MacBlogz – One Stop Apple News - Bridging the Apple Community and Keeping Tabs on the Rumor Mill.

Apple Testing First Bug Fix/Update to iPhone 2.0 Software

With the launch of Apple’s new iPhone 3G being global this time around, a lot more was at stake for the company.

Although the release of the physical phone went pretty smoothly this past weekend, loads of iTunes severs that were supposed to power and activate all the devices, failed miserably. Coupled with this failed product launch, the new iPhone 2.0 software has been acting very buggy and rather unstable. The App Store is crashing, numerous applications are crashing consistently and the phone shows 1 bar of signal where the first-gen iPhone showed full reception, among other issues. This has done nothing but leave us wondering… “Where is that software update?”

Today it’s being reported that Apple is already testing the first maintenance and security updates for the iPhone 2.0 Software, which primarily aim to improve performance and fix a number of outstanding bugs.

“The updates, which revealed themselves as iPhone Software 2.0.1 in the Apache server logs at BGR, are currently making the rounds in the form of two distinct builds: build 5B101 for first-generation iPhones and build 5B103 for the new 3G iPhones. Although Apple began testing the updates prior to the official release of iPhone Software v2.0 on Friday, neither have made their way into the hands of iPhone developers.” AI reports.

Instead Apple Insider has confirmed, and Apache sever logs reveal, that requests from phones running the new builds are coming out of the San Francisco Bay Area (near Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, CA) and Atlanta (AT&T’s home base).

“After updating, these users report that it takes a full six seconds between the time the camera application launches and when the digital shutter opens to allow a photo to be taken. This has made the iPhone’s camera somewhat useless, those users explain, especially for the spontaneous photos for which it has become most popular,” Sam Oliver for AI continues to report.

The iPhone 2.0 Software and the iPhone 3G have both been major releases for Apple. With such global/major releases, bug fixes and software updates are completely expected. There is simply no way to predict usability issues in every scenario, therefore Apple finds out relevant information only once the phone has been released, and consumers are living with the device. It has definitely been made apparent that fixes are needed, and Apple seems to be acknowledging the matter. Let’s hope that a future software update will secure and stabilize some (or all) of the iPhone’s current usability issues.