Existing users, 
iPhone OS 2.1 released; many bug fixes/improvements claimed
Posted 12 September 2008 @ 7am in News
Apple has released iPhone OS 2.1, as promised, with the following, surprisingly detailed release notes:
- 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
To apply the update, connect your iPhone to a Mac or PC running iTunes 8 then click the “Update” button.
Do Apple’s purported fixes hold true on your iPhone? Let us know.
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14 Comments
Posted by MTECRon
12 September 2008 @ 9am
They also updated how podcasts are displayed on the iPhone. Much better - showing partially listened to items.
Posted by Chuckmeister
12 September 2008 @ 9am
Completely as advertised by Apple, as far as I can tell. Really hoping the weekly all-apps crash and media disappearance issue will be resolved. I guess it will take a week to figure that out though…
Posted by chashulme_dotmac
12 September 2008 @ 10am
Just a note, as is pretty much standard procedure with iPhone software updates… Make sure to do a sync after the update completes — it’s not automatic. This will enable new features like Genius on your iPhone, assuming you had previously upgraded to iTunes 8 and configured it… And remember, if a hardware feature appears to be disabled post-upgrade, always RESTART your iPhone before panicking.
Posted by dlbuffington
12 September 2008 @ 10am
No improvement in 3G reception. Sigh.
Posted by marjdizzle
12 September 2008 @ 12pm
Applications seem to work fine now and the contacts seem to work alot quicker. Battery life seems to last longer but still haven’t pushed it too far yet. Reception seems to be improved also. If you manually manage your songs, you have to create a Genius playlist in iTunes 8 and then drag it to your phone. This will enable the Genius function on your iPhone.
Posted by SUGilbert
12 September 2008 @ 1pm
Application “crashes” still persist! :(
Posted by Squuiid
12 September 2008 @ 2pm
Still horribly buggy.
3G calls are now of poor quality and get dropped more than before!
My screen has also turned off and have not been able to come back on. Had to plug into USB to restore the screen.
You can now make calls, ANY CALLS on the emergency screen.
Was unable to end a call. Kept pressing end call, but it did nothing.
Disappointing. My 2G iPhone was far better.
Posted by nelsondevicenci
12 September 2008 @ 2pm
still with bugs this release, when go to setting then selec date and time the iphone crash then restart.
Posted by ferdi01
12 September 2008 @ 2pm
At last, from no 3G signal at ho,me to full streangth signal with nice and fast 3G internet. Had switched by phone to 2G sine it was bought but no nore. Apple’s update amd firmware did the trick. I now have what was advertized.
Posted by jellophoto
12 September 2008 @ 3pm
Update went flawlessly. The iPhone is much zippier and I love the new Genius feature within the iPod on iPhone. A great update for me.
Posted by evilmonkey98
12 September 2008 @ 3pm
My upgrade actually was good.
I used to get one bar 3G in my office and now I am getting full strength in 3G. Also, switching between 3G and edge is far smoother in this new version.
SMS was soo much smoother an call quality stayed about the same, just no dropped calls.
Posted by Betsy Richter
12 September 2008 @ 3pm
Weeeelll…ever since the upgrade, I can NOT get onto the 3G network. I switch to 3G…watch the bars flatten…and then see a *no service* message instead. (This happens in multiple places in Portland - inside, outside, etc.)
I have power cycled the phone, synced a few times, tried other tricks (none of that worked.) I just finished wiping the phone & am now restoring from the backup. Here’s hoping that works.
Posted by seika7
12 September 2008 @ 3pm
I just updated my 1st gen 8 GB and the improvements are impressive. My iPhone is nearly full (450 MB free) and has about 20 apps from the store. Backing up is down to about 10 seconds (from a few minutes w/ 2.0x) and scrolling and working with 525 contacts is nearly as fast as under 1.x. No problems found yet.
Posted by climbbike1
12 September 2008 @ 4pm
Interesting . . . After I upgraded to 2.0.1, I could no longer use 3G AT ALL. But after this update, things are looking great so far. Weird how inconsistent it is. The contacts list is WAY better now (finally). I like the text mssgs reminders but I wish they had given more control over them like how many reminders, how often, etc.