Updated to iPhone firmware 2.1

As promised, Apple released the firmware 2.1 for iPhone 2G/3G, which claimed to have big improvement on performance and stability. As a disatisfied iPhone 3G user, i upgraded my 2.02 machine immediately without second thought. The process went smooth, after long backup procedure, my iPhone flashed with firmware 2.1 within 15 minutes.

From general impression, the system response is very quick when compare with any previous 2.x firmwares. I spotted that the graphic rendering engine should be re-written or tweaked. When you have a head to head comparsion with 2.02, you can observe a big differences in the iPod coverflow effect. on 2.1, the movements are smooth and fast without lagging. I have played few minutes Super Monkey Ball, the display quality improved with more anti-alising effect. On Twitterific 1.1, scroll up/ down, cool! Best experience ever!

Another important improvement is on Safari. The Safari crash seems less frequent as before, but it did crashed…. Javascript handling seems improved. This makes us developer less headache on the web application performance.

No intensive testing on GPS performance yet, but i can sure the Cell Tower positioning and WiFi positioning performance boosted. It takes me 5 – 10s for positioning my home location by cell tower method, but the accuracy is still so so. WiFi positioning is cool! i guess there is only 50m accuracy error there.

About the question related the xgps software on 2.1 , we have sent out the testing package to xgps team for them to test. And most of the function would be ok, and we will release it by about next week. You can order now in our online store

In conclusion, 2.1 has a hugh improve on the performance and the stability, with the support of the xgps software will be release soon, most of the existing 1.1.4 users can feel free to upgrade to 2.1 . And we are also looking forward for Freemap to be able to use in iphone 2.1 soon.