iPhone World

If you haven’t noticed yet, OS 3.1 was made available today as well as iTunes 9. As always, if you are jailbroken and wish to stay that way, do NOT update to 3.1 just yet. Wait for the Dev-Team to release a 3.1 jailbreak. More importantly, if you require the ability to unlock your phone ala ultrasn0w, DO NOT update to 3.1. The 3.1 update has a new baseband and will render your phone un-unlockable, possibly for good. You will need a custom firmware containing the current (04.26.08) baseband. (You can see the version in the Settings app under General and About, look for modem firmware).

Along with that, before updating, I would recommend launching Cydia at least once more. If you haven’t noticed, there is a new announcement on the main screen. After opting in, the top of the app will say you are pending (didn’t grab a shot of that) and eventually it will change to this

It isn’t totally clear if, when, or how these will be used, but the current assumption is it would allow you to downgrade from 3.1 back to 3.0. If you don’t plan on updating to 3.1 until the jailbreak is released, then I wouldn’t worry about this. If you do update to 3.1, it *may* be possible to downgrade back to 3.0 but doing so will keep the updated baseband preventing you from unlocking unless a new exploit is found. Has anyone tried going back to 3.0 after updating? Were you successful?

As far as what’s new in 3.1, the list is not all I could have hoped for but there are a few notable items. One thing that doesn’t seem to be listed is MMS support (beyond an indirect mention anyhow). Seeing as AT&T is turning on MMS support on September 25th, it would be fair to assume 3.1 will have the capability and it will be enabled through iTunes at that time. On with the list.

• Genius recommendations for Applications
• Support for iTunes 9
• Redeem iTunes Gift cards, codes, and certificates in the App Store
• Display available iTunes account credits in the App Store and iTunes Store
• Browse and download ringtones wirelessly from the iTunes Store
• Save video from mail and multimedia messages into Camera Roll
• Option to "save as new clip" when trimming a video on iPhone 3GS
• Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
• Remotely lock iPhone with a passcode via MobileMe
• Use Voice Control on iPhone 3GS with Bluetooth headsets
• Paste phone numbers into the Keypad
• Option to use Home button to turn on Accessibility features on iPhone 3GS
• Warn when visiting fraudulent Web sites in Safari (anti-phishing)
• Improved Exchange calendar syncing and invitation handling
• Fixes issue that caused some app icons to display incorrectly

With iTunes 9 finally comes the ability to rearrange your icons from your computer, big win! It is also not yet known if iTunes 9 has any effect on AppSync 3.0 or ipa’s that it would be needed for. Let us know if you have upgraded if this still works for you.

If you have already upgraded are there any notable changes not mentioned or subtle but useful features that snuck in?

Last, how is Wi-Fi working for everyone? 3.0 seemed to be plagued with instability and unexplained fluxuations in signal strength along with high packet loss, mostly associated with having push email on. Any improvements there?