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Apple's IPhone 3G Firmware Update Bombs
JagsLive writes "After lots of complaints about iPhone 3G connection issues, Apple released a firmware update Monday with hopes it would fix the issues. But early reports suggest it didn't work as planned.
Complaints have included dropped calls, abrupt network switches, poor reception, and service interruptions.
Apple declined to offer details about its iPhone 2.0.1 update, other than saying it included 'bug fixes.' However, comments in Apple's support forum say plenty about the latest attempt to rectify poor user experiences. In fact, the update seems to be causing new issues, apparently interfering with the GPS function, among others."
Sounds more and more like a hardware issue with the chipset ... so early adopters are may end up suffering ... be interesting to see if they "quietly" roll out a Rev 2 or publicly announce it.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
The crap linked article doesn't even get the version number right - I recommend reading ars techinca's take (the amusingly named Hope you didn't plan to actually make calls on iPhone 2.0.2) or even Apple insider.
I for one welcome our new haha overlords.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
First it's a kill switch, and then when that didn't work, they made the iPhones into bombs. What next? iPhones that leak chemical/nuclear/biological weapons?
"Just Works" post.....
Interestingly, I find it fairly insightful to see how the great unwashed masses are complaining about this, yet, for the most part, Apple is getting a "free pass" from pundit's, media, and most of the public because of past marketing.
What would the reaction have been if this was some other company?
Just a though that rattles around in my brain.
I've been stung before by buying new apple hardware immediately (core duo macbook pro).
:)
Right now, i'm feeling pretty damn happy I decided to wait on the iphone 3g. I do have an iphone and it works perfectly. I think i'll wait for a few more months before I upgrade to the 3g
2.0.1 was the last update 2.0.2 is the most recent. And for the record my first gen iPhone works fine. The update fixed the slow typing bug and the battery drain bug. I don't know yet if it fixed the shuffle my home screen icons bug. True I wish Apple would give a complete change log. It sure would make it easier for us to give them feedback about those bugs if we knew what they were.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Ummm, the most recent update was 2.0.2. Kind of hard to take the rest of the article seriously when it gets the most basic of facts wrong. Not that I doubt the existence of these 3G problem, just tired of reading poorly researched, poorly edited "news" articles. I don't have a 3G iPhone, so this article doesn't really apply to me, but for my Edge iPhone, 2.0.2 seems to have improved a number of issues, particularly the email.
On my iPhone, 2.02 completely disabled all 3rd party apps. Any apps installed run for just a few seconds before returning to the app screen. Deleting and re-installing doesn't help.
Good job apple.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
From: steve.jobs@apple.com
To: daniel@roughlydrafted.com
Subj: Hello
Daniel,
Looks like we're in a bit of bind right now. QA signed off on the 3G 2.0.1 update despite not testing it fully. (The guilty parties are being punished as we speak.) For the time being, could you write another pro-iPhone article? Be sure to mention how it is "substantially less buggy" than competitors phones, and how beautiful it is. Also, be sure to make a jab at Zune (the Internet always eats that stuff up.) It'd also be great if you could work chair throwing in there as well. Thankfully, the masses eat up tired memes without even realizing it. One article should buy us enough time and mindshare to fix these issues.
Sincerely,
Steve
First off, the firmware that was just released was 2.0.2, not 2.0.1 which had been out for a while already. Second, Apple never claimed that this update contains the 3G fix. As usual, they have been secretive and cryptic about what the update actually contains, but this was just a minor update, not the big radio firmware fix we've been waiting for. And finally, although a few people have complained about the GPS in the new version, most of the reports seem to indicate that the GPS has IMPROVED.
Disclaimer: I own an iPhone and am suffering from the 3G issues. I'm certainly no fan of the way Apple has handled this so far, but this article is just a pointless and error-filled troll.
Because Apple gets a premium for its product based on the style and the "just works" philosophy. Nearly everyone will agree that apple products do not have the breadth of features or the extent of customization of many other products in their respective niche. Their market success has been based on the basic feature set being nearly bulletproof - a claim that many others cannot make. This is exactly the thing Apple users have come to forget happens with mediocre CE.
It also means that someone wasn't minding the store when it went out, and it can mean a serious problem with their growth process. Steve can't be around to hold their hand forever.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Why are bug reports on the iPhone always blown way the hell out of proportion?
My twenty dollar Nokia doesn't drop calls, nor have service interruptions, or any of the other problems the iPhone has.
A six hundred dollar telephone ought to work. Period. There is no such thing as "blowing it out of proportion."
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
For what it's worth, I have a 16GB White 3G iPhone that I bought about a week after launch, and have had no call issues (call quality is actually reported by people I talk to as being "amazing"), no GPS issues, etc.
The first weekend I had it I lost internet and had to restart it, and since then have had no issues with big things like GPS/3G/etc. I updated to 2.0.2 last night and used the GPS in town and it was actually super-fast and stable.
That said, the contact/SMS slowdown business, and somewhat crash-happiness it exhibits haven't gone away, although seem somewhat better. 3rd-party apps, especially games (I'm looking at you: Super Monkey Crash-a-million-times Ball) seem really rushed and quick to fail.
-Matthew Riley "TofuMatt" MacPherson
I have a website
Why are bug reports on the iPhone always blown way the hell out of proportion?
Maybe it's because some are insisting that a phone should be able to make phone calls, while other are using a metric based on "user experience"?
First, let me say that others have not had the same experience, so it isn't universal, but I've also seen others saying they had the same result, so it isn't unique to my iPod Touch either.
After I updated to 2.0.2 on my 16 GB iPod Touch, I could no longer launch any 3rd party apps. They would start to load, then quit back to the home screen. I tried powering off and starting back up. Didn't help. I tried a restore and setup from backup. No help. Finally I resorted to a restore and setup as a new iPod. This worked (at least so far). Of course, it means that I lost all my app data. Fortunately all my key data was recoverable (contacts, calendar, email and SplashID), but my progress in the game Vay, for example, is gone as well as other games.
This isn't the first problem I've had with 2.0.x firmware. Previously I had individual applications stop working. In some cases powering off and on would fix it, but more recently (with 2.0.1) I had some applications where that didn't help. In fact, neither did a restore and setup from backup. Indeed, the most recent restore and setup as a new device is the *second* time I've done it.
Also, twice I experienced a problem where I tried to launch the AppStore app where it never finished loading. It didn't quit to the home screen, it just got stuck. Pressing Home didn't do anything. Nor did pressing the sleep button. Finally I held the Home button down to force quit the AppStore, but instead of just force quitting the app, it caused an onscreen flash and then my iPod started to reboot, but it never finished. I tried forcing another reboot and still it didn't finish starting up. Endless Apple logo. I let it go for hours and it never finished. Finally I had to force my iPod into recovery mode and do a restore and setup from backup. In this case, that worked, but it happened again another time and again I had to restore from backup.
The 2.0.x firmware has, as far as I'm concerned, been pretty much a disaster. I love the features it brings to my iPod, but this is beta, or really alpha software. It shouldn't have been released, or at least it should have been labeled as such and not been distributed through normal means. Then the problems wouldn't sting quite so much if you ran into them.
I hope the promised September update will put all this nonsense to rest and finally give us release-quality firmware. I must admit to being a bit skeptical, though.
--- What?
Windows XP: it Just Works(tm).
OS-X: it Just Costs(tm)
Linux: it Just Works In Text-only Mode(tm)
It's what else is on the market. It is a perfectly fair comparison, the iPhone doesn't live in a vacuum.
I'm running 2.0.2 on a 3G with no visible issues so far. In fact, 2.0.2 fixed a lot of the app slowness that I was seeing, especially the Contacts app, which previously had a 5-10 second lag when starting. With 2.0.2 the contacts app is usable as soon as it opens up. As for the 3G problems, the 3G coverage in the areas move between is less than stellar, so I typically just leave 3G off.
I am more frustrated at the fact it has to do a complete reload, not just a patch. I've been generally happy with my iPhone (3G) but tying up your phone for almost 30 minutes while it downloads (at work no less) isn't pleasant. Then, I absolutely had to use it and forgot it was still downloading. I had a brick until I could spend another 10-20 minutes doing a "restore". The Apple software doesn't update after a restore, so guess what...I clicked, "Next" thinking it would continue to something else, but nope, got to wait another 20 minutes while it restored a second time.
As far as changes, I still have keyboard lag and the little quirks it had before 2.01 and 2.02. Battery drain I can't comment because I'm constantly plugging it in due to the habit I formed after having it die so often the first week I had it. I now instinctively plug into the car charger while driving, plug in at work, and then plug in at home. I even leave a cable attached to my XBOX360 to charge (even though the 360 won't recognize the iPhone like it would my iPod Video).
The only interesting part is that iPhone users can drive the software update process without it being forced upon them by the carrier, and/or users can upgrade it without having to buy a rarely-available cable.
As can BlackBerry users. With a standard mini-USB cable. And the software included on the CD that comes with the device.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
"After complaining to a manager, Goodman was able to get a replacement unit, but the reception issues persisted. On Thursday, he was told by an AT&T customer service representative that its cell towers are having trouble recognizing the iPhone 3G on the network, and that a fix was forthcoming."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10017657-37.html?tag=nefd.lede
This is the first comment by an AT&T employee where they appear to admit that these issues are partially their fault. Did I call it or what? I bet they decided to call Fido as I suggested on various boards and ended up finding something.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Reason 1 - Hype - people are pissed off at those who sound so happy with their apple stuff that they'd fellate the great steve, when technically it's not that special (even if the user experience generally is)
Reason 2 - Hype - the hype is always "It just works". It's virus free and PERFECT out of the box. This is what Macfans use to slag off both MS and Linux. It's delightful to see this falling down.
Reason 3 - Actually, with most mobile phones (see Nokia/LG etc) they do just work and firmware isn't updated.
You're going to hate me then, because I have an iPhone 3G and It Just Works. No dropped calls, no data losses, no unusually low battery life, and I'm on the 2.0.1 update (haven't updated to 2.0.2 yet). Sorry your self esteem is hurt by my lack of misery.
You sneer at user experience, but if the experience helps you get things done, then inevitable technical issues won't bother you as much. I'm also unaware of any Mac users slagging Linux for being virus-ridden.
Dunno why, in order to be happy, you want to see others do badly. I'd love it if MS made reliable stuff with a great user experience that Just Worked. I'd love it if Linux had a great user experience.
The "great steve" actually addressed this attitude back in 1997: "We have to get over this idea that in order for us to succeed, they have to fail."
Agreed. If you enter a mature market, you do NOT get a free pass for a crappy product. If you enter a mature market, have a product that is worthy of the market. Do we give a free pass to a brand new car company who enters the market with a car that has a carbeurated engine instead of fuel injection, no power steering, no power brakes, AM radio only and no air conditioning, just because its their first car, and Ford's first cars didn't have those features. Hell no, if anything, we expect that new car company to have everything we expect and more, otherwise we'll stick with what we know.
If Apple wants to play with the big boys in this market, it better not cry when it gets knocked down and has its knees all skinned up and gets sent home without its lunch money.
If you don't care then don't click on the link. If you don't want it on the front page visit the firehose and vote against it.
I don't have an iPhone (I might get one if they come down to $50) but I thought the summary, at least, and the ensuing discussion was worth my time.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
"I buy Apple products. It just makes me feel special."
http://cache.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Actually, I chalked it up to a little bit of journalistic integrity. There's no way you can download a new firmware update that has NO description of what was improved/changed in the description (other than "misc. bug fixes"), read about 24-48 hours worth of random comments on forums, and write a good article explaining the "fact" that said upgrade was GOOD or BAD!
Over on macrumors.com, I was following this update, yesterday, and I got the distinct impression that results were quite mixed. A good percentage of people reported about 1 more bar of signal strength on the 3g network than they saw before the update, and there were misc. reports of such things as, "I can now make a call inside my Chicago apartment, in the same room where previously, people always said my voice was garbled when I tried to call them."
I updated my boss's iPhone 3g to the new firmware yesterday afternoon, and so far, he hasn't noticed anything really "better" OR "worse" about it.
Meanwhile, people have reported completely different things they say were fixed in firmware 2.02 from 2.01, including Arabic web sites now displaying native language characters properly.
It seems likely to me that the more major 2.1 firmware update (that's now in beta testing by developers) would do more to attempt to address connectivity issues. This, at most, was probably just a small tweak of some parameters for how strong a signal needs to be before the iPhone decides it can use 3g vs dropping to EDGE, and vice-versa.
(Before the happenings of this post, I had replaced the SIM cards in my and my wife's 3G iPhone's once previously, about 2 weeks ago, with no significant improvement in service.) After updating to 2.0.2 I am completely unable to make or receive calls when 3G is enabled. Disabling 3G while standing in the same location results in 3-5 bars of EDGE, and turning on 3G again results in "No Service" (when previously the phone would at least drop down to EDGE when 3G was unavailable). Also, even with 3-5 bars of EDGE, I had 5 calls last night that did not ring at all to my phone (I got the voicemails about 30 min later). Disabling Wifi, doing a Network Reset, and rebooting did nothing to resolve the issue. I reported these issues to AT&T Technical Support after getting bounced to Apple and then back, and requested a refund for the month or so of incredibly poor phone service that I've received. The representative was happy to comply, discounting a significant portion of next month's bill. I refuse to pay for poor phone service, and I suggest any who are having issues do the same until these problems are resolved.
The location feature on every 1st gen iPhone I know of (around 12) have not been working since the 2.0.0 update. Apple say that they know about this, but there has been no sign of a fix yet :(
Here's a practical experience from last night: I upgraded to 2.0.2 the night it came out. Last night I was sitting next to a friend in a coffee shop who still had 2.0.1. We both joined the coffee shop's public wifi network. She was able to surf, but I kept getting connection errors and freezes and was not even able to view a web page. And as I was sitting in the coffee shop in the middle of a major metropolis, my signal bars kept fluctuating from 3 to 0. In conclusion, :(((((
I got the distinct impression that results were quite mixed. A good percentage of people reported about 1 more bar of signal strength on the 3g network than they saw before the update
It appears that Apple may have changed how many bars are displayed for different signal strengths.
That could explain the contradictory information.
Amnesty International
Makes me want to whack some crazy Apple fanboy with a one-button mouse while they're down.
Similes are like metaphors
I happen to know the guy who headed the RF software group for the original iPhone. He's a low-key sort, from the industrial high-reliability real time world. He did not like being yelled at by Steve Jobs. So, shortly after the first iPhones were out and working, he quit.
Apple found someone else to do the 3G version. Probably not someone from the industrial high-reliability real time world.
The 3G iPhones go for $200. I bought my first-gen iPhone for $400. It doesn't drop calls or have service interruptions either. My coworkers with 3G's don't have these problems either. That was the entire point of the GP: just because a handful of people whine about it in a forum doesn't mean that the problems are actually widespread.
Your twenty dollar Nokia doesn't drop calls, but someone with a defective version of the same phone, or who lives in an area with poor reception, might.
I'm surprised any negative comments are showing up in the Apple forums. When the iPod first came out Apple was very good at deleting any negative comments in the forums.
It Just Lurks (tm).
Vista: It Just Works (on tomorrow's hardware)
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Its only $200 stop blowing the price out of proportion.
No way man, you're forgetting how Macs are like, TOTALLY the gold standard in interface design unless you want to do something crazy like look up stuff in the help feature or add titles to a video or change the box sizes for titles in iMovie or close a rules window in Mail without having to hide your dock or extract stills in iMovie without adding the still to the video or have it wait until you're finished recording multiple videos before it makes you wait for it to break them up or upload a picture to photobucket that iPhoto has kidnapped or actually have a fucking clue what your emails to others will look like when you embed pictures in the text or want to see at a glance which email address you're sending to or use Adobe Acrobat without annoying update warnings that require good reflexes to turn off or charge your iPod without having good enough reflexes to keep it from deleting everything when you don't want to sync or move the iPod library on one computer to another or ...
Oh, I'm sorry, was it hard for you read all of that in one sentence? Now, pretend I told you that that style was the gold standard in writing, and now you know what it's like to use a Mac.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Apple legal representative here - Sorry, that's factually wrong information. We would like to inform all the parties here that the trademark mentioned above is already owned by apple for iphone. If you have any problems with that, please feel free to contact us.
They've come down in price that much? I mught buy one once they get out of beta.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Actually, some independent analysis has shown that's the issue - the firmware is too anxious to jump to EDGE. Another problem is that in some places, ATT's equipment is placed at 2.5G distances, but 3G needs closer towers, so ATT needs to step up and get some upgrades in place. But there are a lot of indicators that it's the immature software ON the infineon chip, not the chip itself, that is causing issues.
...however, since everyone is offering anecdotal "evidence", I'll point out that we have two 3G iPhones in our home, and neither have had 3G issues. A few applications crash on startup, but most of my apps run just fine, before and after the 2.0.2 update.
My biggest gripe is -- Apple has neither stated there is a known 3G connectivity problem, nor did they state the 2.0.2 patch contains a 'fix' for any such problems. So ask yourself, how have these people writing articles about it able to claim such a thing? The answer is, the same reason everyone thinks there's a widespread problem with 3G... hear-say.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I haven't used a Macs enough to complain about them, but I've been using an iPhone for a few weeks now. I'm not going to say the device is crap, it's not, but I definitely would not call the UI a gold standard. I'm still trying to figure out who's nephew they hired to make the decision that you should need to plug the phone into an entire computer to get audio onto this wifi device. I mean really. They shipped a wifi enabled, web surfing music player that cannot download PODCASTS from the internet. I do find it funny though that when Apple implemented a UI element that has been in Lotus Notes from the beginning, the UI element magically went from being the worst thing ever to being a gold standard.
While I do agree that WiFi transfer would be nice, I would hardly call that a UI problem. That's more like a missing feature than a UI problem or inconsitancy. I've never used Lotus Notes, so I have no idea what UI element you are refering to with the last statement.
What I don't understand is, where is the BLUETOOTH transfer? Isn't this what Bluetooth was DESIGNED to do, is to sync hardware devices by simply being in proximity? My Mac Pro has Bluetooth, my iPhone has Bluetooth, so where's my auto-sync?
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Are any of these complaints about Mac OS X itself? Seems like a lot of bitching about iphoto, mail, acrobat, and itunes.
...You're kidding. You're asking: OTHER than all the software that comes with the OS, that they ADVERTISE as coming with the OS and making it awesome, and which they specifically promote as integrating so SEAMLESSLY and making your experience with the OS that much f'ing better than Windows -- implying that you're actually supposed to USE it -- do I have any complaints about the OS?
Right...
And let me guess: OTHER than the waitresses with tits hoisted up and crammed into each other, what did I think about Hooters?
OTHER than the fighting, how did you like the war?
OTHER than the death of your husband, how did you like the play?
OTHER than the lack of substance, how do you like the void?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
So you've uploaded a picture that's being managed by iPhoto to a neutral site like photobucket before? Because for me, that has on occasion been so unusable that I had to upload the photos straight from the external drive. Sorry, iPhoto is completely unintuitive, and it's been really flaky before with letting me edit and use a photo I brought over from photobooth.
Sure. Just drag the photo from the iPhoto window to wherever you want it, including the upload dialog for a website. It just works, and if you think about it, it's VERY intuitive if you're not trying to do things the hard way. I can't address your flakiness from photobooth, I've never seen that fail to work perfectly.
Mail: So do you like how it darkens the background of the the subject lines in the view that lists all of your emails? Because it sure did that for me and Help was no help.
What are you talking about? I've never see it do that unless you've got a rule set to change the background color of a message - and you'd have to do that intentionally.
Do you think it's acceptable for a Rules window in Mail to be uncloseable? In my case, it spilled over onto the dock so I couldn't click cancel to get out. NO, COMMAND-W DID NOT WORK, THANKS FOR ASKING, not that that would be acceptable anyway.
Try command-period to cancel, or return to accept. Or hiding the dock. Yes, it's a bug. No, it shouldn't do that. I've written it up and submitted it to Apple - I hadn't seen it before today.
Do you think it's acceptable practice to make it look like my emails to others have photos embedded in the text, when in reality, the photos will only show up to them as separate attachments?
Yes. Those photos will show up as inline images on any mail reader that displays inline images.
Do you think it's acceptable to immediately and meticulously hide the actual email address I'm sending to and replace it with the person's name? (Yes, Having to double click on it is a big issue when all you have is a trackpad to move the pointer around with.)
That's actually a nice feature. It lets you know that person is in your address book. And you don't have to double click to edit the address, just click the triangle that appears to the right of the name. It's not a problem, it's the correct behavior.
Do you think it's acceptable that iTunes can't do something basic like play podcasts in chronological order automatically and starting from the first one you haven't listened to?
If you think it's a problem, write it up as a bug. I'm fine with it, I rarely listen to hours of podcasts all at once.
Or that you need good reflexes to stop it from deleting your library when you plug into a new computer unless you have good reflexes?
It doesn't do that. It asks if you want to replace the library.
Acrobat isn't an Apple program. Apple doesn't ship it.
No, but it damn well ships Safari. You know, the web browser that I'm supposed to access online pdf's with? And I know Apple is perfectly capable of implementing the PDF standard. So, to the extent that it makes "you must download Adobe to view this online pdf" the default option, yes it is fair game.
I'm calling bullshit on this one. I happened to have a clean install of 10.5.4 sitting here on a customer's machine. Safari doesn't say a thing about Acrobat. It displays the PDF, just like it's loading a web page. Acrobat is not installed on, and has never touched, that machine. It's not an Apple bug, it must be an Adobe bug.
Furthermore, on Windows, when Acrobat wants to update, I get precisely one warning -- when it starts. But on Safari (that's an Apple program, btw), I get the warning every 5 seconds, unless I have good enough reflexes to catch it in the one-second interval