14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Apple announced iPhone OS 2.1 at its event in San Francisco yesterday. The new firmware upgrade should fix all the nasty bugs occurring with previous versions of the software, as well as the dropped-calls issue. Battery life is also said to be improved thanks to the new software, which is slated for an official release this Friday, according to Apple's Steve Jobs, speaking at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco) yesterday.
To give you a clue as to how upset some iPhone users were over the bad functionality after installing the 2.0 software, here's a comment coming from one of our readers.
“I've had nothing but problems with iPhone 3g updates... broken apps, text messaging stopped working, call drops... my first gen iPhone was flawless,” Denise wrote. “I now wish I'd kept it and not purchased the 3g. It doesn't seem like testing of the firmware is nearly as rigorous as it should be,” our reader concluded.
Well, Denise, good news from Apple! “Some great new performance enhancements” are said to be included in the next software update for iPhone owners. Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, stated on stage at the Let's Rock event that "this is a big update,” and that “it fixes lots of bugs.”
Also worth noting is Jobs' mention of fewer dropped calls, “big battery life improvements, no crashes with Apps” and faster backing up. The update will be provided free of charge for iPhone owners worldwide (first-generation and second-generation iPhone users alike). iPod touch users will have to pay the regular ten dollar upgrade fee to download and install the new software. iPhone / iPod touch OS 2.1 will be made available this Friday.
iPhone 2.1 was the only iPhone-related announcement at the Let's Rock event yesterday, proving that the update is a very important one for iPhone users. Hadn't the 2.0 software been so glitchy since first released (along with the introduction of the iPhone 3G), Apple wouldn't even have mentioned the iPhone at yesterday's event.