Mobileography

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.

—————-

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

admin Apple, Software 2.1, Apple, apps, firmware, iphone

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:

Â

• 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.

admin Apple, Software 2.1, Apple, apps, genius, iphone, ipod touch, playlist

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.

admin Apple, Hardware, Software 2.1, Apple, iphone, ipod, itunes 8, shuffle, touch

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.

admin Apple 2.1, Apple, iphone, itunes, push notification

As you know, EA is releasing Spore for the iPhone this Sunday. Â Now they’ve just announced a handful of other games that will be coming out:

• Yahtzee Adventures
• EA Mini Golf
• Lemonade Tycoon
• Mahjong
• Monopoly: Here & Now The World Edition
• SimCity
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09
• Need for Speed Undercover
• The Sims 3

admin Apple, Games, Software Apple, ea, Games, iphone, simcity, sims, spore, tiger woods

We presumed that September 7 would be the launch date, and that has proven to be correct. According to iClarified, the phones will be in over 900 stores on the 7th.

There will be a limit of one phone per customer, and pre-orders will not be taken.

admin Apple, Hardware Apple, best buy, iphone

This is kind of a shame. The first projector phone, the Epoq PP01, looks pretty sweet. It can project an image up to 640×480, and can hook up to a DVD player or laptop to show a movie. It’s a great little device.

The problem is that the interface is a total rip-off of the iPhone UI. Not similar, but stolen. This will certainly make it more difficult for this phone to come to market, since Apple certainly won’t let it fly. Hopefully they’ll get their act together so we can someday get our hands on this cool phone.

admin Apple, Epoq Epoq, iphone, projector, ui

What’s with all of the blogs killing Apple about this latest iPhone bug? Granted, it’s certainly an embarrassing situation to have another bug on their hands, but is it that big of a deal?

For example, here are some of the headlines:

• Huge iPhone Security Flaw Puts All Private Information at Risk
• Major security hole found in iPhone
• iPhone 2.0.2 Security Flaw puts your info at risk
• iPhone 2.0.2 security flaw makes private data accessible

Wow, this must be a major bug! Is my data at risk!?! Yeah, probably not.

This bug allows people to bypass the passcode lock on the phone. That’s certainly a problem for some people, but how many people do you know that set the passcode on the phone and then leave it unattended very often? I personally know eight people with iPhones, and none of them use the passcode — they just keep the phone on their body.

In addition, there is a very simple workaround. If you set your “home button double-click preference” to either “Home” or “iPod” instead of the default “iPhone favorites”, the problem is fixed. Also, MacRumors has been told that this problem has already been fixed for a future firmware update.

I guess any story with “apple” and “security” in it must be major news, even when it’s not.

admin Apple, Software 2.0.2, Apple, bug, iphone, passcode, Security

Despite all of the buzz we’ve seen lately, including a hastily-assembled firmware update, it seems that that hardware in the iPhone 3G is pretty solid.

A Swedish company decided to find out, and took their iPhone to a test facility made for this kind of thing. They ran a variety of tests on the phone, as well as on a Sony Ericsson P1 and a Nokia N73. The testing confirms that they’re all about equal.

So what to make of it? It seems to me that we might be looking at some software issues, a fact that Apple essentially gave away when pushing out the 2.0.2 update. Hopefully their next update can continue to improve on it, since the hardware appears to be in good shape.

admin Apple, Hardware 2.0.2, 3g, Apple, ericsson, iphone, n73, Nokia, p1, Sony

I was never a big Myst fan, but it’s one of the best-selling PC games of all time, so apparently I was in the minority.

As part of a post in the Myst Online forum, Cyan announced that “iMyst” was in the works and coming soon. Priced well enough, and I’m guessing they could find a lot of customers looking to dust off the classic. Given its very simple mechanics (full-screen image, click, full-screen image, etc), it seems like it’d be a pretty easy port.

No word yet on a release date or price point.

(via iClarified)

admin Apple, Games app, iphone, myst