Gizmodo: iphone 2.1

iPhone OS 2.1 Won't Fetch Emails in Sleep Mode

matt buchanan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:14:52 EDT

Another bug in iPhone OS 2.1, which we have tested and reproduced, is that it will no longer fetch emails in the background while in sleep mode on battery power. It's most probably one of the power-saving tweaks introduced in 2.1, since Apple says that the 15-minute fetch interval is the worst wear on the battery because it never lets the phone go into deep sleep mode. This Apple discussion thread chronicles the problem at length. It's possible it'll be fixed in the next update—a reader tells us that Apple confirmed it's a "known problem" and that they are looking into it, but in the meantime, don't lean too hard on fetch. [Apple - Thanks Josh!]

iPhone 2.1 Firmware Review: It Fixes Everything We Can See

Jason Chen — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EDT

iPhone's 2.1 update last Friday was supposed to fix a whole dump truck-load of issues people have been having with the iPhone 3G. If the update did succeed in getting rid of dropped calls, improving battery life, dramatically speeding up backup times, improving application install speeds, more accurately displaying 3G signal strength display and eliminating keyboard lag, we could finally recommend the iPhone 3G to our friends without looking like asses. Did the 2.1 firmware do everything it promised? Oh yes.

Reception: This is the biggest improvement, at least on the surface. I'm now getting 4-5 bars in my office where I used to get between 1-2 (see photo above). Does displayed reception actually correlate correctly to actual reception? The hardware is the same, and one of the bug fix list has "improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display" as one of its items, so is this just a placebo designed only to make you think that your reception is improved? No, it's actually improved.

Calls from my office used to get periodic drop-outs and injected silence, but I have not heard this once since I made the upgrade to 2.1. Brian, with his black hole of cellphone coverage that he calls his apartment, actually made a 12 minute conversation without disconnecting. What's the deal? How is the new software improving reception so much when the hardware is the same? Is it a new stack to handle transmission between the phone and the tower better? We have no idea, although recent reports have said that problems with the phone are caused by an immature chipset, and could be fixed via software, so this is somewehat likely.

It's too bad that Apple disabled the "Cell Information" screen in the iPhone Field Test Mode, which we used to test this ClearBoost case from Griffin, or else we could have used actual power readings from nearby towers to determine whether or not the signal has really been improved. What we can see in the Field Test Mode is that the dBm reading in the top left (where the reception bars were) show very similar numbers, flutuating on both phones between -97 and -103 from in the office. Sometimes one is higher than the other, but there's no consistency.

Verdict: Win.

Battery Life: Improved, but not dramatically. We did see an improvement in battery life this weekend when our phones lasted about 2 days on regular use. It previously only made it to somewhere around 1.5 to 1.75 days. Nothing dramatic, but noticeable.

Verdict: Slight win.

Reduced Backup Time: We definitely saw no more 20-40 minute backups with the 2.1 firmware, but the best indicator for this quirk being fixed would be the guy with an 8-hour iPhone sync. He reported back and told us that the same set of apps now give him a 14 minute sync time. Check this fix off as a winner.

Verdict: Win

3G Browsing Speed: This is an awkward one. The browsing speed wasn't actually noted as being one of the things fixed, but we decided to test it anyway because of the supposedly improved reception. For browsing, the same page loaded about 1.5 seconds faster on the OLD firmware (2.0.2) compared to the new one. On other sites, like Apple.com, the old firmware actually loaded the page a whole 5 seconds faster than the new firmware. Strange.

We then used the Speedtest app in the iPhone App store to see if it was data transfer that was holding up page loads. On the 2.0.2 firmware we had download speed of 913Kb/sec, 581 Kb/s and 1048Kb/s. On the 2.1 firmware we had a 420Kb/s, 518Kb/s and a 718Kb/s. On the whole the new firmware seems to be slower in terms of data transfer, which leads to slightly slower page loads.

Verdict: Lose

Application Install: The same app (Speedtest) installed 15 seconds faster on the new firmware than on the old one. We downloaded this on the phone itself using the same Wi-Fi router for both. The downloading was just about simultaneous, but the install portion was much faster.

Verdict: Win

Crashing and hanging: It's only been about three days since we updated, but we haven't run into any crashes or hangs yet. 77% of you agreed with us on Friday.

Verdict: Probably win

Text messaging: Didn't see any keyboard lag here. Adam Frucci, the king of iPhone keyboard lag, claims that everything is fixed on this front.

Verdict: I guess a win?

Overall: Apple's really fixed the glaring reception, crashing and backup problems everyone's been seeing. Not only is everyone getting more bars than they were before, they're getting actual results. Brian's notoriously horrible AT&T reception at his apartment in SF is just bearably horrible now, kicking him down to EDGE from 3G where he can actually make phone calls that don't cut off after a few seconds. If you own an iPhone, you need to upgrade to 2.1—slower browsing be damned. Apple has finally put most of the iPhone 3G launch problems behind it, allowing the phone part of the device to be brought back up to par with the original 2G iPhone. [iPhone]

Question of the Day: Has the 2.1 Update Fixed Your iPhone?

Sean Fallon — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:40:00 EDT

I'm sure all of the iPhone owners out there were chomping at the bit to download the 2.1 update when it hit today. After all, it does claim to fix major problems like call drops, crashes, slow syncing and bad battery life. I've been busy, so I haven't had a chance to install it myself—so help me out with this. How are the individual bug fixes working out for you?

iPhone 2.1 Update Available Now

Kit Eaton — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:16:00 EDT

Just popping up when you sync your iPhone to iTunes is the iPhone 2.1 update. Go get it chaps, and check out its reputed fixes to call dropping, crashing, slow syncing and bad battery life. Apple itself is basically claiming the iPhone 3G's all fixed up from top to bottom by the new software. And it's saying that it's fixed the 3G signal strength display with "improved accuracy"—sounds like no more fixes to 3G signal issues were needed after the 2.0.2 tweak. Check out Apple's words on what the update tackles:

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

Good to see the Genius Playlist feature is there, and it's a nice surprise to see the incoming SMS extra alerts: I've certainly missed a few texts arriving on my iPhone. The app install speed boost and crash fixes also sound like good news for developers and users alike... but we'll have to wait and see how successfully 2.1 addresses dropped call problems, and back-up timing. "Significantly better" battery life sounds like a winner, if it works as advertised.

Note that to get iPhone 2.1 up and running you'll have to download and install iTunes 8, which you can do here.
[Apple]

Update: The "3G signal strength display" fix certainly seems to have done something for my iPhone 3G: it's sitting here in the same place on my desk, and has gone from two bars of 3G signal with the 2.0.2 software to a whopping five bars in version 2.1.

iPhone 2.1 Beta 4 Seeded, Apple Removes Push Notification "For Further Development"

matt buchanan — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:44:34 EDT

Apple has just seeded iPhone 2.1 beta 4 to developers—uninteresting, really, except for the fact that the push notification service has been pulled from the release "for further development." Targeted to hit your iPhone in September, the push service allows apps to receive notifications in the background while they're not running, a godsend for AIM and other messaging apps. Hopefully this doesn't mean it'll be delayed, but we've all learned what happens when iPhone software rolls out before it's finished baking, so I'd rather wait. [Mac Rumors]

iPhone Developers Get Push Notification API

Jason Chen — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:54:23 EDT

Apple's just seeded the push notification API to developers through the second beta release of the iPhone 2.1 firmware. What this means to you is that developers can now tailor their apps to receive notifications in the background while it's not running, something supremely useful for apps like AIM, and to a lesser extent, Twitter and other social networking apps. The target date back at WWDC for when you'd get your hands on the background notification was September, which seems right seeing as developers need a month or so to integrate it and then get their apps approved. Now *bling* you can *bling* always *bling* know when someone *bling* is trying to *bling* get ahold of you. *bling* [Apple Insider]

iPhone 2.1 Firmware Hints at New iPod touch

matt buchanan — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:40:00 EDT

Apparently hidden in the code of the 2.1 firmware we're anxiously awaiting to make our iPhones less laggy and crashy (and maybe add copy and paste!) is a reference to a new iPod touch model. The current iPod touch designation is "iPod1,1" but there's a string in the code for an "iPod2,1" which points at a brand new iTouch.

For historical comparison, the original iPhone is "iPhone1,1" while the iPhone 3G is "iPhone1,2" as we found out during the 2.0 update madness, so there's definitely a case to be made. And late summer is new iPod season. What new whiz-bang features do you think would be in a whole new iPod touch? [iPhone Atlas via Mac Rumors]

iPhone 2.1 Firmware Has Tiny Glimmer of Copy-and-Paste Shining Inside

Kit Eaton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:20:00 EDT

When Apple said it didn't care about cut and paste on the iPhone, it's possible that it meant "not right now, but soon, possibly." Because over at MacNN they're reporting that the developer firmware 2.1 may have hints of copy-paste within it. "In exploring the Localizable.strings entry under English.lproj in the current iPhone WebKit framework, there are entries for several commands the firmware does not currently support, including cutting, copying and pasting," apparently. There's also a reference to a "mobile radio" but whether that pertains to internet radio functionality for the phone is impossible to divine. [MacNN via Macrumors]