iPhone firmware 2.1
My first month of iPhone 3G use engendered a love-hate relationship.
I became hesitant to use 3G, location services or play video & games due to the miniscule battery life. I avoided installing new apps unless I was doing so through iTunes and had 4+ hours in case of trouble. Backing up & synching were a trial and filled me with a low-level fear. Various applications would quit working with no warning. After a hard-reset, seeing the phone with the the apple symbol in a sea of black for any extended period gave me a feeling of dread. I did a full restore twice and a wipe & reinstall twice in that time.
And yet, I loved having internet access anywhere I went. The interface makes you feel like a maestro. I used phone features that my previous phone may have had, but I could never remember how to engage. Trips to the App Store felt like Christmas morning.
Being the massochistic early-adopter that I am, I immediately downloaded firmware 2.1. Caution, meet wind. Originally, I thought it was a crap update because applications were spontaneously quitting. I hadn’t restarted the phone after the update. Voila, no application quits since.
Gone are my troubles with backup & synch. They are quick; as they always should have been. This, despite 6 pages of apps with a constant flow of updates and a frequent rotation of podcasts and videos.
Gone is my hesitancy in installing new apps or in obtaining them over the phone rather than via iTunes. This is potentually bad for my bank account & good for Apple as installing on a whim when you hear of a new app is almost instant. Whoever said that the App Store is crack may have understated the case.
Gone are numerous small annoyances such as application updates reordering my carefully chosen icon-screen layout.
Battery life is still weak. Perhaps it is improved, but I still don’t feel confident that the phone would hold up to a full day of moderate-heavy multi-application use. I couldn’t abide this. I bought an external battery that plugs into the dock port and provides 80% of a charge. It’s small enough to carry with me and does not require me to extract the iPhone from its case. I should not have to do this but it has addressed this concern for me, and I now use the phone without thought to the battery life.
Yes, all of this should have worked correctly in the initial release and I expect the phone to have functionality that is still not present. Apple not yet releasing the SDK from NDA is disturbing as are the recent application rejections in the App Store for duplicating functionality present in iTunes or Apple iPhone applications.
But I’m happy with the phone and I can’t go back.