Is Apple shooting in the dark to fix iPhone 3G issues?

Hopes were high that 2.0.2 would decisively crush the reception woes some iPhone 3G owners have experienced since taking delivery of their cracking beauties; dropped calls, latching onto EDGE reception when 3G (also known as "the good stuff") is available, and general signal strength wonkiness have all plagued a select group of handsets since launch, making for a decidedly MobileMe-like user experience. Some upgraders are actually reporting just the opposite, though -- for these lucky few, 2.0.2 seems to be making reception somehow worse than it already was, and what's more, there are intermittent reports cropping up of broken third-party apps, too. With the 1.x line of builds having chugged along with relatively little drama for a year, here's our question: what the hell is going on? Why does 2.0, after two post-launch builds, still feel like a beta? MobileMe took the lion's share of the fall for Apple having spread itself too thin through the launch-heavy summer months, but did some of that fire-drill mentality trickle over to the breadwinner, too? Sound off in comments with your experiences putting 2.0.2 through its paces so far!

[Via Mobility Site]

Update: Apparently Steve Jobs, who should have his face buried in a developer workstation somewhere in Cupertino slaving away on iPhone bug fixes, somehow found the time to slack off for half an hour and fire off an email to some guy who wrote him complaining about third-party apps that are crashing on startup. Jobs allegedly says that the issue is a "known iPhone bug" and that it'll be fixed in the next update come September -- but frankly, we wish he'd let his assistants attend to this sort of needless communication so he could get back to, you know, writing code and inventing phones. Thanks, Alexander!

Update 2: An Ars Technica reader seems to have developed a workaround to the crushing pain of dead third-party (and installed first-party) apps and iPod player weirdness: go back to iTunes 7.7 from 7.7.1. It's not for the faint of heart because you've got to reset the phone and delete some files off the computer, but until this supposed firmware update (and possible iTunes update) rolls around in September, it may be the best thing affected users have going. Thanks, Garrett!

[intrglctcrevfnk @ Aug 19th 2008 8:02PM]

No crap!
I'm seriously considering downgrading back to 1.1.4 and re-jailbreaking!

damn did i get first?

naaaaaa.....

[(01) @ Aug 19th 2008 11:22PM]

First to fail? Why yes, yes you did....

[GatgetMan @ Aug 20th 2008 12:15AM]

I do say, that was a well thought out comment, with full expectation of not being first, but the sweet sweet though of being first...


Well played my man... Well played...

[boss-hogg @ Aug 20th 2008 12:16AM]

yawn.........more bad news about the iphone 3G,get your act together Apple. til' then im going into a coma to wait it out.

[boss-hogg @ Aug 20th 2008 12:19AM]

The At&t network has gone to crap since the the iphone 3g launched.......strange turn of events

[GatgetMan @ Aug 20th 2008 12:32AM]

For so many months, I've been in utter denial, cursing the very though of AT&T... More bars, right... How frustrating the iPhone 3G is makes me want to hit more bars for a couple of shots....

Now I'm finally realizing... maybe it's not AT&T fault... maybe... just maybe.... Apple has royally failed....


Every one of us has been pwned, majorly pwned by the iPwn 3G...

[GaryZ @ Aug 20th 2008 12:48AM]

This just reminds me of something I once read: firmware updates are lame excuses of inability to provide working software in time... not that I agree with this statement, but it really seems like what Apple is doing right now...

Now getting the problems I had with iPhone, has anyone experienced this: iPhone would drain battery super fast, then you noticed that the usage timer and standby timer shows exactly the same figure; this is not by coincidence of course, this is because something is running when the phone is allegedly in standby... I've observed two instances already... and I can fix it by rebooting iPhone... some clean & tidy garbage collection would be nice, Apple?

[Cash @ Aug 20th 2008 5:26AM]

All I know is that since the last patch, browsing over edge and wifi seems slower, and both connections are dropped all the damn time. I use both on a daily basis, and it wasn't a problem at all before the patch. Voice quality during calls has remained the same, but it takes longer to download voicemails now too, sometimes requiring three attempts before finally downloading the whole thing. Again, that sounds a lot like a problem with dropped connections to the server. Because of that, I've avoided installing this latest one until I hear how it's been for others.

I think these patches really are just crapshoots like the post suggests in the headline. While the screen orientation lag in Safari and photo viewer seems to be less, it's still noticeable, and any app that requires a wireless connection through edge or wifi seems to take longer then it did before I upgraded. I gotta say, I'm not real pleased Apple. I didn't stand in line for half a day just to watch my Jesus phone get gimped feature by feature thanks to your supposed "bug fixes."

[Cash @ Aug 20th 2008 5:28AM]

All I know is that since the last patch, browsing over edge and wifi seems slower, and both connections are dropped all the damn time. I use both on a daily basis, and it wasn't a problem at all before the patch. Voice quality during calls has remained the same, but it takes longer to download voicemails now too, sometimes requiring three attempts before finally downloading the whole thing. Again, that sounds a lot like a problem with dropped connections to the server. Because of that, I've avoided installing this latest one until I hear how it's been for others.

I think these patches really are just crapshoots like the post suggests in the headline. While the screen orientation lag in Safari and photo viewer seems to be less, it's still noticeable, and any app that requires a wireless connection through edge or wifi seems to take longer then it did before I upgraded. I gotta say, I'm not real pleased Apple. I didn't stand in line for half a day just to watch my Jesus phone get gimped feature by feature thanks to your supposed "bug fixes."

[David @ Aug 19th 2008 8:03PM]

Everything Apple makes feels like a beta to me.

[Mario @ Aug 19th 2008 8:05PM]

Everything your mom makes feels and looks like a beta.

[cromas @ Aug 19th 2008 8:06PM]

As much as I've become a big fan of Apple over the past couple of years...I have to agree. The past six months have basically been a big joke.

[konshuss @ Aug 19th 2008 8:08PM]

most anti apple comments will be followed by an empty baseless insult from a fanboy. this is to be expected when dealing with blindly loyal unreasonable individuals.... approach with caution.

[The Dude @ Aug 19th 2008 8:10PM]

@Mario:

Every time I drink, Princess Peach looks and feels betta to me.

[Hawkman @ Aug 19th 2008 8:45PM]

The Dude - you wouldn't hit that sober?

most apple stories will be followed by an empty baseless insult from an anti apple fanboy. this is to be expected when dealing with blindly loyal unreasonable individuals.... approach with caution.
-- It works both ways, konshuss - so let's not start a pissing contest, eh? There's a good troll.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Aug 19th 2008 9:12PM]

Past 6 months have been really bad, no doubt.

Typically they're pretty good; the occasional pulled software update or buggy HW release, but no worse than most vendors, just a lot more media attention (good and bad).

[Tejas @ Aug 19th 2008 10:49PM]

@ Mario:

As a matter of fact, "beta" in Hindi means "Son"... so your statement is very correct! ;-)

[adrian @ Aug 22nd 2008 6:33PM]

Apple wan't people to switch, Yet they can't bloody handle it when they do!. There thinking of moving deeper into consumer electronics for the masses?. In this sector people expect their products to be durable and work properly day in day out, Even more so if they are going to pay premium for it. They are fast gaining a reputation for unreliablity, This could kill them, no matter how popular they are at the moment.

[dtomilson @ Aug 19th 2008 8:04PM]

After installing 2.0.2 everything seemed a little snappier. The SMS lag is gone but there now appears to be a Contact list lag that wasn't there before. I have also noticed my 3G reception is not as good as it once was but the Edge reception is a lot better and faster..

I hope my Netshare does not go any slower.. I want it to peak for me!

[dennis @ Aug 19th 2008 11:48PM]

I have exactly the same experience with 3G reception being noticeably worse and Edge working noticeably faster. However, overall there's some kind of network lag that is preventing my streaming audio apps from working properly. For that reason alone, I feel like my phone is broken.

[tyler @ Aug 20th 2008 10:05AM]

Seems like the results of 2.0.2 are all over the place.

I've noticed that keyboard lag and Contacts lag were greatly reduced. I've also found that 3G reception stayed pretty much the same, while Edge reception seemed to get better. I have maybe 10-12 apps downloaded and haven't noticed an increase in apps crashing. Then again, I haven't seen a significant decrease either.

[Hush @ Aug 19th 2008 8:04PM]

iPhone is dodgy.

[GatgetMan @ Aug 20th 2008 12:50AM]

Welcome to the future...

When the iPhone 3G is purchased by me, and the two of us become one, a new essence is born...


iFail... For buying the iPhone 3G!

[Ben @ Aug 19th 2008 8:06PM]

Dang..... Im staying on 2.01 till dev team gets its game on

[FunkyMonkeyBass @ Aug 19th 2008 8:05PM]

I can't tell a difference. But I'm in a non 3G area.

[Georgie Hammerton @ Aug 19th 2008 9:35PM]

I'm the same; 2.0.1 fixed most of the issues I had and 2.0.2 seems to have made no difference what so ever so far..

[Oliver @ Aug 19th 2008 8:06PM]

i'm running old 8gb iphone, and 2.0.2 feels fine for me... so far i've had just one app crash (monkey ball) that i didn't bother opening again. everything else is very smooth, except for one thing: contacts. The contacts "app" is still incredibly laggy for me and takes about 7 seconds to open up. Even contacts in the phone "app" is quite slow, but just a smidgeon better than the contacts standalone app. Because of this incredible lagginess, i never use the contacts app. Shame.

[richaoj @ Aug 19th 2008 8:43PM]

it seems that the 'contacts' app would be an integral part of a 'phone'.

[MRCUR @ Aug 19th 2008 8:07PM]

My 3G reception is (still) great. I picked up a 16GB black this past Saturday. Everywhere I go, minus some areas of my school, I get great reception. I'm quite pleased with 2.0.2 since it fixed the keyboard lag issue and got me even more bars at times.

I'm in the Lancaster, PA area which is one of the most recent 3G launch areas for AT&T.

[MRCUR @ Aug 19th 2008 9:41PM]

Although the keyboard lag has become much less laggy in 2.0.2, it is still present. Hopefully everything gets fixed for good come September with 2.1.

[justinried @ Aug 19th 2008 8:07PM]

Reception at home (1 bar 3G / 3 bars EDGE) hasn't changed for me, but the iPhone is now more likely to use the 3G connection again - as it did with the original 2.0.0 firmware. With the 2.0.1 release, it was more likely to use EDGE, even when 3G was perfectly usable. It seems Apple has reverted back to the original change threshold.

Overall signal strength has not changed for either connection, however.

[jon @ Aug 19th 2008 8:10PM]

It's a conspiracy... They try to distract us from the flaws of the iPhone, by giving us MobileMe?

[Socioguy @ Aug 19th 2008 8:16PM]

...but then MobileMe fails and they give us more bugs in the iPhone.

So the question is: Which shiny white Apple product fails next?

[gabe @ Aug 19th 2008 8:09PM]

apple is the new microsoft - keep releasing fixes that do little to nothing.

Burn in hell Steve Jobs ie the devil.

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Aug 19th 2008 8:45PM]

Hes an idevil actually

[Zorque @ Aug 19th 2008 10:37PM]

Releasing fixes when they need to happen rather than all at once is somehow worthy of being called Satan himself? That's a little extreme, bro.

[Tejas @ Aug 19th 2008 10:58PM]

@Zorque:

If you need to release a lot of bug-fixes, it means that you did a shit job is designing and developing, not to mention testing the software that you released!

It definitely is extreme to call him Satan for that, but if Gates had to suffer that ignominy, then El Jobso deserves the same treatment! :-) Can't have different rules for different people! :-)

[gabe @ Aug 19th 2008 11:11PM]

agreed - just having some fun !

[Kenneth Arcieri @ Aug 19th 2008 11:43PM]

If the 3G iPhone wasn't out.... everyone would be crying about how there is no 3G iPhone. I don't have an iPhone, but I think people need to stop whining about the product they bought. My candybar Nokia used to lag back in the day and it couldn't do half of what the iPhone can do.

Even if Apple produced the perfect patch and gold came spilling out of your anus after using your phone..... someone would compain for chafing I'm sure.

[Zorque @ Aug 21st 2008 3:34AM]

Nobody's ever, ever, ever released an entirely bug-free piece of consumer software, at least Apple's trying to get out timely updates. This was a pretty bad release, but it's hard to test for bugs that only happen to a certain percentage of people when you may only have 20 or so testers.

[Ryan @ Aug 19th 2008 8:09PM]

keyboard lag seems worse now with 2.0.2, some fix.

[kevin @ Aug 20th 2008 12:56PM]

Really my phone has no lags any more the keyboard works great

[giantenemycrab @ Aug 19th 2008 8:09PM]

I am so glad I held onto my 1st gen iPhone.. I think I'll wait to "upgrade" until these problems get ironed out.

[George A. Romero @ Aug 19th 2008 8:41PM]

I have no problems with iphone 3G. I never upgraded the firmware and everything works fine. The only problem I have is with mobile me. I'm a bit dissapointed. Push function is dead. I have to manually get my mail everytime from mobile me. It used to work great at first...instantaneous e-mail...but now, it's dead. I hope apple can make this thing work soon.

[Keith @ Aug 19th 2008 8:09PM]

I still get keyboard lag but i have to agree that the slow load of apps and the crashing has been fixed. Or has it?

[Evan @ Aug 19th 2008 8:10PM]

The only time I couldn't get 3G was at a golf coarse in the middle of God-forsaken nowhere surrounded by farmers fields. I haven't had any reception problems anywhere where people actually live and work.

[evlfred @ Aug 19th 2008 8:11PM]

My 3G iPhone still produces a loud annoying screech for callers when 3G is enabled, without 3G it works fine.

[Max @ Aug 19th 2008 8:14PM]

What a bunch of whiners. Everything Apple does sucks, apparently, but everyone falls over themselves to buy the latest thing.

2.02 works fine for me. Maybe it fixes some bugs. I have had mostly a good experience with 2.x

[Jesse @ Aug 19th 2008 9:12PM]

Same here. Personally, i think it's the network. I'm an IT guy with 8 users on the thing now (including myself) and no complaints.

although, it makes some sense. You don't hear from the happy customers, you hear from the pissed off ones, willing to yell/blog/post

And, if you iphone
1) doesn't make calls
2) screeches when you make calls?

RETURN IT.

Also, as painful as it can be to make mac zealots screech out, Please understand just cause you have the problem, doesn't mean everyone does. There are as many apple haters (just like MS haters and fanboys) that will post the exact opposite trite too...

[Ryan @ Aug 19th 2008 8:17PM]

engadget assumes everyone is having problems and makes this into a big deal. I have 2 3G iphones on contract and have no issues. Neither does anybody else I've talked to at work. Austin, tx has great 3G coverage I guess