I gotta say, not sure if I got a weird iPhone or something, but I don't experience *any* dropped calls, or buzzing, or half-day battery life, or constant instability, or whatever the internet has been bitching about.

I browse, and txt, and youtube, and download, and call, and answer, and stream, and WiFi, and install and so forth to my heart's content, as much as I want. Then, after a reasonable amount of use (my laptop only lasts a couple hours, and that thing has a HUGE battery), I charge the thing. No big deal.

Guess I'm just lucky ... ?

cello

The buzz is gone when you're on 3G, not 2G. Still will get a buzz on 2G. It's a fundamental property of the TDMA signal that any GSM phones uses, and becomes readily apparent when the phone uses the 850mhz band...

Now, if I could just get a 3G signal on my phone...

dcdttu

I just noticed today that the buzz was gone. Almost makes the instability and constant call-dropping worth it.

Spyrojoe

I refuse to turn off my 3G because I pay extra for that, it's principle you know? My battery life has been better since I turned off Location Service, I can now get through a whole day and a night out without charging my phone. I also found that after letting the battery die and charging fully a few times increased the battery performance.

Does anyone know if the firmware upgrade fixes any problems?

Mikestan

News just in: taxing heavily the CPU will drain the battery. How was this not expected? 3D graphics is definitely a point that taxes the CPU. Batteries are the Achilles heel of any portable system, since they have been progressing slower than the energy demands of devices that use them.

twilight-arc

I didn't notice there wasn't a buzz until I read this. My battery life increased significantly with just turning off wi-fi.

reddevil07

facebook app finally got an update that makes it more useful than the web version. you can view wall posts, photos, and full profiles now. i have no idea how they can call the first release a facebook application, you couldnt do anything with it.

friedgold

What about the iPhone specific Drupal development efforts? Drupal sites will soon be able to alter their appearance for iPhones w/ the insertion of a single module into the Drupal content management system.

umassdood

@waterwizard: Well yeah, exactly.

Wanna save gas? Basically: "don't drive the car so much"

cello

I love the battery hints. Basically: "don't use the device so much"

waterwizard

I had to reinstall Mobile News when it would crash just after launching it.

After the re-install it seems to be working as expected.

ddaq89

@cello:

Glad to hear I am not alone. This is my first iPhone, I have always been on Sprint and had WinMo phones.

I have had zero problems with the phone itself. I get 3G everywhere except in one small area of my campus, and inside a restaurant we went to (which is part of a parking garage/shopping complex thing) which is understandable. I had signal there with Sprint... but barely... so I don't hold this against the iPhone.

Apps "crash", but has maybe taken down my phone twice. Its still been more stable, better battery, better performing, in almost every way, than my HTC Mogul before it.

And with more development, I can only see more improvements.

VulnoX

Some apps already have updates to them...

Also, I wonder if Apple should set a policy whereby after 3 months if a particular app has, say, lower than 2 stars for reviews that it gets pulled from the app store. That way we keep junk off the system so people don't waste time looking at it and they save on the storage space. The apps store should only contain GOOD apps!

Noobs-R-Us

if I use games and a lot of wireless I definitely don't get a full day use out of it. But that doesnt matter because whenever I'm in front of the computer it is plugged in.

thedommer

Backorder Backorder Backorder Backorder Backorder

So sad and unhappy!! Stupid East Coast shortages...

Wegmans

one REALLY annoying thing. when an ap is updated or restored to your phone, it doesnt remember the page it was on.

ryanrule

The note above about syncing taking a really long time is a bit of an understatement. If I get away with a backup sync taking less than 4 hours and 80% of my processor away from me I'm lucky (even if it is doing a complete backup of the tiny 2 gigs of apps and iTunes media that I have on there, it's still just awful). iTunes completely sucks so badly as an application management platform. That the last part of a sync eats up 100% of my XPS Laptop processor is no real joke either. One downside to the iTunes store is that applications are only shown in two orders, Name and Release date, however no one seems to have commented that the Release date has nothing to do with the date that Apple approves the application, so there is no real way to actually find the really NEW applications in the store..

ThaliaCaerus

For when you're trying to sync and it backs up... just hit the X to the right of it and it will stop iTunes from backing it up and will let you do a simple sync.

ttech10

The restore on PC is broken!

1. It took 40 minutes!!!!!! to restore my phone and I only had 400MB on it.

2. After the restore my ONLY APP which was MotionX had ZERO data. I had 1.5 million coins and only needed two more gems (14 day and 2.5 million). IT ALL GONE!!! I did a backup the day before. There should have been data there.

I love my phone but I still hate Apple with a passion!!! Many bugs to work out with many service packs to come.

JEmlay

I heard it mentioned before but in Safari you can save any picture by tapping and hold. It will save it to the Camera Roll.

pdditty

I've noticed a really annoying lag when going into system prefs, and also the SMS app.

There's a blank screen for about 3 seconds before the info appears.

jfj

@cello: You're not alone. Mine has been working flawlessly too. I'm not a hard phone user though. I have a good signal at home (where I work) and have taken steps to keep battery life up (turning off location and 3G, since I have wireless and know where I am sitting in my home office). At first I was quite worried about the battery life, but yesterday it worked for about 12 hours on standby and 4 hours of constant use browsing, playing games and making calls. It kept me up until 1 am trying to kill the battery. Today the battery seems even stronger (yay).

I've had a few apps crash on me but none have taken down the system.

For me the real test will be a long day in the country with phone calls and gps active.

Drew P Draws

Coming from a Touch user, I've noticed that a large number of the apps in the store aren't even that necessary. They'd be perfectly usable running as webpages in mobile safari, with the obvious exceptions being games, location aware applications, and a handful of others.

soggy_cheerio

You should note the buzz is only gone when in 3G service areas.

wcnghj

@cello: i'm actually getting mixed feelings about my iPhone. The battery sucks, there is severe buzz, and I can't call my girlfriend from my house. Isn't triple g supposed to prevent this garbage in new York city!? I don't know where you live but I live where service is supposed to he great. Quit bitching about me bitching!!! God damn the auto correct won't even let me ducking curse!!!

etaripamai

I have to say.. I'm not as happy as I thought I'd be. I loved my iphone, and the 3g, is coming at some cost. I've had third party apps completely crash the phone.. I mean turn off instantly on launch. multiple times. The battery life is weak, it's more expensive, and the 3g speed up is negotiable. I don't know.. I mean.. battery life is now a reason for me not to play any of the few decent games. and a reason to not use the speed... So i gues my now favorite thing about the new iphone is simply that it feels better in my hand due to the new curved back. BUT IT'S PLASTIC, AND I ALREADY HAVE TWO SCRATCHES. ugghh.. i have what? 7 days to return it, and that's becoming more and more probable.

LostAtoll

@LostAtoll:

Did you get the black one? I have the white - no perceivable scratches after a week with no case.

jfj

For what it's worth, my 3G phone (a Samsung Blackjack) only gets the GSM buzz when I'm in EDGE mode, WCDMA seems to not get picked up.

Colage

oohhh.. i forgot to mention the laaaagggggssss... 20% increase overall I'd say.. big.. issue...

LostAtoll

yeah,.. i chose black.. there's hardly any.. but it took at least a month or two before i got any on my aluminum backed iphone.. just an obvious step down

LostAtoll

The lags are an issue - lots of posts on Apple's discussion boards.

jfj

well at least I'm not the only
One with the lagging issue. Hopefully the next firmware update will fix some of the speed issues that we are (all?) facing.

etaripamai

TDMA relegates your phone 1/3 of a second every second to transmit. (Hence time division multiple access) The other 2/3 of a second are reserved for another 2 handsets running on the same TX channel. The result is a radio signal that pulses on and off rapidly coming from the phone. This quick pulse of electromagnetic pulses coming out of the phone will get picked up by any amplifier really, computer speakers, television, record player pickup, microphone. The pulses are difficult to even shield against because of their high power and rapid on off cycle.

In terms of 3G, the iphone uses UMTS, which is really just a wideband variant of the CDMA system (or W-CDMA). CDMA transmits continuously, no pulsing no buzz.. on ATT in the us this most frequently uses the 1900 MHZ band which is also more easily shielded against. But it's really the lack of the pulses. I hope that makes sense outside my head.

skiplightly

Some firmware 2.0 notes:
- They fixed this really irritating bug where certain (random) tracks would simply not play and often even crash the music player. They were all mp3s but not all mp3s were broken. It seemed to break one album at a time and slowly spread through my music collection, which was very irritating. Hooray for fixing that!
- I've noticed a bit of chugging in a couple of apps (mostly the music player) which weren't there before. Each track seems to take longer to skip between, but maybe that's my imagination.

m4dm4n

@Giz

Thanx for the shoutout! Anytime!

grem28

Waaa Waaa Waaa iPhone scratchs waaa. I kept the plastic on the back of my White iPhone until I could get to the store and spend $24 on the (*)Speck PixelSkin case. So now it looks like a white milk carton. But no scratches, and now I'm not afraid of the phone slipping out of my hand.

Yea, there are a lot of crap-aps out there, but in Gizmodo we trust to review them saving us much time, right?

RedBackFur

I find the Buzz anoying and at work it happens with 3 phones of diff types in the work place, since we can have music on low through our speakers it can be bad some times. I will have to try leaving 3G on since I was leaving it off just to save power (not surfing my phone at work, just the web on the work compuer, hehe) I also noticed when I wanted to use my iPhone as and iPod in my car attached to a cassette adapter I got the buzz through the speakers. So I hope leaving 3G on at those times it keeps the buzz down. I will try and let you know.

ivanwolf

I hear that the iPhone is going to release a new app that will let me read my ebooks... any word on that?

tiffanyrules

Just gotta' call from AT&T store near my place where I placed an Iphone 3G order 10 days ago. They want me to pick my phone up.. yippie !! Now i'll pay more for AT&T.. sheesh! lol

igotsnakeeyes