If you have any iPhone, you can now go get version 2.1 of the firmware, which Apple promises will fix a LOT of bugs.

The official changelog from Apple is below.

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iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved 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 if you have lots of 3rd 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

We’re still a few days away from the 2.1 update for the iPhone, but it was released for the iPod Touch tonight. Â A few nice tidbits, which should apply to the iPhone update when it comes out:

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• The whole system feels much faster.
• Playlists now show the album/artist in addition to the song title (see screenshot to the right).
• The “shake to shuffle” that was introduced for the Nano is not included.
• Genius playlists are in, as long as you have enabled them in iTunes.
• Apps install much faster — “almost like they do in the Apple adverts”.
• Updated apps keep their same location. Â Yes! Â This has been driving me nuts.

Apple released all of their new stuff today, and it was mostly what we predicted a few days ago. Â People are feeling a bit let down, but I think that’s largely because most of the presentation had already leaked.

The only decent surprise was “genius”, which runs in iTunes and on your iPod/iPhone. Â This is the main new feature of iTunes 8, which was just released. Â Based on what you’re listening to, it will suggest other songs to play. Â This information will up loaded each week to Apply (opt-in, anonymized) to help improve the algorithm. Â I’m skeptical of how well it will work, but you never know.

Next was the revamped line of iPods, featuring the new iPod Nano. Â The main thing with it is that is looks like a second gen (tall and skinny) but plays video like the third gen. Â The leaked photo we showed you back in August proved to be the real thing.

It now comes with an accelerometer, to help it know when you’ve rotated the screen and so you can shake it to shuffle your playlist. Â $149 for the 8GB (available now), and $199 for the 16GB (available in the next few days).

They showed off some new app games for the iPhone and Touch, but nothing real exciting.

The iPhone and iPod Touch got the version 2.1 firmware, as expected. Â You can get it on Friday. According to Jobs, you’ll have “Fewer dropped calls, big battery life improvements. Â No crashes with Apps, backing up is faster.” Â No mention of Background Push Notification, so I guess they’re still have problems with that.

That’s really about it. Â I really thought we’d see some kind of Macbook refresh, but it didn’t materialize. Â I’m anxious to get home and try out iTunes 8. Â I’ll report back later with my thoughts on those.

It’s widely believed that iTunes 8 will be unveiled on Tuesday, but a growing number of people think we’ll see the release of iPhone 2.1 on Tuesday as well.

Even juicier, Apple has reportedly kept a few features of 2.1 hidden from the developer seeds in order to keep them a secret. Â I wonder what those might be?

There are also a few other questions. Â The big one: what about push notification? Â It was in the first few developer releases of 2.1, then removed. Â Will it make it into the final version? Â I sure hope so.

In any case, Tuesday should have some surprises for us.

All of the beta releases of the iPhone 2.1 firmware have included versions of their Push Notification service, due to release in September. However, beta 4 of the firmware has now removed it, with a note that it is “for futher development”.

We’re not sure if it’s still going to make it out by September, but it certainly doesn’t look good. I hope we see it soon, because it promises to make a lot of applications much more useful.