Apple has released iPhone 2.1 firmware (Build 5F136) through iTunes this morning as promised by Steve Jobs during Apple's Special event earlier this week.
The release notes surprisingly has a lot more details this time round and claims many bug fixes and improvements.
You can get all the details of iPhone firmware 2.1 after the jump.
The release notes lists many bug fixes and improvements in iPhone firmware 2.1 for iPhone and are mentioned below:
- decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
- significantly improve battery life for most users
- dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- improve email reliability, notable 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 of 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
iPhone firmware 2.1 also includes quite a few security fixes including the security flaw that was discovered by iPhone expert in iPhone firmware 2.0.2.
If you have jailbroken and/or unlocked your iPhone then updating your iPhone with the latest firmware is not recommended at least until the iPhone Dev Team have not released the latest version of their Pwnage Tool which can hack iPhone firmware 2.1.
The iPhone Dev Team had reported that thier Pwnage tool worked with iPhone firmware 2.1 (beta 1), however we will need to wait and see if it works with this version.
You can download the latest firmware directly through iTunes.
One of our readers, bazza, who tipped us about the availability of the update, seems to have hit some issues upgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1 but was able to get things working after restoring the iPhone with the latest iPhone firmware third time round.
He reports:
"well everythings fine 3rd time around, much snappier seems more like the speed of the old 1.1.4 firmware, no lag like there was..."
Thanks bazza for the tip and for all the updates.
Update 1:
- Some iPhone users are reporting improved reception.
- The screen shot feature now makes a camera shutter noise.
- You can now pause iPhone app downloads by tapping on them.
- If you update the iPhone apps from the iPhone, they now stay in the same spot they were put in before they were updated.
Update 2:
- You can now triple-click the mic button on the iPhone earbuds to go to the previous song (Steve Jobs had mentioned this during Apple's Special Event on Tuesday).
- A minor change: The Edge icon which was a square with an E inside has changed, its now a floating E (thanks Michael).
Folks, please do let us know how it goes.
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Things seam to be running smoother. I haven't had any crash problems yet. I did have some troubles with the download probably due to a busy apple server. But install was smooth and worked the first try. So far so good.
Still wanting MMS that wasn't in this update.
just a bit faster and smother thats it not much
old 1.4 is still v good
i have both 3g 2.1 and normal 1.4
3g is not a big Chang for the cost !!
if you have an old 1 don't change it till it is died
just my thinking
"dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes" is an understatement. What took 10-15 minutes before to backup now takes 10-15 seconds. My excitement about this fix is hampered by the frustration of having to deal with the insane backup times in the first place.
Does this clear out all of my cydia and installer apps? Do I have to re-jailbreak it after the upgrade?
@randy: 10-15 minutes would have been great – mine regularly took 4+ hours! Since installing 2.1 it's down to a few seconds, like yours.
Hey w,
If you upgrade to the latest firmware it will clean up all the unofficial iPhone apps including Cydia.
You will also not be able to re-jailbreak it as there are no tools available to jailbreak iPhone firmware 2.1.
cheers!
Can anyone confirm the major bug of 2.1 :
Is it possible to call any phone number from the emergency call slider when the PIN code is locked?
Hey Frog,
Apple has fixed the security flaw that was observed in iPhone firmware 2.0.2 as per the release notes (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3129). The details of the security issue that has been fixed is mentioned below for your reference:
Passcode Lock
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-3633
Available for: iPhone v2.0 through v2.0.2
Impact: An unauthorized user may bypass the Passcode Lock and launch iPhone applications
Description: The Passcode Lock feature is designed to prevent applications from being launched unless the correct passcode is entered. An implementation issue in the handling of emergency calls allows users with physical access to an iPhone to launch an application without the passcode by double clicking the home button in emergency call. This update addresses the issue through improved handling of emergency calls. Credit to Matthew Yohe of The University of Iowa's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for reporting this issue. This issue does not affect iPhone versions prior to v2.0.
cheers!
2.1 is head and shoulders above the rest. I finally have a phone that seems to work. I'm sitting at my desk where I constantly had no signal at all and now have 5 bars!!! Also what would take 4 or so hours to sync was cut down to about 15-20 mins. (I have a lot of apps installed) I would also have to restore my phone about once a week. This firmware revision looks very very promissing.
Battery life improved? No way. Mine is way less than half from 2.0.2
I know it's not a significant change and the change serves no real purpose but the 2.1 update changed the Edge icon. What was a square with an E inside, is now a floating E. Hmm wonder why they changed that?
2.1 Game Set & Match……..check it out…..worked!!!!! http://xpwn.co.uk/2.1JBtut.txt
Went smoothly – didn’t hang and there were no problems. That’s nice .
Unfortunately, there appears to be no significant difference in the operation of the unit.
Safari hung when I tried to use it, signal strength still not very good. Dropped my first call.
No real changes:
- speaker phone still sucks
- other developers apps still shut off (ie, they can’t run in the background)
- no copy and paste
- BT stack appears to be unchanged (no wireless headphones)
- no Flash
- no turn by turn directions
Nothing to see here, move on people
Apple’s marketing/hype machine works better than their products.
Alas.
Maybe version 3.0 might make the iPhone worth the hype…
The Good: Very fast backups, only a few seconds. Appears to be more stable, actually I haven't had any crashes all day and I have used it quite a bit.
The Bad: No new features besides the 'genius' features that I really don't care about anyways. Call quality remains unchanged, but keep in mind I have not had any problems with reception since I got it. No cut/paste, not turn by turn, nothing else is new!
My 2 cents.
In my opinion, this is the only REAL reason for anyone to upgrade is the fast backups, but this should have never been a problem in the first place. I think apple leaves out the features that most people really want so they can look like they are listening to the customer when the come out with a new feature that they should have had in the first place… 3G, GPS, 3rd party apps. I think their painfully slow roll out of new features is a way to keep the customer spending more money, while at the same time making us seem happy to spend money for these 'new' features.
FYI:
When I have sms preview set to off, and have the screen password protected it no longer says who the text is from. Now it only says "New Text Message." and doesn't give a name or any more details.
Can anyone comment on the improved speed in contacts? Any operation with Contacts just kills my phone for 20-30 sec. It makes dialing from the contact list and using GrandDialer almost impossible.
If this is improved, it would be worth unjailbreak my phone.
Thanks,
I dont know why so many people are having dropped calls. I never had one. And that was since the launch. Maybe its just At&t
another feature is it doesn't display your full text convos, it keeps them stored.. if u scroll back to the top of a perviously long convo.. you'll see the option.. nice job apple
One problem i found and a few others had too, is that if you have Genius enabled and try and add songs to your iphone after say a restore, then it crashes iTunes. only way is to turn genius off then add your music.. then turn it on if you ever really care to use it.. just a word to the wise
********WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DA** BACKGROUND NOTIFICATION, TURN BY TURN, COPY AND PASTE……????? I HATE WHEN APPLE JUICES U UP FOR THIS SUPPOSEDLY "BIG" UPDATE , AND LEAVE OUT VERY IMPORTANT FEATURES…..SMH!
i noticed a difference in performance of the phone everything runs snappy but one problem is that my mail app keeps crashing so i cant check my email.
Looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer for more features. It seems Apple was busy enough fixing all the problems in the initial release. At least now it looks like a relatively bug-free platform to build upon!
I have just upgraded my iTunes to version 8 so that I can run the upgrade for the iPhone 3G but now my iTunes will not detect my iPhone at all.
Windows Vista Home Premium (32bit) is able to detect it but iTunes doesn't. Please can someone help me
Thanks
Hi Everyone,
I have found a solution to my own problem. I have just uninstalled all software that was created by Apple and then reinstalled iTunes 8. After that everything seems to be OK now.
iphone 2.1 is really nice,,i have it updated to that firmware and jailbroken,,,its like 1.1.4…..i mean the speed
How about being able to send picture messages i think that is unreal. Even a free shitty prepaid phone can do that.
Very nice
I mean this would be nice if it was jailbroken, apple fails at life, spent 50 dollars in apps, acidently was holding down the home button while turning it on, now its in dfu mode, and decided, hey why not jailbreak it… now all i get is errors, even when i restore it to factory with itunes 8.0.35 or someching… my iphone 3g is goooooooone.
my iphone works on edge network but drops calls in the 3g network-internet and email works fine in both networks. thinking about restoring all the way back. is there a way to keep your phone on edge all the time?
getting un happy!
is there anyone knows how to uninstalled the 2.1 firmware from an iphone plz give me some advices. my phone seem to be death now. am not able to make any phone calls to any number acept 911.
u use t-mobile instead of at&t. does it make any difference??? am using the 1st generation iphone- not a 3g one.
many thanks!