Apple releases 2.1 firmware for iPhone

The iPhone 2.1 firmware that was promised by Steve Jobs at the "Let's Rock" event earlier this week is now available. Steve said this update would include bug fixes, address call dropping issues, improve battery life, and more. With the release of the update this morning, Apple's site states that it includes the following:

• 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

Some iPhone 3G users here at WirelessInfo.com have been experiencing these very issues, and we've been looking forward to this update. The install did not go smoothly for everyone here, but we're up and running 2.1 and things are looking better so far. To install it, connect your iPhone to your computer and click "Check for Update" in the Summary view in iTunes if a window prompting you to update does not pop up automatically. Be sure to sync your iPhone before doing this just in case.