iTunes 8.2.1 Now Available

Well, iTune 8.2.1 is out and available for download. For all you people out there with jailbroken iPhones running on the 3.0 firmware, I would advise that you not upgrade to this version until the dev teams see what the differences are in this new version. It has been verified that the new iTunes will not sync with the Palm Pre, which was one of the features that was possible with the iTunes 8.2 version that was released on June 1st. That was inevitable in my opinion. Apple doesn’t want anyone but Apple using their features.

Apple claims that there are some minor bug fixes, but I’m quite sure there is alot more than that going on. They are on the losing end of the cat and mouse game being played with the iPhone hacking community, even though software has been created that is totally independent of  iTunes’ use to jailbreak iPhone 2G, 3G, and 3G S. It has been rumoured that the new software being released will send information about the iPhone to Apple. I’m quite sure that the information will tell Apple if your iPhone is unlocked or jailbroken. That feature could be present in the iTunes update as well as the 3.1 firmware which will be released soon. I advise that you steer clear of both until we can found out what Apple has up their sleeve.

With the new iPhone 3.0 firmware upgrade, there seem to be a ton of complaints about iPhone 2G, 3G, and 3G S having issues with the wifi working on the phone. It seems that the iPhones ability to maintain signal strength has been hindered in some form from the new update. Apple has said that the way the wifi is set-up on the 3.0 Firmware has been altered in order to increase battery life when wifi is in use on the iPhone (6 hours iPhone 3G, 9 hours iPhone 3G S).

Judging from the huge amount of complaints on the Apple discussion board, they have missed the mark. I upgraded one of my 1Gen iPhones and my wifi stopped working all together. It seems to be a random problem from iPhone to iPhone, but the fact that it is occurring on all 3 generations of iPhones seems to indicate that it is definitely a software issue. This may explain the quick release of 3.1 Firmware soon to be available.

Currently Apple has released the iPhone SDK 3.1 beta 2 to developers, which is usually a good indicator that a public release of the official firmware is right around the corner. I’m sure they will also attempt to patch up more of the security holes that were exploited on the 3.0 firmware as well as fixing the wifi problems. Lets hope that this firmware update will be the solution and allow us to have fully functioning iPhones again…