iPhone 2.1 Software Update available now

On Friday 12th September 2008, Apple came good with its promise to release the much-anticipated version 2.1 software update.

Initial reports and my own experience since installing the update two days ago shows it does resolve some issues that plagued the 2.0x releases, most notably: signal dropouts, poor battery life, a sluggish backup and sync process, and unstable 3G signal strength meter.

The 2.1 update also brings iPhone’s musical side into line with the just-announced new generation of iPod Nano and iPod Touch that include the “Genius playlist” – whereby a playlist can be automatically created by compiling a group of songs from your library which compliment the one currently playing.

Apple’s official 2.1 update webpage claims the update includes:

• Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
• Significantly better 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 for users with lots of third 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

If you are still on the old 2.0x version, I strongly recommend updating your iPhone 3G to version 2.1 – from my own observations there are significant and notable improvements to the phone’s overall performance and reliability.