iPhone 2.0.1 breaking some carrier unlocks

Uh-oh, it look like it's not just the underground unlockers who're having problems with the iPhone 2.0.1 update's revisions to the 3G's baseband -- Vodafone customers who've paid to have their handsets unlocked are starting to report failures to connect to iTunes followed by the appearance of an "0xE8000001" error code. There are also reports from a handful of other carriers, but Voda's selling Steve's baby in 10 countries, so most of the complaints are from its customers. Other than that, there are some isolated reports of brickage, but we've mostly heard good things about 2.0.1, and our iPhones are definitely feeling a little better -- how about you?

[Via TUAW]

[Mark Anderson @ Aug 5th 2008 2:21PM]

Carriers in attempt to protect revenue shocker! You read it here first!

[Geoff Laughton @ Aug 5th 2008 4:38PM]

Since upgrading my 3g, bluetooth is acting funny, and I can't get my email anymore! Anyone else having that problem?

[Taylor @ Aug 5th 2008 3:12PM]

Well, i'm pretty sure those carriers have an agreement with apple to allow them to unlock the phone... This isn't some group of bandits in the night - it's Vodaphone, and when apple tries to screw a large company out of providing a legitimate service to its customers (unlocking lets them save money when roaming, and in Europe that's a big deal), it is really weak.

I'm not a hater though, from the description it sounds like it was on accident. Still... i wish they would just let people do what they want with the damn things!
-Taylor

[MarsDTA @ Aug 5th 2008 3:31PM]

This is a side note not pertaining to the story above: I read yesterday of a workaround of sending MMS from an iphone. You still can't receive but were have ways there lol

here is the link for the info

http://www.appleiphoneschool.com/2008/08/04/picture-messaging-mms-workaround/

[Taylor @ Aug 5th 2008 3:34PM]

@Mars
Yeah, but that can be a pain in the ass... I tried that with tmobile last week with a friend and after sending like 10 messages with different settings, i couldn't get it to work. :-/
-Taylor

[Mark @ Aug 5th 2008 4:01PM]

vodafone


why do people seem to change their brand name...

[Teon @ Aug 5th 2008 4:09PM]

yeah, I "read it here FIRST"... thanks...

[JP @ Aug 5th 2008 5:11PM]

@Mark is right.

It's Vodafone with an f, not Vodaphone with a ph. (Heh even my Firefox spell check knows it's wrong.)

Yeah it's only a trademark but the misspelling always annoys me.

[heffeque @ Aug 5th 2008 6:21PM]

@Mark: exactly. Specially English speaking people continuously spell it VodaPHone instead of VodaFone. The two mayor languages that write "phone" with "PH" instead of with an "F" are English and French. The rest use "F" (examples: German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Czech, Slavic languages like Croatian, Slovenian, etc, Norwegian, Spanish, Polish...). As always, the weird ones are the English and French ones :-P (May the bashing begging!).

PD: Interesting though that VoDaFone (Voice Data Fone), being a company from the UK, actually took the Universal way of writing it instead of the Anglo-Saxon way.

[Shane @ Aug 6th 2008 3:00AM]

"Specially English speaking people"

Specially??? Seriously???

[Jamar @ Aug 6th 2008 7:11AM]

Vodafone? Aren't they Softbank now?

[Scott @ Aug 5th 2008 2:21PM]

I updated my first-gen handset this morning, and no problems so far. Dialing via the keypad is snappy, again.

[a @ Aug 5th 2008 2:41PM]

Yeahp. I had a scare when it sat at the 'picture of a silver apple' screen for about ten minutes. Had to do the 'hold home and lock button' until it reset, fearing it would be a brick afterward... Turned it back on, plugged it in when prompted, and it works fine.

Contacts is MUCH faster, not that I use that 'button' anyway.

I'm happy.

FYI I was one of the fools that installed the 'early' 2.0 software when it was found a day early.

[Scott @ Aug 5th 2008 4:09PM]

Yep, I did the same thing :) But once word got out about the goofup, I just grabbed the correct installer file and repeated the process, all was well.

[Leindurstit @ Aug 5th 2008 2:23PM]

Why isn't "vodaFAIL" (in impact font, of course) pictured on that phone?

[Sean @ Aug 5th 2008 2:24PM]

Sweet job breaking the unlocks in the US, Apple! You sure did show those dastardly people who want to use the phone they bought with their own money on a different carrier.

It's too bad you also screwed over the legit unlocks in other countries. Well done.

[THJ @ Aug 5th 2008 2:44PM]

Witty and Original!

[Josh @ Aug 5th 2008 2:50PM]

No one made them install the update. Anyone with an unlocked or jailbroken phone that installs updates without waiting a few days to find out their effect is to blame for their actions.

[Anand D @ Aug 5th 2008 3:02PM]

@Josh

What is Steve Jobs paying his testers for? If the users are expected to test it themselves there should be a *Beta* attached to the release of the firmware.

[Frank Furter @ Aug 5th 2008 3:07PM]

@Sean - you, sir/maam, are what's wrong with society today. You are under the mistaken assumption that it is Apple's obligation to allow you to use their phone on whatever whack-ass network you choose. At the same time, you expect them to also maintain the extraordinary level of service they provide through AT&T.

It's THEIR product, THEY engineered it, and THEY can choose to make it available (or not) in any fashion they choose. You don't like that? Hey - here's a thought - DON'T BUY IT.

Sheesh. Quit whining and go to another forum and bitch about DRM or something.

[Esteban @ Aug 5th 2008 3:11PM]

@Frank Furter

Also, balls.

[Zachary Waldowski @ Aug 5th 2008 3:46PM]

Do any of you understand that some carriers in other countries have a deal with Apple to sell unlocked iPhones? Even AT&T could choose to sell their iPhones unlocked, but they don't want to.

[Raymond @ Aug 5th 2008 5:42PM]

Josh / Frank:

These are legit unlock users who have payed a premium;
and Apple is pushing this as bug fix auto update.
Its Apple's responsbility to make sure things work as they supposed to.

In addition I always find the term "unlocked phone" is an strange word in the world of GSM/WCDMA phones, as the subscriber information us designed to be carry by the SIM / USIM card and be able to use service on any GSM / WCDMA phone with the right band.

In other words, it should be just a "normal" phone or a locked phone, instead of "unlocked" phone.

However the U.S. Market is sadly exactly right using the "unlock" expression with locked phones as the norms.

[Kyle @ Aug 5th 2008 2:25PM]

It's faster than a fat kid in a cake eating contest!

No complaints here...

[Pochi @ Aug 5th 2008 2:43PM]

Fat kids eating cake as fast as they can are still slower than most other things in this world.

So I guess the analogy fits.

[JOSE @ Aug 5th 2008 2:32PM]

it fixed my keyboard lag and text message lag as well

[griff @ Aug 5th 2008 3:43PM]

I bet it didn't.
Try going into the contacts application and scrolling.
.
.
.

see ?

[John Doe @ Aug 5th 2008 2:33PM]

so...jobs is gonna apologize for this too and say that it was a big mistake???

[nerdtalker @ Aug 5th 2008 7:31PM]

Aww, well if he apologizes then clearly all is well. We don't need any _actual_ change like, you know, firmware updates/bugfixes that _actually_ fix bugs.

I'm sure a simple "I'm sorry, we screwed up" will really assuage the pain of thousands out there who are perpetually being tossed apple's crappily tested software.

[Hamidxa @ Aug 5th 2008 2:33PM]

Nilay,
Your phones aren't feeling better, it's called a placebo effect.

The lagginess, the unresponsiveness, the crashing, the locking up, the incompatibility with 3rd party apps is still all there in spades.

[Zak @ Aug 5th 2008 6:08PM]

Yawn. Try again when you have something worthwhile to say.

[MadMike @ Aug 5th 2008 2:35PM]

Upgraded mine this morning.

PRO:
MUCH better SMS performance. Overall, snappiness too. So far so good.

CON:
No MMS
No Video recording
No Flash
No Copy/Paste

[Jakob Henner @ Aug 5th 2008 2:45PM]

Excactly why I didn't upgrade, wouldn't lose all that stuff ;)

[Abuzar Baloach @ Aug 5th 2008 3:05PM]

Yes, because a software update would add flash.

Freakin idiot.

[Bill @ Aug 5th 2008 3:25PM]

Yeah, a .01 update is going to add all that. Um, ok.

Now, 2.1 might add some of these things. That would make more sense. But don't hold your breath.

[Commander P5 @ Aug 5th 2008 3:24PM]

NO MMS, NO VIDEO RECORDING?? And this thing is the "technology's state of art"?

My old cell could do this and a lot of other things, and it cost's under 1/10 of the IBone!!

Wake up, Apple fan-boys

[Bill @ Aug 5th 2008 3:35PM]

Commander P5, you are vastly outnumbered by literally millions of "fanboys" who took a hard look at everything the iPhone offers and decided the missing features were FAR outweighed by the advantages. Have you ever spent some quality time with an iPhone? Or do you just come into these threads to bash us all for the fun of it?

[Jakob Henner @ Aug 5th 2008 4:31PM]

@Bill: He is hopeless he thinks the iPhone is a bone?!

I bought an iPhone 3G, well knowing it was missing some features, like MMS, turn-by-turn GPS, a proper Danish carrier (yes it is a feature here), higher HSPDA speed. BUT the awesome design (both aesthetic and the whole multi-touch idea), great capacity and fantastic software, it all comes together.

Of course iPhone is not the answer for everything, but in that case it is just great Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Samsung etc. exist.

[MadMike @ Aug 5th 2008 4:59PM]

Yes the iPhone is missing some features. But what it does do, it does extremely well. The entire platform, the interface and the different way of thinking. The literally have discussions on how to do things totally different than any other handset maker. The OS interaction is THE best I have ever seen and I've used Blackberry, Palm, Motorola, Nokia and HTC handsets. Nothing comes close to it, STILL.

I don't know about the video, but I think they purposely leave MMS out, like they have something against MMS. They stay mum about MMS yet come out and say that copy/paste isn't a high priority, yet don't even acknowledge MMS and Video Recording. Other issues they publicly talked about. Like on the 1st gen, they said that 3G used too much power. Then they added 3G & GPS and then came out about Turn by Turn navigation. They even came out about Copy & Paste. Obviously the features they stay mum about are even lower on their list.

[TavisJohn @ Aug 5th 2008 6:29PM]

@Bill & Jakob Henner

So in other words, "Oooo Shiny! I must have it!"

[Veraxus @ Aug 5th 2008 6:56PM]

...no hands-free bluetooth calling.

[MadMike @ Aug 5th 2008 7:05PM]

Veraxus,
What are you talking about? It does so have hands free bluetooth dialing. I have it paired to my car and it dials and answers calls just fine.

[Ramin @ Aug 5th 2008 2:45PM]

I just want Pwnage Tool to be updated. Or even ZiPhone?

[Josh @ Aug 5th 2008 2:56PM]

Why not write an app to do what you want and submit it to apple? Make a few bucks and get the functionality you want. Most of the stuff available on installer.app (with the exception of ssh client, openssh, voip, ect..) is already available in the app store. Most for free. Nothing stopping someone from writting a ssh client either. There is already a telnet client available in the app store.

[james @ Aug 5th 2008 3:48PM]

Josh, because the only apps I want developers can't make - sms notify (vibrate until reading the sms), email and sms icons in by the battery, etc.

[dave @ Aug 5th 2008 2:52PM]

Can't tell the difference. Exchange (contacts and calendar, specifically) support still sucks balls, I'm still unhappy.

[Josh @ Aug 5th 2008 3:00PM]

My exchange push works great. I often get a email on my phone before it even pops into outlook. Contacts and calendars also sync and update right away. What is it exactly that is not working for you?

[has128 @ Aug 5th 2008 2:55PM]

Now i'm in Australia and i bought mine unlocked from Optus. Should i update to 2.0.1 or wait, i really like the general enhancement that 2.0.1 offers.

[Ramin @ Aug 5th 2008 2:58PM]

It's either slow phone, or no phone. Don't update. Just wait it out. Apple are disappointing lately....

[Josh @ Aug 5th 2008 3:00PM]

Don't update yet. Apple will likly release an update for international phoens that either does no include the new baseband or allows for unlocking.