Fourth iPhone 2.1 beta takes out push notification feature
A new test version of Apple's next iPhone firmware update has disabled a key service that will allow background data for native apps, with no clear sign of when it will return.
While beta 4 of the iPhone 2.1 update comes with Apple's typically unspecific references to bug fixes, it explicitly withdraws support for the push notification service that will send Internet data to third-party apps even while they are shut down.
The feature has been present from beta 1 onwards and is still poised to supply directional GPS data as part of its upgrades.
Apple provides little explanation for the removal and says only that the notification code has been pulled for "further development" inside the company -- with no mention of whether it will reappear in a future beta.
Taking the service out of the beta version puts non-Apple developers at a temporary loss, making it impractical for them to further development of new apps and updates that will depend on live, always-on data until the feature is returned to these handsets.
The final version of iPhone 2.1 is nonetheless planned for an appearance sometime in September.
While beta 4 of the iPhone 2.1 update comes with Apple's typically unspecific references to bug fixes, it explicitly withdraws support for the push notification service that will send Internet data to third-party apps even while they are shut down.
The feature has been present from beta 1 onwards and is still poised to supply directional GPS data as part of its upgrades.
Apple provides little explanation for the removal and says only that the notification code has been pulled for "further development" inside the company -- with no mention of whether it will reappear in a future beta.
Taking the service out of the beta version puts non-Apple developers at a temporary loss, making it impractical for them to further development of new apps and updates that will depend on live, always-on data until the feature is returned to these handsets.
The final version of iPhone 2.1 is nonetheless planned for an appearance sometime in September.
Comments
Taking the service out of the beta version puts non-Apple developers at a temporary loss, making it impractical for them to further development of new apps and updates that will depend on live, always-on data until the feature is returned to these handsets.
Not taking a service that isn't ready or that is buggy out would have been the better solution? If the feature needs further development then why would developers want to mess with it at this point? Out sequence. First things first.
Not taking a service that isn't ready or that is buggy out would have been the better solution? If the feature needs further development then why would developers want to mess with it at this point? Out sequence. First things first.
Considering safari just crashed on my iPhone while I was attempting to compose a reply, I also applaud a return to releasing on reasonably unbuggy software.
Or is it just for ADC Premier and Select members?
The iPhone software as it stands is the worst crap Apple's ever released, at least in my memory. The fact that thousands of people are reporting in Apple's forum alone regarding having to constantly reinstall their entire phone over an as-yet not understood app synching bug that causes each and every app to crash until a phone wipe says that the Apple has fallen a great distance from its tree. Personally, I am simply hoping for a return to the reliable, solid OS foundation that made iPhone OS 1 a joy to use for the tasks it was designed to accomplish. This is still a phone, it needs responsive menus (including contacts), and things that run on it should run like it's an appliance. This is a major differentiator between Apple products and other crap most of us were stuck with in what we thought was our past and it should be given Apple's absolute highest priority now or we'll just be dealing with another Microsoft or Sony in the eyes of the consumer the company's in the process of trying to capture. The iPhone is the first device most will use from Apple, and it will most certainly be the last if some major bugs (3G/EDGE fringe zone call handling also) are not resolved immediately and given the kind of personal attention and communication Apple reps give when you call Apple Care. Hiding in a cave and providing sparse, vague feedback won't make it go away and it won't make Apple's most loyal customers continue their allegiance.
I think this more of a hardware issue.
Immature, poorly made components assembled in a hurry. I'm sure the testers are getting a lot of random results, its a product produced 'down' to a price point...with the obvious results.
I think this more of a hardware issue.
I think you might be right regarding the 3G issues, but unfortunately the app issues are not the result of hardware problems. The work I've been doing to work around the bug reveals a problem with simple file naming and/or pointers and what iTunes does with application files being synched with devices and with the store itself, along with updates that come through. It's almost looking like the application icon is built on the phone during sync but the pointer references a file that doesn't exist on the iPhone (ie one without a number appended to it). What's bad is the underlying OS doesn't seem to have any form of recovery, because from that point on no apps can be loaded excepting the core applications which come as part of the base software.
I wish we could blame Infineon for poor OS design but unfortunately this looks like a test scenario that simply was overlooked in haste.
For those of us that have suffered from this issue, for EVERY failure it has cost us the 2 hours to completely erase our phones followed by having to set our phones up from scratch because we can't use the backup (try this with 60 apps). I can't count on my phone to store data. The only app I can trust using that stores data on the phone is OmniFocus because their team was smart enough to use server-side sync for all the data. If everyone did that, it would be fantastic.
I think you might be right regarding the 3G issues, but unfortunately the app issues are not the result of hardware problems. The work I've been doing to work around the bug reveals a problem with simple file naming and/or pointers and what iTunes does with application files being synched with devices and with the store itself, along with updates that come through. It's almost looking like the application icon is built on the phone during sync but the pointer references a file that doesn't exist on the iPhone (ie one without a number appended to it). What's bad is the underlying OS doesn't seem to have any form of recovery, because from that point on no apps can be loaded excepting the core applications which come as part of the base software.
I wish we could blame Infineon for poor OS design but unfortunately this looks like a test scenario that simply was overlooked in haste.
fair enough, i bow to your superior knowledge
The iPhone software as it stands is the worst crap Apple's ever released, at least in my memory. The fact that thousands of people are reporting in Apple's forum alone regarding having to constantly reinstall their entire phone over an as-yet not understood app synching bug that causes each and every app to crash until a phone wipe says that the Apple has fallen a great distance from its tree.
Most of the discussions have nothing to do with having to constantly reistall?
In fact, most of the problems would have been resolved or wouldn't have crept up at all if more had followed directions in the first place or simply used HELP.
Funny that the USER satisfaction studies show that the iPhone is getting near or over 90% favorable results on basically everything about the product.
With the 8-9-10 million iPhones out there now, there are sure to be issues. But as anybody that has taken the time to peruse the discussion forums, disregard the redundant comments, those losing data by "replacing" rather than "merging" during the syncing process, and the best example of just an ignorant complaint, "Just today alone my apps has been set to USA $ and now its in German. how do i get it back to UK ££? iTunes also changes language," and the real number of issues drops significantly.
Most of the discussions have nothing to do with having to constantly reistall…
But I'll tell ya, the ones that do are heavily visited in the forums. No one has an answer that isn't 'engineering intensive'.
...most of the problems would have been resolved or wouldn't have crept up at all if more had followed directions in the first place or simply used HELP.
Totally agreed. That definitely seems to always be the case. It amazes me the issues that come up that people could resolve with two minutes of ingenuity and/or a help file.
Funny that the USER satisfaction studies show that the iPhone is getting near or over 90% favorable results on basically everything about the product.
90% of all the people that have the phone probably don't even know they can install applications (or they simply didn't buy the phone for that purpose). And among those in the 90% that have, most are likely not installing more than a few and don't work to hard to constantly update and sync the device, which is where the problems start.
The best part for those 90% (and for Apple) is they don't know how good things were with the original device and with iPhone OS 1, provided you didn't need 3G and didn't want all the add-on apps. Someone who's had both and is less of a power user like my wife would say the new phone is crap compared to the old one. She doesn't know what causes the thing to fall short, all she knows is the software is not nearly as responsive and she drops a lot more calls.
At the end of the conversation, that's really all that matters. But if you come from having another phone, I guess the superiority of the iPhone OS interface and product usability and feel are compelling enough to be in the 90%. This won't cut it when they try to turn volume in corporate America and they know it. That's why they'd rather squash these bugs in 2.1 I think.
With the 8-9-10 million iPhones out there now, there are sure to be issues. But as anybody that has taken the time to peruse the discussion forums, disregard the redundant comments, those losing data by "replacing" rather than "merging" during the syncing process, and the best example of just an ignorant complaint, "Just today alone my apps has been set to USA $ and now its in German. how do i get it back to UK ££? iTunes also changes language," and the real number of issues drops significantly.
Probably much like yourself and many others on this forum, I've been an active user of Apple products, switching hundreds of folks over to the platform from Windows and spending all my free dollars (almost to the point of stupidity) because Apple products 'just work'. No one who's been a supporter would consider it acceptable to say that users should be required to know what's going on underneath when even the most basic bugs create challenges. Sure, everyone should be smart enough to figure out how to change a setting back the way it was, but expecting a user to know that the operating system appended a number to a filename in a folder when they synced their phone causing a catastrophic error?
If you're saying you think users should be able to figure that out, I'd have to disagree. All they're doing is synching their phone. They don't know and shouldn't have to know how iTunes and iPhone OS parse files and which filenames they are looking for. They shouldn't have to know that iTunes doesn't know when a version of an app is the same or different. They shouldn't have to understand why iTunes continues notifying for updates that have already been downloaded to an iPhone that has already been synched, only to say there are no updates when the user checks. They shouldn't have to look in About to see if an app has been updated when they know they already downloaded it and synched the phone. And they shouldn't have to know when iTunes considers part of a sync a merge or a replace.
They click on a sync button, and they expect their phone to sync. This is what has traditionally made Apple products great. They just plain work.
We've been talking about computing devices as 'appliances' or 'toasters' for 15 years in this industry and Apple was really the first company to turn the personal computer into a true appliance through tight HW/SW integration. Extending that power to a phone should create that same experience in light of the fact that, outside complaints about coverage and associated dropped calls, that's the user experience everyone's generally gotten with less extensible offerings over the years.
Apple's biggest challenge is that the phone's lineage is that old reliable brick on the wall in our houses while the personal computer's lineage is fraught with the need to understand what's going on under the covers. 24 million buyers a year (or at least 23 million of them) really don't give a rat's _____ what's going on and shouldn't be expected to know, whether we (the techies and power users) like it or not.
Right now there are over 2000 comments over three days in just one of the threads I was reading regarding the app issue. Is that a small number compared to the install base? Yes, but remember these are the people who are resourceful enough to find the forum and based on the replies resourceful enough to try things that no user should have to try to make their phone work.
I see novices and experienced engineers alike trying to solve this problem. End result: phone just doesn't work as it should... well, at least anything beyond dialing using the number pad and core email and browser functions when you include the 3G issue and refresh delays.
iPhone 1 is proof that this is a remarkable device. These issues must be addressed before REAL mainstream adoption (Best Buy and other reach distribution channels beyond an ATT store, as well as the folks sitting on the sidelines until bugs get worked out, money comes available, old contracts end, or the holidays come and they get one under the tree).
The publicity build going on right now is far more important than any that came before release to the overall success of the product, and what I hear from people I know that haven't bought the thing and know I buy everything Apple makes without reason are things like "I hear 3G doesn't work and coverage sucks" or "How many times have you had to reload your phone now" or even "I bet you keep your phone plugged in to a charger wherever you go, don't you?" That's the real marketing going on right there.
Throwing more kindling (features) on the fire is not the best idea and based on Jobs' MobileMe internal memo and this feature delay, it sounds as if this is exactly the approach Apple has had the foresight to take.
But I'll tell ya, the ones that do are heavily visited in the forums. No one has an answer that isn't 'engineering intensive'?Throwing more kindling (features) on the fire is not the best idea and based on Jobs' MobileMe internal memo and this feature delay, it sounds as if this is exactly the approach Apple has had the foresight to take.
Would love to read your comments, but the length of the paragraphs makes it difficult. Suggest you break them up. Thank you.
Would love to read your comments, but the length of the paragraphs makes it difficult. Suggest you break them up. Thank you.
Understood! Consider them edited and broken now (see above). Quite a diatribe as well - sorry for that.
Except in bed. That leads to a mad girlfriend.
I suspect the push function was suffering from the same issues that I'm having with MobileMe. It simply doesn't work that well. Hopefully they have a decent fix in the works.
As for applications on the iPhone. I've had good success in deleting the current application and reinstalling the updates. I NEVER have been able to update applications from either the iPhone or iTunes. Synchronization is also spotty so I usually end up re-downloading application updates on got iTunes and the iPhone. Very un-Apple like but it works.
I'm just wondering if Apple is handpicking developers to receive the beta because I am in the iPhone Developer program ($99) and I do not see it when I log in.
Or is it just for ADC Premier and Select members?
I"m a Premier ADC member and I don't have access to it either. It apparently depends on when you accepted into the developer program. I know those accepted before July 11th have access to it.
Most of the discussions have nothing to do with having to constantly reistall?
[...]
Nice post!
The iPhone software as it stands is the worst crap Apple's ever released, at least in my memory. The fact that thousands of people are reporting in Apple's forum alone regarding having to constantly reinstall their entire phone over an as-yet not understood app synching bug that causes each and every app to crash until a phone wipe says that the Apple has fallen a great distance from its tree. Personally, I am simply hoping for a return to the reliable, solid OS foundation that made iPhone OS 1 a joy to use for the tasks it was designed to accomplish. This is still a phone, it needs responsive menus (including contacts), and things that run on it should run like it's an appliance. This is a major differentiator between Apple products and other crap most of us were stuck with in what we thought was our past and it should be given Apple's absolute highest priority now or we'll just be dealing with another Microsoft or Sony in the eyes of the consumer the company's in the process of trying to capture. The iPhone is the first device most will use from Apple, and it will most certainly be the last if some major bugs (3G/EDGE fringe zone call handling also) are not resolved immediately and given the kind of personal attention and communication Apple reps give when you call Apple Care. Hiding in a cave and providing sparse, vague feedback won't make it go away and it won't make Apple's most loyal customers continue their allegiance.
Not my experience re. app crash and phone wipe. I only have a small number of downloaded apps and this could be why I'm having zero challenges. Having moved from the Treo 650 to the 3G - I can attest to hundreds and hundreds of crashes on my Treo 650 with numerous firmware updates and reloads to get things working properly.
Also, I watched my 3G seamlessly switch between 3G and Edge during a 2-hour presentation on Friday. I'd heard about this problem yet had never looked into it. Was sending Twitter updates (I like iPhone interface much, much better than web except when a call comes in and wipes my Twitterriffic Premium msg) and saw it go back and forth.
"90% of all the people that have the phone probably don't even know they can install applications (or they simply didn't buy the phone for that purpose)."
60 million downloads as of two weeks ago suggests otherwise.
"The best part for those 90% (and for Apple) is they don't know how good things were with the original device and with iPhone OS 1, provided you didn't need 3G and didn't want all the add-on apps. Someone who's had both and is less of a power user like my wife would say the new phone is crap compared to the old one. She doesn't know what causes the thing to fall short, all she knows is the software is not nearly as responsive and she drops a lot more calls."
I am not having a problem with calls being dropped. But then, perhaps my 3g service area is covering my needs. Your wife could shut 3g off and then would be able to tell if it is a coverage issue.
"No one who's been a supporter would consider it acceptable to say that users should be required to know what's going on underneath when even the most basic bugs create challenges. Sure, everyone should be smart enough to figure out how to change a setting back the way it was, but expecting a user to know that the operating system appended a number to a filename in a folder when they synced their phone causing a catastrophic error?"
Agree.
"And they shouldn't have to know when iTunes considers part of a sync a merge or a replace ?They click on a sync button, and they expect their phone to sync. This is what has traditionally made Apple products great. They just plain work."
And just how do you do that without asking the question first. You may delete or update data on one appliance and only you know if you really want to do the same an apply it on the other. For some, the priority would be their computer, for others the their iPhone. But their are days when the opposite would be true. No software can read your mind.
"We've been talking about computing devices as 'appliances' or 'toasters' for 15 years in this industry and Apple was really the first company to turn the personal computer into a true appliance through tight HW/SW integration. Extending that power to a phone should create that same experience in light of the fact that, outside complaints about coverage and associated dropped calls, that's the user experience everyone's generally gotten with less extensible offerings over the years."
The demand for more creates more variables and thus more issues, real or perceived.
"Right now there are over 2000 comments over three days in just one of the threads I was reading regarding the app issue. Is that a small number compared to the install base? Yes, but remember these are the people who are resourceful enough to find the forum and based on the replies resourceful enough to try things that no user should have to try to make their phone work."
Again, a quick perusal discloses the same redundant comments, not following directions and just plain silliness.
"I see novices and experienced engineers alike trying to solve this problem. End result: phone just doesn't work as it should... well, at least anything beyond dialing using the number pad and core email and browser functions when you include the 3G issue and refresh delays."
"I see novices and experienced engineers alike trying to solve this problem." Unfortunately that is the problem. Too many chefs. My advice on these forums is to direct them to the appropriate Apple Support site, to the HELP menu and/or if I recommend an alterative specific solution, I provide a complete reference/link.
Unfortunately, most of the helpful hints are not supported or have lost some of the proper guidance in the transitions.
"The publicity build going on right now is far more important than any that came before release to the overall success of the product, and what I hear from people I know that haven't bought the thing and know I buy everything Apple makes without reason are things like "I hear 3G doesn't work and coverage sucks" or "How many times have you had to reload your phone now" or even "I bet you keep your phone plugged in to a charger wherever you go, don't you?" That's the real marketing going on right there."
Yes there are issues, however, how real or bad are they. Much of the complaints can be resolved with a little due diligence. I (and my clients, students and friends) for one, haven't had an issue that for the most part wasn't self-inflicted, a misunderstanding, ignorance or just plain stupidity. The balance I can live with knowing that Apple will resolve them.
However, what irks me most is that I find the majority of dissenters are just trolling, never had an iPhone, used MobileMe, and will dis Apple at the drop of a hat.
"Throwing more kindling (features) on the fire is not the best idea and based on Jobs' MobileMe internal memo and this feature delay, it sounds as if this is exactly the approach Apple has had the foresight to take."
Can't totally agree. Seems that most of those that display patience, read the directions and not be guided by conspiracy theorists, are very happy. Sales, market penetration, customer satisfaction and the voices of true pundits/experts only support it.
Yes there are issues, however, how real or bad are they. Much of the complaints can be resolved with a little due diligence. I (and my clients, students and friends) for one, haven't had an issue that for the most part wasn't self-inflicted, a misunderstanding, ignorance or just plain stupidity. The balance I can live with knowing that Apple will resolve them.
I agree.
Their is a growing list of freinds around me who are getting the iPhone. Largely are having no major problems. They aren't computer experts and know nothing of these list of complaints on the internet.
However, what irks me most is that I find the majority of dissenters are just trolling, never had an iPhone, used MobileMe, and will dis Apple at the drop of a hat.
I agree when I see some of the more outrageous complaints. I find them very difficult to believe. People who are just trolls and Apple haters.
I agree iPhone OS 2.0 is not as stable as 1. There are indeed bugs that Apple needs to fix. By in large once you step away from the internet and out into regular life. The people I see with iPhones are not having the difficulties and problems of the so called computer savvy on these internet lists.
I think this more of a hardware issue.
Immature, poorly made components assembled in a hurry. I'm sure the testers are getting a lot of random results, its a product produced 'down' to a price point...with the obvious results.
When the hardware manufacturor has listed several other companies using it's chips in their 3G phones without issues .. nope .. this most likely a software issue. I think I would blame the hardware if iTunes didn't uninstall the apps I've bought via the appstore and then only reinstall once I've downloaded again via iTunes.
It's OK really .. anything with a .0 on the end is pretty much not completely baked anyway. Usually I don't do .0 releases but MY wife wanted the iPhone 3G .. I figured what the hell because Apple usually is better then most. Not this time.
And WTF is up with cut/paste/copy .. this has existed on MacOS for decades and on other phones for YEARS. Bad, bad form not to include it.
And WTF is up with cut/paste/copy .. this has existed on MacOS for decades and on other phones for YEARS. Bad, bad form not to include it.
Apple has said its on the to-do list and is coming soon. It just wasn't high priority.
Their has been some speculation Apple is still trying to figure out the best touch gesture for copy/paste. Once they pick one they are stuck with it forever.