last.fm playbook by helping users create playlists based on a certain song. The basic idea is this: you select a song, tell iTunes to create a playlist based on that song, and iTunes makes a list of up to 100 songs that it believes ‘go with’ that song from your library. For example, choose a Bob Dylan song and you might find Joan Baez in a playlist.

In theory, it’s nearly the perfect way to shuffle your music. Instead of a jarring switch from your secret stash of Kenny G songs to your hardcore rap, you immediately get a playlist of songs that fit the sort of mood you’re actually looking for.

iTunes also (anonymously) uploads your entire library into the cloud and collates your listening habits with millions of other iTunes users. The net effect is supposed to help Genius refine its playlist-creating abilities. That’s good news, because in these early days Genius isn’t quite Mensa-esque in either its ability to recognize songs or in choosing apt playlists to go along with them:

Nevertheless, Genius looks to be a great way to not only shuffle your music but also to (re)discover music in your vast iTunes library that you may have forgotten about. The fact that it’s also available on the iPhone is also great news.

Also notable, of course, is that there’s now a Genius sidebar that appears in your music listings. It offers opportunities to purchase related music that’s not in your library as well as the ability to fill out incomplete albums. If Genius doesn’t have information on a selected song, it defaults to showing top selling songs and albums in iTunes.

New Visualizer

There’s a new visualizer in iTunes, created by the barbarian group, and it’s sweet. Photos do better than words at conveying the new feel, but actually trying it does better than photos, so be sure you check it out.

New Terms and Conditions.

We’re not lawyers so we’re not going to delve into these just now — but we heartily invite you to give it a shot.

iPhone 2.1 (build 5F136) is an incremental point update to the much larger and more encompassing iPhone 2.0 software release we reviewed back in early July. Light on new functionality, it focuses instead on bug fixes, which given the many problems that accompanied the massive 2.0 rollout, is a Very Good Thing.

Like 2.0, this update is also available for the iPod Touch, but unlike its predecessor, the 2.1 update is FREE (if you already have 2.0 — if you have 1.x, you’ll still have to pony up the $10 premium.)

So, 4 betas, dropped features, somethings new, somethings fixed — is iPhone 2.x Apple’s Vista? Or is it finally the next generation firmware we’ve all been waiting for? Find out, after the break!

Release Notes

iPod Touch 2.1 debuted September 9, with iPhone 2.1 following on September 12. Apple, given their usual mono-syllabic release notes, was positively chatty this time:

iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved 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 if you have lots of 3rd 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

Fixed Things First

An email, purportedly from Steve Jobs, suggested only 2% of users were suffering from firmware related problems. Tell that to the comments, forums, and blogs! We here at TiPb have covered the various 2.0.x glitches extensively already, including 3G network issues, App crashes, and painfully long backup cycles.

Although a few new issues have arisen, including a bug in iPod Touch WiFi dealing with WAP authentication, and with MobileMe and Exchange Push services draining battery life for some users, Apple seems to have taken positive steps towards stability with 2.1. 3G signals report as stronger. Apps don’t crash quite as often. And backups are considerably faster. Oh, yeah. Apple also fixed that little security snafu — again — that allowed access to a otherwise locked iPhone data.

No doubt a 2.1.1 (already on shipping versions of the iPod Touch) or 2.1.2 is in the pipeline to further tweak things, but 2.1 itself is already a major improvement over 2.0. Who are we kidding? In the stability areas, 2.1 is what 2.0 should have been.

What Hasn’t Changed

Most everything. But as we said, this release ended up being less about features and more about fixing the persistent embarrassment that 2.0.x had become for Apple. (Threatening a Vista-like hit to its public perception — perpetually viewed as flawed no matter how solid it became).

For the vast majority of built-in applications, including Calendar, YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, iTunes WiFi Music Store, Phone, Mail, and Safari, while performance (scrolling, transitioning, etc.) has improved (and thank Jobs for that — especially in Contacts!), functionality is pretty much the same.

Alas, while typing on the virtual keyboard might also have improved, we’ve still encountered the dreaded lag at times, especially with SMS. A few Apps (like Safari or Mail) can still take their sweet time to load. Since these are multi-tasking Apps, a Force Quit can sometimes help, but it does make us wonder if something is going on under the covers — the same thing that keeps Apple so determined to keep multi-tasking off-limits to the App Store?

Home Screen/General

Minor cosmetics: 3G and Edge have both gotten slightly tweaked, more low-key icons. No particular reason that we can tell. Maybe Jonathan Ive had 30 seconds to spare?

Photos/Camera

The screen shot function (press Home and Sleep at the same time) now not only flashes white on activation, but now also makes an audible camera shutter sound, same as taking a picture. Our 2.0 iPhones don’t do that, so it seems to be new to 2.1..

SMS

I haven’t noticed this personally yet (maybe because I’m not a heavy texter), but reader Mr HiDefinition wrote in to tell us:

If you scroll all the way to the top of a long SMS message, you usually see call to the left and contact info to the right but now underneath both you see a new option to load earlier messages. If you press the load earlier messages you’ll see earlier messages and you can keep pressing it and pressing it to see further back until you get to the beginning of the conversation that you started with the person.

(Screen shot courtesy of Chad)

In addition, as mentioned above, Apple now claims you will receive repeated alerts for SMS messages — but we’ve likewise not seen this ourselves yet.

Useful stuff for those who live on SMS.

Settings

Because Setting is so huge, it almost always gets some update or another, and 2.1 is no different. According to Macworld, Settings – General – Restrictions now allow you to turn off the Camera app as well. Probably not enough for secure locations who won’t allow any device with a physical camera on site, but useable for parents.

Speaking of security, Apple has also added to Settings – General – Passcode Lock, allowing users to now toggle on Erase Data. This will, after 10 failed attempts at entering the unlock PIN, securely delete every byte on the iPhone. We’re still not sure if this is the military grade, multi-pass pseudo-random data overwrite type of secure erase, but we’re hoping it is… One note of caution: avoid this option if you have kids who might discover your iPhone and decide its fun to start randomly typing digits into the boxes…

App Store

cddiazz2010 let us know that, when installing an App straight onto your iPhone (a precarious undertaking on 2.x, as it pretty much ensured crashes and long backups, but rock solid for me so far with 2.1), you can now tap on the icon to pause the installation, and tap again to continue. Very nice, and could prove very useful.

Terry comments below that App icons will also stay in place now when updated, no longer jumping back to the last open slot. Good catch Terry, and good fix Apple!

iPod

Thanks to iTunes 8, iPod received what was possibly the biggest feature boost in 2.1. We’ve already covered how to create on-the-fly, and on-device Genius Playlists, which is the most obvious update…

…But Apple has snuck in a few other gems as well.

When the iTunes Remote App debuted alongside the App Store, many found it to be superior in some ways to the built-in iPod App. Apple seems to have listened, and added the improved music listings, which show album and artist underneath track names.

Podcasts get similar treatment, with not only date added, but length and length remaining if you’re only part of the way through. TV Shows give total time, as do movies.

Sadly, they didn’t add one of our favorite features — search. The more storage, the harder it is to find stuff. Apple needs to more seriously integrate this base functionality throughout the iPhone.

On the tweak side, Apple has added a new state to the small blue dot icon that used to simply distinguish “new” from “not new” for other media like podcasts and TV shows. Now, a half-blue dot indicates “partially new” (i.e., you’ve started but not yet finished watching or listening to it).

In terms of behavior, I noticed that since 2.1, when a podcast completes playing, the iPod App will immediately begin playing the next oldest podcast in the same series. I don’t remember seeing this in earlier firmware, and next newest would seem more logical.

Lastly, word is 2.1 now supports a triple-click on Apple’s wired earbuds and in-ear earphones to skip backwards one track. I’d imagine (and hope), it would also support the volume rocker on the newest versions of those earphones as well.

Conclusion

Sure. No cut/copy/paste, no turn-by-turn, no MMS, no video recording, no ubiquitous landscape keyboard, and the list goes on and on. But this wasn’t 3.0 on 3rd gen hardware. This was, all jokes aside, the real release version of 2.x. The proper gold master we should have gotten back in July. And taken at that, it’s a very important, and much appreciated update.

Not perfect yet by any means, but a much needed step in that general direction.

Should you update to 2.1? Now that the iPhone DevTeam has again worked their jailbreaking wonders, there’s no reason for anyone to shy away. It’s free, it’s functional, and its fixed. Go grab it, and drop by the forums to let us know how it’s treating you!

And if you notice anything else we may have missed, please let us know! (And if you’re still having issues post 2.1, Jeremy wants to make sure you hit Apple’s iPhone Feedback page and let them know!)

How is your battery life doing after upgrading to firmware 2.1? Hopefully better than mine!

I thought everything was going great after I updated Friday morning. Well I had a full charge late in the afternoon and left for work. A half hour later I noticed my iPhone was a bit warm without even using it. I Looked at my battery life and I was at 50% or so! Safe to say the phone was dead not long after.

So after a full night on the charger last night I thought everything should be good today. Well I was wrong. 2 hours of standby and a 5 minute phone call later, and my iPhone looked like the above picture. Actually that is exactly how it looked! What has really got me stumped is that I checked the usage meter and it said I used 1 hour and 56 minutes! A 5 minute phone call turned into that somehow? The time since last full charge was at 2 hours, which was correct.

I did a full restore without using a back up file after this, charged my phone and while the battery did seem to last longer, the battery meter is way off still. The “force quit” did not work, nor did any soft resets.

There is a thread over at Macrumors and Apple Discussions showing others are having this exact same issue, so that leads me to believe that my iPhone is not the issue but rather a issue with the 2.1 firmware in combination with something else? MobileMe possibly?

Turning off Push… my usage meter goes back to normal. Now I’m turning push on for mail only. We’ll see if it messes it up again.

If anyone has had issues like this please chime in.

UPDATE: I am happy to report that ever since I shut off push for contacts and calendars my iPhone is now working like it should. Just woke up and checked the phone, I almost have a full charge and it says I have used 1 hour and 16 minutes and time since last full charge is 10 hours. Which is correct. So it is a issue with mobileme push for sure. Whether it is getting stuck or whatever, if you are having battery issues and use mobileme or exchange try turning off push completely. Then, if it is the issue, slowly turn back on the email push feature and test it out. Then contacts and calendars…

One of the new features in the iPhone and iPod Touch 2.1 firmware is the ability to create Genius Playlists on the fly, and right on the device. iTunes 8 introduced the concept of Genius Playlists, which like Pandora and Last.fm, use algorithms based on audio profiling, metadata matching, and (anonymously acquired) end user tastes, crunched in the Apple cloud. Basically, they take a song you like, what you typically like with it (what playlists you include it on), what others who like it also like (what playlists they include it on), and what music mathematically (tempo, tone, etc.) fits in with it. Then they try to predict other songs you might also like — in this case already on your iPhone — and whip you up a near-instant playlist on-demand.

How good is it? That depends entirely on how much music you have on your iPhone (the pool from which it can draw), how closely the metadata matches what’s in iTunes (or it won’t recognize your music — try tweaking the fields if you have trouble), and how many other users have contributed their data to the cloud (because the engine will supposedly get better and better the more information it’s fed).

Okay, so enough about what Genius Playlists are, how do we get them working on our iPhone? Full instructions after the jump!

UPDATE: In order to use Genius Playlists on your iPhone, you have to have the Genius service enabled under iTunes 8, and if you are manually managing your music, have at least one iTunes playlist you’ve dragged to your iPhone (otherwise the iPhone Genius service will not initialize). Also, as mentioned above, if you didn’t get your music via iTunes, make sure you copy iTunes’ metadata as closely as possible or Genius may not recognize your songs. For more, check out the comments below. (Thanks Matt for the tips!)

First, from your iPhone or iPod Touch home screen, tap the iPod App icon. Next, tap on the Playlist button at the bottom (if you’ve customized your layout, you may have to tap More.. first, then hit Playlists). From the top of the playlist screen, tap Genius.

The iPod App will slide up a song chooser. Flick-scroll your way through it until you find a “seed” song you want to use to generate your Genius playlist around. If you don’t have enough music on your iPhone similar to the “seed” song, iPod App will pop up a dialog box to alert you. No worries, pick another song! When you find one Genius can work with, a new, automagically generated playlist will slide up.

If you hate the playlist, just tap New and start again. If it’s okay, but not great, tap Refresh and Genius will use the same “seed” to generate a new, differently ordered playlist (and if you have tons of music, with variations in the exact songs selected). If you loves it, tap Save, and your awesome new Genius list (named after your original “seed” song) will be added to your existing playlists. Get sick of it later? Go back to Playlists, choose it, and hit Edit. From there you can Refresh for variety, or Delete for eternity.

jna from the comments points out that you can also create a Genius List on-the-fly while listening to a song. Just tap to enable the heads-up controls and then hit the Genius icon in the middle. Voila!

Give it a try, and brilliant lists or total duds, let us know just how dazzling your Genius is!

With the Apple’s release today of the iPhone 2.1 firmware update, that’s the exact question many people will be asking. Hey, we at TiPb asked it ourselves — for all of about 0.1 seconds before diving headlong into iTunes, for the good of our readers, of course.

So what’s new in iPhone 2.1, is it compelling enough for you to update, and who should avoid it at all costs?

Answers after the jump!

What’s in the 2.1 Update

According to Apple, iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following: 

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops 
• significantly improved 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 if you have lots of 3rd 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 

Who Should Update?

While some may feel, especially given recent history, that best practices are to wait a few days for the guinea pigs… er… early adopters to kick the tires and discover any deal-breaking bugs, if you’re already suffering from any of the problems listed above, especially 3G connection issues, dropped called, frequent crashes, or severely long backups, or if the latest security fixes are a must, then bite the bullet and update asap. There’s always a risk something might go wrong, but you’re likely suffering immense frustration already, and the benefits in that case clearly outweigh theoretical drawbacks.

Who Shouldn’t Update?

First and foremost: those of you who have jailbroken your iPhone 3G or 2G, or unlocked your 2G. While the 133t hax0rs over at iPhone DevTeam are Scotty-class miracle workers, they will always lag behind Apple and it might take them a few days, or even weeks, to crack whatever Apple’s cooked into the latest/greatest firmware. (Like the iTunes 8 patch they’ve already let loose). If you’re rolling with a jailbroken or unlocked iPhone, stay clear until you’re given the all-clear. We’ll always let you know right quick when/if there are any developments in that area.

Likewise, if you’re one of the 98% Apple claims already has a rock-solid 2.0.x iPhone, and won’t absolutely die if you don’t get Genius Playlist functionality, like, immediately, then you have nothing to lose by hanging back and waiting a few days to make sure 2.1 doesn’t blow up in anyone’s faces. Keep reading TiPb, and in a week or so, when confidence levels are high, you can take the plunge — if you feel like it.

Also, Vista users who haven’t yet fixed their iTunes 8 problems are encouraged to do that first, before chancing even greater BSOD wrath with 2.1.

Conclusion

Bottom line, if you’re happy with your 2.x (or even 1.x!) iPhone right now, save yourself the potential pain frustration and wait to update until there’s a compelling reason to update.

If, on the other hand, 2.x is giving you nothing but headaches, or the 2.1 features are must-haves, go ahead and update now. Things can’t get any worse, can they? And ZOMG! you can has Genius Playlists in ur iPhone like nowz!

Whatever you do, let us know. And if you do run into problems, be sure to head on over to our forums and harness a little crowd-sourced help!

Today is a special day for all of us, so why not have a special edition of Today on the Forums?! It’s pretty much a no brainer… firmware 2.1! It’s finally here and the forums are buzzing!

Have the changes that Apple made improved your iPhone? Let us know how the 2.1 firmware is working for you so far!

Be sure to check out another great thread, strictly for undocumented features of the 2.1 firmware!

So get on the forums and start mixing it up with our growing community! As always, registration is free and simple. Heck, we like the back and forth so much we’re going to turn off comments on this post so you can head over and get your chat on properly.

See you in the forums!

Update: Chad let’s us know that Apple already has an iPhone 2.1 info page up on their website!

Boom! iPhone firmware 2.1 (5F136) weighing in at 237.8MB is now live and available via iTunes. We’re downloading now. Will it fix 3G? App crash? Security holes? And will any tasty new features (or even hints of new features?) be hidden inside? Apple says:

iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following: 

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops 
• significantly improved 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 if you have lots of 3rd 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 

If you’re downloading as well, please let us know what, if any, issues you encounter, and what delights you find therein!

(Thanks to Tim, justapps, Garret, and everyone else for sending this in!)

Confession: My iPhone 3G/2.x experience has been relatively painless so far. No dropped calls, almost no 3G issues, very few App crashes, no eternal syncs, etc. While Steve Jobs reportedly said I’m in the norm, along with 98% of other iPhone users, you really wouldn’t know that from the intertubes. They’re on fire with dissatisfied users, and reader Anon, commenting on a post, points us to a thread on Apple’s discussion boards that indicates the dissatisfaction may not be ending any time soon.

The latest problem is with the 2.1 firmware — technically the 2.1.1 firmware already shipping, apparently, on the new second generation iPod Touch — and WiFi. Specifically, non-Apple Airport WiFi access points and the WPA security protocol (which should be what everyone is using now, right?)

While some might think this is no big deal, considering the older WEP protocol remains an option, TiPb would remind you that system can be broken in less than a minute these days, rendering it little better than no security at all.

For the record, however, I helped upgrade a 1st gen iPod Touch to 2.1 on Wednesday, and it connected to with no problems whatsoever to a Linksys WiFi router, so this might be one of the increasingly common, more complicated and multi-factor errors Apple’s been encountering (like Vista BSODs with iTunes 8…)

On the iPhone side, does this mean we’ll be getting 2.1.1 tomorrow as well? And will face similar problems? Or is Apple even now rushing an emergency rebuild of 2.1.1 or even 2.1.2 to finally — finally — give the 2%ers some stability?

Today on the forums we have a few hot topics for you to check out:

First let’s start off by taking a look at the latest iClone… the Blackberry Thunder/Storm. Do you think it really is a iPhone killer? Make your voice heard and vote in the poll! Next up is a thread started by mikecc and he wants to know if you are using your iPhone for gaming more than anything else? Stay tuned to TiPb in the next few days for more coverage of the iPhone as a gaming platform.

If you are addicted to Spore: Origins, as some of us here at TiPb are, be sure to check out the “Show of Your Spores” thread! Rene’s spore is pretty creepy looking… And last but not least the last thread of the day discusses the upcoming 2.1 firmware… so head on into the forums and let us know what you are thinking!

Things have been heating up on the forums as of late. The community continues to grow! Join in now. It’s simple and it’s free!

See you on the forums!

In all of the about 10 seconds devoted to the iPhone in this year’s Apple pre-holiday event, Steve Jobs let rock with the iPhone 2.1 announcement. No demo, though we suspect it will be very similar to the iPod Touch 2.1 software that received so much loving. Jobs did run down the “feature” list, however:

• Fewer dropped calls
• Significantly improved battery life
• Not going to crash if you have lots of apps
• Backing up to iTunes much faster
• Great new performance enhancements

Pretty much nails all the recent complaints. But that’s about all it does.

Don’t get us wrong. We said we wanted stability first, and this is stability first. We’re happy. Really. But the kid-on-Christmas inside us… That kid says no push notification service? And so much for those who hoped for cut/copy/paste, or turn-by-turn GPS. Unless Apple’s still hiding some “secret features“, guess we gotta wait until at last 2.2 for that, huh?

Better solid than just new bugs… Hopefully — at least — the Genius features and new interface tweaks will carry over from the iPod Touch as well. (Absent Nike +, of course!)

A colleague of mine just sent me this, along with the screenshot above:

Every time I try to update my iPod Touch I get this message. I do the help about and it says 7.7.1.11 is installed. Looks like it’s in a loop.

Anyone else getting 2.1 for the iPod Touch yet? Anyone else stuck in a loop? Let us know!

Continuing their all iPod Touch, almost no iPhone pre-holiday blitz, Apple has released a guided tour for the new, second generation device and its upgraded 2.1 firmware (available Friday for Touch and iPhone users alike).

The focus remains squarely on games. Sweating yet, Nintendo and Sony? But also shows off the new Genius feature. (Which we’ll be getting on the iPhone as well, right Steve?!)

(via TUAW)

It wasn’t MacWorld 2007, was it? Too much hype, too little delivery? Rumors of secret features and analysts wetting themselves over lower-margin product revelations set the bar too high? Or did Apple just decide to slip under it this time?

Either way, for iPhone lovers like we here at TiPb, Apple spared only about 10 seconds worth of attention. Highlights were limited to Firmware 2.1, which will be available Friday and include better battery life, less crashy apps, and… working 3G?!

Apple’s already made their money for the year on the iPhone, however, so it was time to pump the holiday purses: iPod Nano and iPod Touch. Read on for pics and the full roundup!

Kevin Rose must be smirking, see how several of his predictions came true, at least to some degree.

The Nano has the new/old Tall-Boy widescreen form factor, and comes complete with iTunes 8 compatible Genius music recommendations and playlists, and accelerometer, shake to shuffle, and more colors than a bag of skittles (no, I’ll never tire of that visual).

The Touch looks to be positioned directly against the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, with Spore and Need for Speed featured, along with built-in Nike+ integration, and the same Genius features as the Nano (and the iPhone, right Steve?!)

The Classic gets a one-size-fits all reduction to 120GB only, and the Genius features.

Updated: And iTunes 8, which will be available today, wraps it all together along with skim-able grid view, accessibility improvements, HD TV, the return of NBC (on bended knee?), trippy new Visualizations, and full on Pandora/Last.fm-style recommendations, as rumored.

Could we not only be seeing iPhone 2.1 this Tuesday, but a 2.1 with secret features deliberately kept from the 4 developer beta‘s just so Steve Jobs can see our stunned rapture when he pronounces BOOM!

Ars Technica thinks so:

We were told that, aside from what we already know about iPhone 2.1 from leaked info on the web, there are other parts to 2.1 that were specifically removed from developer seeds in order to keep them secret from the world.

Ars is both excited at the idea of new features, and scared of what feature untested outside Apple may do to an already buggy 2.x series. Us? We’re filled with anticipointment at the very thought.

Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Event, their traditional pre-holiday season iPod (and more?) refresh kicks off at 10am PDT/1pm EDT, and remember — TiPd will be rocking out, and live meta-blogging it!

Dieter’s already brought us up to speed on the nasty security bug Gizmodo found in the iPhone’s current 2.0.2 firmware (which John Gruber points out Apple already fixed once for firmware 1.1 way back last year — yikes!). Now Macworld (via MacRumors) reports that Apple has taken the unusual step (for Apple) of confirming the upcoming fix:

“The minor iPhone security issue which surfaced this week is fixed in a software update which will be released in September,” Apple representative, Jennifer Bowcock, said in an email to Macworld.

So add security to the list of what Apple’s now promising, along with 3G connectivity and App stability, for the next update.

Will that update be the already in beta 4 iPhone firmware 2.1? Kevin Rose has rumored it for September 6th, but we’ve already seen push notification fall off the feature list. With more bugs to fix, will Apple pull a Vista, or settle for a less ambitious, more urgent 2.0.3 in the interim?

I’m favoring the 2.0.3 at the moment. I’d rather stability over features at this point. Nail 2.0.x, then move on. What’s you preference?

Internet superstar Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, Pownce, and Revision3 has a… er… spotty record at best when it comes to iPhone speculation. Still, we give him full marks for getting back on that rumor horse once again. This time, Kevin’s saying he knows that sometime before the end of September we’ll see:

• Firmware 2.1, debuting on the iPod Touch (which will get a minor facelift).
• iTunes 8.0 with “new features and functionality” he can’t get into.
• Price drops along the iPod line to keep them competitive with iPhone’s $199
• Rounded wide-screen nano, back in candy-bar form factor
• Mac OS X 10.5.6 to feature Blu-Ray support.

Rose, who’s locked in a battle with Barak Obama and Leo Laporte for the crown of top Twitter’er, asks that we follow him there, or on his own platform, Pownce, for more updates.

Our take? Last year’s big pre-holiday Apple event introduced the iPod Touch, which debuted the new 1.1 firmware, including the WiFi Music Store, so that’s quite possible. iTunes 8.0 is more opaque, however. If App Store integration wasn’t a big enough marketing excuse to make the full point jump to iTunes 8.0, what would it take? (7.0, for example, added CoverFlow and iPod Games).

iPod price drops before the biggest selling season of the year make sense, as Apple dropped the iPhone $200 at last years event. Likewise a new Nano.

Blu-Ray support — if it’s to include BD movie playback — is a bigger nut to crack, however, because the short sighted industry killers in Hollywood demands HDCP DRM compliance (i.e. hardware enforced, digital rights managed copy protection) over the full path, from player, through cables and graphic cards, into the monitor — and in the OS. This caused a bit of an internet brouhaha when Microsoft “caved” for Vista. Laptops and the iMac would be far easier to implement, but is there business advantage enough for Steve Jobs to feel like doing it?

(via MacRumors)

Gotta love Steve Jobs and his blunt-force emails. This time, it’s a lucky AppleInsider reader who sent it on a complaint about crash-prone applications, a problem which has plagued the iPhone 2.0 pretty much since launch. And what did the drive-by-Steve’ing say?

This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September

Will that be the still-in-beta 2.1? Another hotfix like 2.0.2? Jobs, of course, didn’t elaborate. Smart money, however, would be on a 2.0.3 rev. so that Apple doesn’t have rush 2.1 out prematurely, with just more of the same issues.

I know my Apps experience the dreaded Home Screening of Death (HSOD) semi-regularly, especially the new/updated ones. What about you? Smooth sailing or lots of crashes? If the latter, how far away must September seem? (And is it just us, or is the unresolved bug list for 2.x pretty dang scary compared to the relatively stable 1.x?)

So, this weekend I had a lot of problems connecting to the 3G network. Bars showed full. 3G icon was lit up. But email and web browsing — any type of network activity really — either took forever to resolve or timed out completely. Today was even worse. Couldn’t get on for most of the day. Zip. Zero. Zilch. And this was AFTER installing yesterday’s hot new 2.0.2 firmware (once I got it to download...). So what’s going on?

Are there carrier issues resulting from less mature 3G networks? Is there an Infineon 3G chipset hardware problem? Is Infineon dragging their heels about writing better drivers? Is something in Apple’s iPhone 3G software stack that’s just not connecting well, or timing out too quickly? Or is it a horrible confluence of all of the above, making it an especially tough — and frustrating — bug to squash?

Given the lack of any apparent, or at least successful, fix in 2.0.2, Engadget says Apple is “shooting in the dark” trying to resolve the 3G issues. I don’t think so. I think, as one of our commenters mentioned, 2.0.2 was scheduled to add support for the addition 20+ countries and carriers coming on line this week, and crammed in whatever minor improvements Apple had ready. Rewriting the 3G drivers, especially if Infineon isn’t moving at Apple-required speed, isn’t likely to happen before the rumored September 2.1 release (which, as mentioned in the post on turn-by-turn GPS, has already jettisoned Push Notification Server support, hopefully because Apple is laser-focused on delivering an actual, gosh-darn real stable release in 2.1).

I don’t know about you, but at this point, that’s the priority I want them to have moving forward. Do one thing at a time, do it very, very well, and then move on…

UPDATE: Former Apple employee Chuq Von Rospach has just blogged about a meeting with an unnamed current Apple insider who let slip that:

90% of the disconnects are initiated inside the phone, which would exonerate AT&T. Most of the disconnects are being generated by crashes in the driver code for the 3G chip, which comes from the chip vendor, not something Apple written and outside of Apple’s direct control. Complicating this — even though Apple is handing over “here is the bug, here is the fix, update the driver”, the turnaround from the vendor on driver updates is on the order of 2-3 months. Said, um, lack of urgency not exactly making people inside the projects happy.

Understated much? If he’s not, as he says, being lied to, Chuq thinks this lack of responsiveness may be why Apple went ahead and bought PA Semi a few months back: to bring the chipset in house and more fully under their own control.

Remember that 3G network connection glitch we mentioned a few days back? The one that might be a hardware problem with a software fix? (Apple Insider weighs in today that this could, in fact, be likely). MacRumors is reporting that Steve Jobs, as he or someone acting on his behalf is sometimes want to do, has responded to an email inquiry about it, and provided the following:

We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon.

If this is authentic, and 2% is a solid number, given that the iPhone 3G sold 1 million units its first weekend, and may be over 3 million units now, that’s a staggering 60,000+ users potentially affected, — never mind 20 more countries set to launch later this week.

Unless Apple pushes out a 2.0.2 hotfix, firmware 2.1 has been in beta for a while already, and in general rumored to be heading towards a September-ish release (probably to coincide or follow up Apple’s tradition fall iPod and Mac product Special Event, which last year introduced both the iPod Touch and the WiFi Music Store).

Casey recently posted that the current 2.1 beta removed support for the Push Notification services (Apple’s conceptual replacement for multitasking functionality) to allow for more internal development, but perhaps also to fast-track the 3G fix?

That could leave the 2% in the slow lane for a while still…

So the news isn’t that iPhone 2.1 Beta 4 has been seeded to developers, no that’s expected. With a (hopeful) September release, iPhone 2.1 should be receiving its finishing touches. What the news is, is that the much ballyhooed feature of push notification is missing. As in gone. Not there. Removed. iPhone 2.1 Beta 4 removes the push notification feature from the test version.

Should we begin to worry? Push notification has been present in iPhone 2.1 since the very first beta. Apple says its been removed for further internal development. Obviously, the removal of the push notification feature would prevent developers from understanding the animal that is push.  But then again, we at TiPb would rather prefer a delayed polished product than a rushed buggy one (ahem..MobileMe).

Read

Update: Daring Fireball points out that: “The 3G networking glitches may well be real, but it’s worth pointing out that Richard Windsor is the same jackass who issued a report a year ago about the supposedly faulty “film” on the iPhone touchscreen, when in fact there was no such film.”

So add that to the “grain of salt” heap…

Yesterday we asked you if you were having any iPhone 3G network connection problems, and while some of you were fine, many of you were suffering. Well, MacRumors has jumped on the story, providing an interesting perspective (via MSNBC — and yes, the MS stands for Microsoft) on what might be going wrong:

The report said the most likely cause of the 3G problems is defective adjustments between the antenna and an amplifier that captures very weak signals from the antenna.

Hardware would be bad news for Apple and for chipset supplier Infineon whose 3G chipset is now getting a real-world pounding beyond anything they could have given it in the lab. It’s also bad news, of course, for users who’ll be considerably more inconvenienced even if some type of fix is eventually offered. However, Business Week has others sources sticking with the software angle for now:

Apple programmed the Infineon chip to demand a more powerful 3G signal than the iPhone really requires. So if too many people try to make a call or go on the Internet in a given area, some of the devices will decide there’s insufficient power and switch to the slower network.

They go on to say Apple and Infineon are already testing a firmware fix that should be rolled up into a larger update sometime in September (sounds like 2.1 to us). But here’s the question, can 2.1 patches fix flaky chipsets? Can good software overcome bad hardware?

Another week, another iPhone 2.1 beta. Yup, Apple is maintaining a breakneck pace on the next firmware point release, updating it more regularly that blogger David G. from MobileMe! (Still waiting on “laster [last?] week” there Dave!) More typically Apple, of course, is the lack of details to the release, with TUAW reporting:

“iPhone OS 2.1 beta 3 is now available and is to be used for testing only. View the Pre-Installation Advisory for iPhone OS 2.1 beta 3, Readme, and Release Notes before installing the new versions of the iPhone OS and SDK. As a reminder, pre-release software is Confidential Information and is subject to the terms outlined in your Registered iPhone Developer Terms and Conditions with Apple.”

Again, there were 8 betas released for 2.0 between March and July. If Apple keeps this up, could we be looking at a September release for 2.1? Something times with the anticipated September special event for new iPod Touches and general holiday announcements? (Which last year included the Wi-Fi Music Store and the infamous $200 iphone price drop…)

iPhone SDK and Firmware 2.1 Beta 1, released to a very small group of developers just last week brought us rumors of direction and speed based GPS (turn-by-turn?), Notification Server API’s, and the holiest of holy grails, cut, copy, and paste. Now Ars Technica reports Apple has dropped Beta 2, and while the hints hold true on the Notification “Push” technology, what else will our deep diving developers discover in the coming days? (I’m hoping for video recording!)

While Apple went through 8 betas for version 2.0 between March and the July 11 release, two updates for 2.1 in two weeks is a brisk pace, probably necessitated by Apple’s pledge to have the Notification Service — which allows developers to “push” alert badges, sounds, and popups — out to users as a way to prompt applications that aren’t running, simulating multi-tasking but without the negative impact of task management or resource obliteration that have plagued WinMob and Palm (though BlackBerry’s NOC outages and Apple’s own MobileMeltdown are harbinger that no scheme goes unpunished).

Also over night, Apple seeded the first beta for Mac OS X 10.5.5 to developers, which may portent further 2.1 related news, and for security conscious Mac users (and that should be all Mac users), Apple released Security Update 2008-005, which among other things patches the nasty DNS vulnerability that’s been all over the news recently, and the more Mac-specific ARDAgent issue. Rev up Software Update now.

One of the most important aspects of the iPhone is how it’s breathed the air of change into long stodgy, backwards thinking mobile cellular providers. We can argue whether its been less effective post iPhone 3G where subsidies have returned, but either way Apple fairly neatly removed the carrier middleman from its usual intrusive position in the smartphone space. App Store is clearly the crowning example thus far, but frequent firmware updates is sometimes likewise cited.

On the latest This Week in Tech (TWiT) podcast, however, Digg founder Kevin Rose credited an unnamed source inside Apple as saying AT&T had to approve the next iPhone firmware update. Of course, Rose has been, er… somewhat less than accurate in regards to iPhone news in the past (including his reports that the iPhone 3G would have video iChat). In his corner this time, however, are server logs showing iPhone 2.0.1 traffic on popular Apple news sites originating from both Cupertino and AT&T HQ regions.

Has AT&T always played a role in firmware testing or is this a new factor in a post 3G world? If it’s new, will it make 2.x updates take longer than 1.x did? And do international carriers like 02, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Rogers, Orange, etc. all have similar advanced testing privileges? If so, will 22+ (70+ eventually) carriers wanting to test new firmware result in huge delays or staggered launches? Or is this just another well Dugg tempest in a Royal Jasmine teapot?

On a side note, the same episode of TWiT saw the crankiest of geeks, John C. Dvorak “dot org slash blog” claim that one particularly damaging rumor circulating about Steve Jobs current health was deliberately and maliciously spread at an exclusive CEO gathering by an as-yet unnamed but well known executive with a personal grudge against Jobs and Apple. Dvorak maintains the rumor, which recent reports have indicated is false, was spread to other CEOs who then propagated it, adding to the confusion and downward pressure on Apple’s stock. If he can get a second anonymous confirmation on the story, Dvorak claims he will name names in his Marketwatch column.

As a huge fan of Karma, that should make for an interesting day, and likely more than a “slime bucket” response from El Jobso.

Apple has reportedly seeded an early beta of firmware 2.1 (5f90) and a new and improved SDK to developers. Among the changes, CoreLocation (which covers GPS and other location-aware services) gains direction and speed tracking abilities (leading to a fresh round of turn-by-turn speculation, ‘natch), and API’s for the Notification Server that, come September, will be used in-lieu of background multitasking to push alert badges and sounds to Apps (like Instant Messages, Tweets, etc.). Given how MobileMe is doing with Push, that one may prove interesting…

On the negative side, 2.1 is one way street. Developers using 2.1 can not create binaries compatible with the current 2.0-centric App Store, so they either have to maintain two independant development environments (Update: possibly 3 environments and up to 6 devices, 2.0 and 2.1 for iPhone 3G (with mandatory carrier plans), iPhone 2G, and iPod Touch — expensive much?), or wait for App Store 2.1 to launch (in September along with Notification Server?)

Of course, before 2.1 we’ll likely see the already being tested 2.0.1, which will hopefully fix many of the bugs plaguing upgraders and new adopters both. Like, really soon, right Apple?

Read Via