In addition to continued crashing in Safari, the audio in any YouTube video now craps out after about a minute or two until I pause and restart the video. Oh but at least I can finally scroll contacts without waiting 15 seconds…

FAIL.

I think we can safely say that apple has now officially squandared the “plug and play” part of its franchise

I’ve had good luck with genius on iTunes. I’m looking forward to using it on my large iPod. I’m not sure how well it would work with the small library size of an iPhone.

Firmware 2.1 does fix the emergency call security hole.

And there was an effective work-around fix published within a day of it’s discovery, while we waited for this permanent fix.

Recall that the vast majority of iPhones do not have the security code function enabled, so the numbers actually affected (and that’s “potentially affected”… I haven’t read a single horror story about someone who had critical data stolen this way) were quite small.

Hype, Jay. It’s called hype.

I have had an iphone for a month, no dropped calls, no app crashes, etc (but then I only have two screens), synching has not been a problem.
I am not in the States and and don’t think we have the carrier issues you seem to have. If they are so “bad” why are sales so high?
Anyway its just a consumer device – if you don’t like the iphone buy something else!

That’s nice, Robt. But, you are aware that there are some pretty big issues with the iPhone 3G, correct?

My 3G iPhone purchased on launch day has been virtually issue free.

Normally I would agree with you Kevin, but the security flaw is too big to be ignored.

It’s fixed with this update, but it’s not on that big headline list of “features” on the Apple site now is it?

What we’re looking at a smattering of “improvments” a couple of new “features”, all as a vehicle to deliver the big fix for the security hole that’s been costing the iPhone in the corprate stakes over the last couple of weeks.

The RIM sales team have really been pushing their (currently) superior security at the Multinationals in the meantime in an attempt to reinforce their position.

Apple has lost ground on their push into the corporate space a little here, can they recover and regroup?

Not that the iPhone isn’t great, I really love mine, but let’s not dress this “update” up any more than we have to, eh?

That could well be true Nate. I wrote the post and updated my software, but I don’t have an iPhone 3G. From my perspective, most things work pretty well on my first gen iPhone and I’m getting features added pretty regularly.

This conversation focuses on bugs because of the situation with the iPhone 3g.

I don’t think people are missing the other side of things. It’s just that, in this case, any features added are fairly unimportant in comparison to the bug fixes necessary.

If the basic features of a phone don’t work, who cares about added features?

Plenty of good commentary, but some folks are equating “firmware upgrades” solely with “bug fixes”. Firmware can add features as well, so the “but my phone works fine out of the box” misses that entire side of things.

Nokia had a new firmware for my N95 out within a month of me buying it. I applied the update because it was there but I didn’t really have any problems. Everything’s been working perfectly ever since so I don’t need to worry about updates.

Apple owns the iPhone, which is exactly how they want it. Since they control everything except the voice and data delivery, it is much easier for them to get everything out. (Most telling is that they don’t have to wait for carrier approval. And AT&T gets to pass the buck to Apple when calls come in to them.)

Microsoft owns the Windows Mobile OS, but the manufactuurers use the parts of it they want, and the carriers modify as they like. In other words, ownership is fragmented. (Most telling is that MS doesn’t own the hardware, and it is up to the manufacturer to integrate it with their hardware, with input from the carrier. Everyone can pass the buck to the others. In essence, though, it is between the manufacturer and the carriers.)

I’ll set aside that the iPhone 2.0 wasn’t ready for release when it was–it is readily apparent from all of the issues. (Whether AT&T was ready is a whole ‘nother question!) But imagine how it would have been if Apple had waited for an extra 2-3 months to release it?

Woadan

Q. Why don’t other phones get upgrades this fast?

A. Because the security of a lot of other phones cannot be bypassed as simply as pressing Emergency Call followed by Home twice. For a business phone this is an utter deal-breaker and Apple must fix it, fast.

“Why don’t other phones get upgrades this fast?” — The objective answer is other OS makers have too many variables to consider. Different devices, different carriers, too many directions for a firmware update to go, too many ways for it to go wrong, not to mention the responsibility disputes over who should provide the update: OS maker, hardware maker, or carrier. It’s amazing firmware updates get released at all.

Apple doesn’t have those problems. They have only two phone models to focus on (and they’re almost the same). They established that they, not the carrier, distribute firmware updates. They even have a bug collection system that enables quicker problem analysis. Right now, they’re focusing their efforts are fixing the bugs in their nascent product, but once their growing pains are over (and we’ll see how much progress the 2.1 firmware represents), they will be able to focus on advancement and expansion.

Aside from Nokia with their purchase of Symbian, the other guys are in poor position to counter an iPhone that outgrown its baby shoes. Android has potential to unify the market, but it could also wind up getting splintered by carriers and hardware makers. Very interesting times ahead.