Finally the waiting came to an end: Apple today released the long awaited major iPhone OS 3.0 update to the masses.
Cut, Copy & Paste, Landscape Keyboard, MMS, Spotlight Search, Voice Memos, Improved Calendar, Buy Movies/TV Shows and Audiobooks right from the Device, Internet Tethering, Stereo Bluetooth, Automatic Wi-Fi Login, Push Notifications… the list of new features is endless.
This definitely is a major update.
As beta releases have been out for quite a while every single feature has been covered in great depth elsewhere. If this is your first time you’re hearing about it, you might in fact find Apple’s website as good point to start exploring what’s in it for you.
With the feature-related reporting left to the Apple centric blogs, we provide you with yet another comprehensive list, that hopefully resembled the essence of what you need to know for a fantastic updating experience!
You’ve been running the WWDC GM Seed and don’t get an updated version via iTunes today?
The update released to the public today is exactly the same as the golden master one made available for developers during WWDC 2009. Down to the MD5 hashes. Therefore, if you previously installed the developer GM seed, you’re fine – and in fact iTunes won’t let you update at all.
Which features are not available on a 3G as compared to a 3G S?
The ones that exclusively work on the new iPhone 3G S are Voice Control, Video Editing and Sharing, Compass Navigation and most of the Accessibility Enhancements. The rest of it works just fine on your iPhone 3G.
No Push Notifications for iPhone 2Gs?
No. I mean yes. :-) Let’s make this clear: The long awaited Push Notifications, which circumvent the inability of third party apps to run in the background, are available for iPhone 2G owners, too. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) spread different reports earlier. Those are wrong.
Is it free?
For iPhone and iPhone 3G owners this update is absolutely free. Planning to update an iPod touch? Apple kindly asks you to pay US$ 9.95.
Are there download mirrors (in case iTunes servers can’t handle the load)?
No official mirrors to our knowledge. We did find direct firmware links at Apple: iPhone 3G / iPhone 2G and some inofficial mirrors: iPhone 3G / iPhone 2G. Be careful when using the latter as sources other than Apple might provide compromised versions of the firmware.
How about MMS and Tethering support?
The new firmware comes with support for both. In order to use these new capabilities, carriers have to provide updated carrier profile settings. The when, what and how is different for every carrier in every country. We’ve heard from O2 customers in the UK that the supposedly automatic network settings updates have been rolled out. Others UK O2 subscribers told us they have not yet received anything.
Be careful: While iPhone OS 3.0 might provide you with Tethering capabilities and they might even work for you, in some countries you’re legally not allowed to share the device’s Internet connection under your current contract. Carriers might charge you extra for the traffic indirectly caused by your notebook hooked up to your iPhone – even if you’ve got a flat data tariff. If you’re unsure, check back with your operator.
Is “Find My iPhone” already available?
Yes it is and its awesome. Works exactly as advertised. You have to manually activate the feature. Navigate to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Your MobileMe account. Flip the “Find My iPhone” switch to ON. Some prerelease screenshots of the MobileMe website indicated the feature would be available as part of the Mail application. It’s not. It’s in your Account settings:
Is updating a seamless process?
So far feedback is pretty good. We did receive scattered reports about Apple’s activation servers being down. Users have seen an iTunes error dialog stating: “The iPhone [name] cannot be updated at this time because the iPhone activation server is temporarily unavailable.”
If you run into this issue, you might want to first follow Apple’s troubleshooting steps. The Next Web readers reported that closing iTunes and rebooting the iPhone resolved the situation, too.
Yet another workaround: Click the update/install button in iTunes, disable your network connection while it is extracting the files. As the phone reboots re-enable the network connection.
(Disclaimer: You execute all of these troubleshooting tips at your own risk.)
How about Jailbreaking and Unlocking?
Sorry folks: You’ve got to wait. The Dev-Team video demoed an OS 3.0 software carrier unlock yesterday but that one is not yet available for download. Follow their blog for further announcements. Note: The Next Web does in no way endorse Apple firmware modifications.
Anything else?
Often overlooked: With the official release the Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that applies to all Apple prerelease software is now gone. We will very likely see all major books on iPhone development being updated very soon, too. Bill Dudney released a new version of his fantastic (e)book right after the firmware shipped.
So far, so good. We keep updating this post as news flow in. Make sure to check back and let us know in the comments, how your update goes!
I had already updated my iphone to 3.0 GM last week. I also enabled the tethering support, but that update is causing a lot of trouble right now. I’m trying to find a way to undo the whole process, but the Apple activation servers prevent me from restoring my phone ;)
Conclusion: Bad updating experience, but that is due to my own fault.
If someone has a idea to get my phone back working again, don’t be afraid to send a tweet @think_beyond ;)
It went great, started the upgrade process on a sim-unlocked iPhone 1.0 at about 19.05 and was up and running 20 minutes later. But now what… I’m done copying and pasting random stuff, but that gets old quick.
It was smooth & painless. Took about 20 minutes to download, backup & restore the unit. I’m still playing with the new features on my touch but so far, so good.
To be clear, Cory Bohon had an issue using the 3.0 GM on his 1st-gen iPhone. And something that will affect ALL users: the fact that push notifications, when colliding, can be lost. In other words, there is no priority method for push notifications. So it would be possible to lose updates — for anyone — if two updates hit the phone at the same time one could be dropped in favor of the other.
But push as a service should be available for ALL iPhone models. We regret the error and have pulled the post from the main page.
mine too – not a sign of them anywhere – what’s up with that?
I have a different problem. I already had 2+ pages of applications so am very aware of how to switch between pages. After upgrading phones from 3G to 3GS (which involved a backup/restore), my apps were tranferred over initially. A couple days later I noticed that they’d disappeared. I have no idea where to look to find them.
Upgraded, lost all my apps that aren’t default to the OS, synced, still no apps, backed up iTunes apps, still no apps, restore, still no apps …
It all sucked.
Without any problem. Now it’s time to try out find my iPhone :-)
Hi Les,
They are not lost : if you look closer, you will notice that the mainmenu consists of more than one page…:-) It took me an hour to notice this.
Good luck
Same problem, not on a hidden page, did come back with a restore of the home page, didn’t come back with a complete restore…..Getting frustrated.
Lost all my apps. Were app companies not notified of the update in order to prepare apps for the upgrade? Is this in the works? Will I be able to get my apps back soon?!
Haha! Thanks for the tip! Anyone know why my MMS isn’t working? Are there settings that need to be changed?
I also lost all my apps and unable to download. Any updates from Tim Brown or Carrie? Have you gotten your apps back?
Les, you are a rock star. I was frustrated about losing those aps! Somehow I ended up with a full 1st page of aps, then only one on the 2nd page, then a blank page, then the missing ones followed on subsequent pages. I feel like an idiot.
Thank God for Google, “iPhone upgrade lost aps” and for you!
Installed 3.0 without any problems, however it seems I lost the camera icon on the screen and can’t start this up anymore!!!
Any ideas?
Have you found a solution.. mine did exactly the same
I have a 2nd generation as well. I restored it once and worked for a day then it went back to the connect to itunes store. Tried to restore it again and will not work. Took the phone to the apple store and they will not try to fix it not even for me to pay. Service is horrible.
My update to a 2nd generation iPhone that has not been tampered with, using the latest version of iTunes is a brick. Couldn’t update, instructions said to restore. Tried restore, that died. Can’t do anything, including the 911 service. The phone is a brick, a very expensive brick at that.
Can’t do anything with the phone, reset just takes me back to the screen with the USB cable and iTunes icon.
BTW, mine is a 3G.
wow – thanks – just poked about and found them – also searched by “stroking” home page upward and typing in “pock” and my Pocket God app was found
Unfortunately this is not correct. The xG part refers to the NETWORK, not to the iPhone generation. The iPhone 2G operates in EDGE networks. The next iPhone operates on 3G networks. Referring to an iPhone 2G correctly refers to the first generation of Apple’s product.
go on settings / general / restrictions an put on enable and after that on disable. the camera icon will reapear
MMS doesn’t work, because AT&T doesn’t support it. So basically, all you got with the 3.0 update was a recorder, a lame stock app, and landscape keyboard for text.
Ralf, actually Beandon is correct.
the ORIGINAL iphone on the EDGE network is the first generation iphone. not called 1g not called 2g. simply 1st gen. the SECOND gen is called the iphone 3g because it is on the 3g network unlike the EDGE network mentioned above. the newest iphone, the 3G s is the third generation iphone. what would be your logic as to naming the 3gs if you feel the 1st gen is a 2g? the G represents the network not the generation. so both the 2nd and 3rd gen iphones are on the 3G network. 4G is a new network that i believe only sprint has or will soon have. therefore, to sum up. there is no such thing as a 1g or 2g or 4g(for iphone) there is only Edge, and 3G, and another new network that AT&T is rumored to be releasing next yr which i cant recall the name.
Tried three times and failed. Just as when it reaches around 160 MB download, it simply stops working. No progress at all. It’s so frustrating.
If you are using a PC try updating your system time by double clicking the clock. Then the tab that says internet time. Then scroll down and choose the update using the .gov site. Before I did this the apple download bar would read several hours. When I attempted to download again the time changed to resemble something closer to the actual time and it worked. My clock was only off by about 2 minutes to begin with.
There is NO such thing as a 2G iPhone. I annoys the hell out of me when people say this. The “2G iPhone” is REALLY a FIRST GEN iPhone. There is no such thing as a 1G or 2G… get it right.
First gen, 3G, 3Gs
Ok, so AT&T not supporting MMS, meaning on the iPhone, right? Because they support MMS with their other phones or I assumed they did because with previous phones I have been able to receive pictures and such as a text message. Sorry to ask so many questions but I don’t quite understand why the iphone can’t work like other phones. Thanks!
Nevermind, I found them. There are apps sprinkled throughout the iPhone pages, just not consolidated like I expected.
Hi, Mine did this today, have you managed to find a solution?
Thanks
Also now you can use bluetooth head phones, before you could not play music through the bluetooth head phones, you could only use it for calls.
Any other advantages that anyone has found?
Yeah, no, RALF is correct. 2G == Edge. Edge is a second generation cell network, and the first gen iPhone uses the 2G network. The first gen iPhone can be and does get referred to as 2G. It’s not meant to be the name, but rather a quick point to the first gen iPhone which didn’t have 3G capabilities.
People appropriately call it the 2G even though it’s name is just iPhone. 2G is clearer than just using “iPhone” and shorter than saying “first gen” and Edge really is a 2G network.
My free apps remained. The ones I paid for? Gone.
Took 5 attempts to connect and download update. I also hadn’t got itune 8.2 which didn’t help. Upgraded that and then worked first time after that. Thought I’d lost all my beloved apps but the scroll page had added an extra page and shifted tham all across after 1 blank page.
All good now. Even kept my high score on Flight Control! lol
Update sucked and I’m ready to throw my phone through the wall. 3G previously working fine, now post update it won’t pick up the wi-fi from my ATT router. It did before. I tried all four of Apple’s frickin’ suggestions, one of which takes over an hour, and still nothin’…their final option is something might be wrong with it and it need repaired?! Worked pretty dam good before hand thanks.
I lost all my photos and contacts. And everything else. My phone is “like new”.
Because during update, I got error “13″. The only option was to do the Restore (to factory settings). Nothing else was available. Because I trusted the upgrade and did not think to back anything up.
That was not cool.
Hey Sophy,
I had the exact same problem. Here is how I fixed it. connect iPhone to computer and use iTunes to restore IPhone to factory settings. Keep iPhone connected to computer and iPhone will restart. iTunes will then ask you if you want to set up the phone as a new iPhone or restore the old settings with a restore. Go ahead and select restore and it will go through a restore, then use iTunes to resintall your programs. I did this and now all my apps work fine.
I had the SAME PROBLEM! Freaked because my apps were gone. Actually at first it was a window that stated Emergency call only. I turned my iphone off then on and it worked. I couldn’t find apps at first but they ended up on page 3. So…just look and see if they landed somewhere else. I am glad it was that simple. I love my apps. Anyway…i would say.. BEFORE YOU UPDATE SOFTWARE, BACKUP YOUR PHONE ON YOUR COMPUTER ITUNES STORE. That’s my thought. :) Hope everyone else has a smoother udpate. tata.
My phone initially froze up after downloading 3.0, showing the emegergency call only screen and then the connect to iTunes. I tried reconnecting to iTunes 3 times and it didn’t recognize the phone. Finally after leaving it overnight, I restarted iTunes and it activated right away.
NOW, however, none of my purchased apps will open. Someone told me to reboot – that didn’t help. Then someone told me to sync – that also didn’t help. Anyone have any ideas??
Went well until I noticed many of my apps went missing, paid of course, I wish they were in the search feature however they are not, for some reason when I synced my phone to the computer it did sync some apps but not all, I didn’t notice this of course after the fact.
My complaint is every time there is a software update nothing goes smooth. I don’t mind downloading my paid apps again but one of my paid apps that I spent hours putting together has lost all its information, it was an investment app that had the entire history of my account information, all GONE!!!!!!!
I wouldn’t mind doing a restore however I really doubt the information is on my itunes account since I cannot find the program to begin with.
IF anyone here has any idea on how I can get back that one app with my information I would appreciate it dearly.
Thanks
Steve.
it just didnt happen
i have xp sp3 , latest itunes to boot.
it can restore either JB 2.x.x or normal 2.x.x
anything 3.x and it just puts it into iboot recovery
and fails to do anything else (bar show a 160x error)
the codes in this case mean nothing,
as all suggestions the help gave WAS PRE-DONE already!
so all in all
im kinda annoyed.
went well at first i thought !
all my apps on itunes synced but on my iphone there not there
mad thing is thou like fieldrunners for example is in the settings page but not on my iphone springboard
it dont even appear using the search but others like twitterfon do appear on there but also not on my springboard …
quite frustrated thinking of restoring but tht takes ages !
rather downgrade it to 2.2.1 i think then jailbrake again maybe .
Thanks, this is exactly what happened to me. I was jailbroken and hid my icons using Bossprefs, and lost my camera. I did a reset all settings and everything is back including all my apps i downloaded while jailbroken
SORTED PEOPLE
it was cus i had jailbroke my phone and used an application called catergries
all my hidden apps was the ones in folders
to undo what the application had done i had to go to settings and do a master reset
settings –> general –> reset —> reset all settings
this may work even if you used other jailbroken apps or it may work if its a genuine apple bug
This usually indicates an DRM issue. Delete one of your purchased apps and re-install it from the App Store (Apple won’t charge you again).
Hope this helps,
Ralf
Nope. Just once. Pick any app you want.
All my app icons are there but when i click on them, the app comes up for just a second and then it’s back to my home screen. Happens for all of them.
Just out of curiosity, what if that doesn’t work? I just updated our iPod Touch and even though I deleted and reinstalled several apps, they still aren’t coming up for more than a second before returning to the home screen. Any thoughts?
I did this through the app store on the Touch, do I need to actually do that through iTunes on my computer?
Thank you!!
I lost all my applications also. Doe anyone have any info or solutions?
So I have to do this with every single one of my apps?
(thanks for your help/response)
I updated okay but have since found that none of my apps that require internet are working…You Tube, iTunes, App Store, Google Maps, Around Me :(
Not a happy bunny!
My apps are also gone
I tried to update my phone this morning, as it was just coming up with Emergency Only and then connect to ITunes. It downloaded the update to my computer, however died while updating the phone, it then tried restoring and said it couldn’t. Now I have a phone that I can’t use as it is not working, does anyone have any ideas?
oops! Les isn’t the rockstar, L1 is – whoever you might be!
Mine bricked, unable to restore, backup was corrupt too, had to take to Mac Store where they updated it for me, worked after that BUT the backup being corrupt meant I lost everything.
Not too good, still would not use anything other than iphone.
I have a Iphone 1.0 which is software unlocked. Can i upgrade it to OS 3.0? i understand that the unlock might get wiped away but the unlock that the dev team has released recently can be used. Am i correct in my understanding? Let me know if any body has any other ideas. Appreciate it. Thanks.
I was using a jailbroken iphone with categories to organize my apps. Updated to 3.0 and all of my apps were gone ! They were not on other pages as some of the other users here had mentioned. If you go into settings and do reset all settings… they will all come back !!
Thanks !
Dude I got the update and thought everything was cool untill I checked everything on my iPod touch 2G that had anything to do with network connection. It’s ridiculously slow! I’ve reebooted it like 5x and no dice. It took at least ten minutes for this page to load! Not cool!
I have the worst luck with contacts… first they got hijacked from windows live lost forever!
Now I update to 3.0 (should of known better to backup contacts, lost all of my contacts and text not working either. everything else is working great, I love my IPhone don’t get me wrong but right now i’m so helpless without contacts I just want to crush the phone. Is there a fix for this?? Please someone help!
Got my contacts back!!!
I couldn’t get my contacts back from Microsoft Live …
But, I sure got them back for my IPhone!!!! cha-ching!!
From Itunes
1- right click on your phone device
2- select restore from backup
3- this options restore your phone contacts, text and calender. nothing got deleted and my apps didn’t change,
I love the new 3.0 Yes! Great job in update!!!
Upgrade went smoothly, but now iTunes won’t recognize the iPhone. I’ve restarted everything, switched USB port–nada. Any ideas?
I update to 3.0 3 days ago know my iphone worked perfectliy but when i conect with any computer he didnt recognith any thing even he is not charging wt computer any one help me
Mine was doing the same thing. It would say preparing Iphone for restore and then when the Iphone would restart it would error out with 13. I did this, and my phone is back to life. When it says preparing Iphone for restoring I held down the home button, for some reason this caused my Iphone not to power off, it then started updating to 3.0. I’m sitting here at my computer right now watching it restore my Iphone to the last synched session.
i already update my iphone which i bought last week.
so depressed…after updating my phone cant start..
the message tell me to connect with itunes..after connecting it still my phone cant start…
So I Updated my 3gs today using my buddies iTunes(he’s got tons of songs so I don’t even use my own iTunes), and my laptop died during the update. I had to restore my iPhone, got my backup contacts, had to re-sync all my music. But my apps were wiped clean. Any ideas on what I could do? I had lots of paid apps so this sucks.