Outside Look

Just a quick note on my experiences with the new iPhone firmware - had a few problems, and got things working.

First - I did have 3rd party apps installed. After reading initial updates at The Unofficial Apple Weblog and initial reports at Gizmodo I thought it best to do a factory restore the 1.0.2 firmware and then do the update, but for some reason iTunes didn’t want to do this - I’d suggest trying to disconnect from the network, doing the restore and then doing the update. iTunes downloaded the update and tried to restore and install the new firmware. There was a terrifying moment when I received a “iPhone unknown error (6)” message and a cycle of restore->error->restore.

I managed to get out of it by doing the two button reset twice and reconnecting to iTunes. The restore and firmware update then went through, but appeared to want an activation again. I had the option to restore from backup, and things went fine from there.

First new thing I’ve tried is the iTunes wireless store. No real good reason other than to see how it works. I’ve noticed the wireless seems a little weird on my home network - very inconsistent with time outs and connection issues. I bought Pearl Jam at Lollapalooza 2007, which I would have bought at some point anyway. The speed is generally good, and about the same as the wireless connection from my PC. The problem I’m seeing is that the download keeps hanging and I have to pause and restart to keep things going. This happens each time a song finishes and a new one starts, and multiple times within the currently downloading song. The “time remaining” estimate goes away and it just sits there. I’m not yet sure if this is my network or the phone. At one point it hung during the “finishing” stage and would not progress further - restarting the phone allowed the downloads to resume.

I think the wireless store is going to be a hit for situations where you hear a song and just want to download it quick (thus the partnership with Starbucks is a great one), but not so great for whole albums. I’ve read that the sync back to iTunes is really easy, so I’m looking forward to trying it.