iPhone OS 2.1 - will it be a panacea or more purgatory?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 17 August 2008 19:33

Your IT - Mobility

Theoretically coming September is Apple’s iPhone (and iPod Touch) OS 2.1, which is supposed to have “Core Location” GPS services, more bug fixes (which OS 2.0.1 didn’t really fix) and the “push notification” services that are a substitute for programs running in the background – but this has just been taken out OS 2.1 beta 4. Will 2.1 be a panacea for suffering OS 2.0 users – or just more purgatory?

The problems with the iPhone OS 2.0, and the updated 2.0.1, have been well documented across the web. I even wrote Apple a note called “iMessage to Apple: iPhone OS 2.0 sucks”.

Clearly, I’m not alone, and since then we’ve had the iPhone 3G saga of the hairline cracks appearing in iPhone cases, the revelation by Steve Jobs that the iPhone app “kill switch” allowing Apple to forcibly remove apps from iPhones is actually real, and the ongoing pain of poor 3G reception suffered around the globe, blamed on an “immature” Infineon chipset with word of a upcoming software fix.

OS 2.0 and 2.0.1 also subject users to the “Apple Logo Screen of Death”. Install too many apps from the iTunes App Store, or via the “update all” facility within the iPhone App Store, and you will likely find that once your iPhone restarts, all you get to see is the Apple logo.

Manually restart all you like, but the problem (for many) just doesn’t go away, forcing users to restore their iPhones instead. Adding insult to injury is the fact you’ll likely need to set your iPhone up anew, rather than restoring it from a backup.

Backups, of course, also continue to be long, drawn out affairs that can take hours and hours, while installation of apps on the iPhone takes forever, too. Why?! MobileMe has also continued having issues which have defied all expectations.

It’s clear that iPhone OS 2.0 and 2.0.1 are advanced beta versions. A similar thing happened with the original Mac OS X 10.0. It too wasn’t ready for prime time, but even Mac OS X 10.5.x has been having all kinds of problems – the promised 10.5.5 update due soon will be welcome, while Apple has promised a focus on quality and stability for next year’s OS X 10.6.

iPhone OS 2.1 has gone through several beta cycles itself, with the news that the latest “beta 4” version has removed support for the “push notification service”, meant to allow third party apps such as Instant Messaging programs to notify you of a new message (or some other background task) without apps actually running in the background.

Promised for release in September, this feature has been removed so Apple can do “further development” on it, which suggests we won’t see it in September after all, seeing how close we are to September actually being here.

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