I've just updated my iPhone 3G with the just-released free upgrade to firmware 2.1 and while the interface looks the same, no cosmetic changes, there have definitely been some improvements in performance. Backing up the phone is much, much quicker, I have two additional bars of reception, and the battery life is supposedly much improved as well. That we'll have to see, but just the reception boost alone is enough to warrant doing the update. A listing of the fixes:
- Improved call reception and fewer dropped calls.
- Better battery life
- Faster and more reliable email fetching
- Improved SMS performance
- Fewer crashes and freezes in 3rd party apps
- Faster installation of 3rd party apps
- Faster backup of iPhone when syncing
Also: Genius, the playlist creator, is included and creates on the fly playlists from music that's on your iPhone. Pick a song, hit Genius, and you'll get a playlist of songs that Genius thinks will sound good together. So far, so good. Works quickly and is fun, especially if you don't have a lot of playlists and resort to using "shuffle" mode most of the time.
I've never had 3G reception in my home, and now I get two solid bars. Yay! Wait, wait, make that three bars! No, two. Uh oh, just one. Well anyway, I've never seen the 3G signal at all before in this location, so the reception is much improved, I think.
No apparent upgrade in the Maps app, but there are still rumors that full function turn-by-turn navigation is possible, either through a future upgrade or through a 3rd party app like Telenav.
If you've had any issues with bugs or slowdowns, run, don't walk to iTunes to the upgrade. Just hook up your iPhone, open iTunes, and hit "check for upgrade." It's a fairly large download, over 200 MB, so it might take a while and make sure you let iTunes do a backup before upgrading so you don't lose any settings or data.
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