Finally, Apple might have fixed the iPhone 3G

iPhone firmware 2.1 was released earlier this week, promising to fix the core issues plaguing many iPhone 3G users, including reception, call drop outs, and crashes.

I’ve only just now upgraded as I had to wait for the Pwnage team to release their latest version that supported the update (I like having streaming video at hand, even if my data cap restricts my use).

The result is best expressed in pictures before and after, showing 3G bars from the exact same location: my home office, sitting at my desk

Full bars vs nearly none at all before. Now being the weekend I don’t get a lot of calls on my mobile, so I can’t vouch for the drop out issue being fixed, but presuming that the issue is strongly linked to signal strength, I’ll tentatively add that issue to the fixed list as well.

It’s good news for Apple and iPhone users after speculation that the issues were related to dodgy 3G chips and that Apple may have had to recall the phone to fix it.

I haven’t had any crashes yet relating to apps, but given they came at odd times previously, it’s too early to tell. There were other issues, such as iTunes 8 deciding to uninstall all my apps and removing all my sync settings, but this is a minor inconvenience on the path to having a decent phone to talk on again.