When Apple released iOS 5 out into the wild yesterday, things didn’t exactly go according to plan. Okay, that’s probably putting it a bit lightly – it was an absolute mess.

Users who eagerly attempted to update their devices were met with one of several issues along the way. Due to the volume of people trying to download the update at once, the servers became unstable, and some were met with long waiting times just to download the update – or worse, the dreaded error 3200, among others.

In some of the more extreme cases, users were reporting that their iPhone was temporarily ‘bricked’. Fortunately, most of the errors, including the temporary bricking of iPhones, seem to have been fixed now that the servers aren’t under such a heavy load.

The issues users were experiencing downloading the update may be more or less over now, but new problems are beginning to pop up for users who have successfully updated their device. Over on the Apple support forums, users are reporting application crashes, lost applications, iCloud syncing issues, missing contacts and, even worse, a complete bricking of their device after updating to iOS 5.

Apple has yet to release a statement about the issues users have been experiencing, but with the volume of people voicing their complaints over on Twitter, Facebook and even the Apple support forums, it’s safe to say they’re at least aware of it.

Have you experienced any problems after updating your device to iOS 5?

Sources: Apple forums, InformationWeek, USA Today

iOS 5 launch disaster continues, users still reporting problems is a post from: The Inquisitr

Are you sick and tired of that old iPhone you’ve been using for a few years now? Are you ready to make the jump over to Windows Mobile 6.5 and possibly to a future Windows 7 Phone? If you are the newest T-Mobile promotion might be for you.

Under the plan customers can turn in their iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS devices and receive anywhere from $100 to $350 off the price of the HTC HD2.

Currently you’ll receive Windows 6.5, however early rumors are pointing to a Windows 7 upgrade as soon as that OS is released.

I’m not sure how many iPhone users will be willing to jump ship, but if you have to move over to T-Mobile for some reason and you don’t want to jailbreak your iPhone this could be a good route to take. Then again as we reported yesterday the HTC HD2 has once again sold out at T-Mobile so you might have to wait for a while. [TmoNews]

T-Mobile Offers Up To $350 If You Trade Your iPhone For An HTC HD2 is a post from: The Inquisitr

Want an iPhone 8GB, 16GB or 32GB but can’t stand those annoying sign on the dotted line contracts at AT&T. If you don’t mind paying a hell of a lot more for the phone you can now grab a contract free device from Apple Store locations.

The units include the 8GB unit at $499, 16GB device at $599 and the 32GB’s for $699.

The move is more than likely in response  to the  Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus arriving at AT&T in the next few months and the recent release of the Google Nexus One with AT&T 3G support.

Personally, the mobile market is finally getting exciting to me again, when Apple is taking measures to protect themselves in a market they were cruising along in for the last several years,  it’s a good sign of better things to come for the market. After all competition leads to new innovations and Apple is definitely seeing a whole bunch of competition these days.

Introducing The Contract Free iPhone, Now Available at Apple Stores…Still Locked is a post from: The Inquisitr

UK wireless carrier Vodafone has announced that they will begin selling various versions of the iPhone in January 2010. Users who choose the right plans will even be able to pick up their devices for free! While they may be a little late to the iPhone game, it’s still a welcomed edition to the companies arsenal of available devices.

Customers who agree to a £35 per month plan can pick up the iPhone 3G for free, while iPhone 3GS units are available with 16GB on a £45/month device and a 32GB version is available for  £75 a month. All options include a standard 2 year contract.

One big drawback at this time for Vodafone customers is the 1GB per month data limit, although free WiFi is available and they do allow tethering for an additional £5 a month with a  500MB data limit.

iPhone 3G and 3GS Coming To Vodafone In January 2010 is a post from: The Inquisitr

The official release of the iPhone 3GS on UK wireless carrier Orange is just one week away and with that time frame the company has officially announced their iPhone pricing packages for both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS devices.

Users who are willing to sign a 2 year contract with an 8GB iPhone 3G can have the phone for free with a £29.36 or higher monthly package. Move up to a £122.34 ($200) offering and they’ll bump the device to the 32GB 3GS at no cost, other than the $4800 you’ll spend with your contract over two years.

Users looking for a “pay as you go plan” don’t fair quite as well with the 8GB 3G at £343 ($561) and the 32GB 3GS running £539 ($881).

Orange UK Shows Off iPhone 3G/3GS Pricing is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Inquisitr has teamed up with the eXpansys-USA team to give away 3 different iFrogz iPhone 3G/3GS cases. These are high quality cases that provide ultimate protection for your iPhone devices.

The cases provide a hard shell plastic casing that’s still very sleek with it’s metallic facade, yet they offer a “velvety soft touch.”

With the iFrogz iPhone 3G Soft Touch Crystal Case Luxe you’ll still have access to all of your phones buttons, ports and sensors, while having the piece of mind you want when protecting your device. The case also comes with a screen protector for added protection.

We have one of each color to give away: Blue, Red And Green (as pictured).

How To Enter The Contest: (Sorry but only U.S. visitors for this contest)

Just leave us a comment on this page telling us why you want the case and what color you want. We’ll announce the winners in one week (November 4th). Please don’t comment as “Guest” as we have no way to contact you.

Again, a special thanks to eXpansys-USA for providing the free wares.

Inquisitr Giveaway: Win A Free iPhone 3G/3GS iFrogz Case is a post from: The Inquisitr

iCringe

iTwinge is ultra low power and powered by your iPhone. It doesn’t require any software and is attached within 1 second.

As an iPhone 3G S owner, I’m not sure this one is for me. I’m not ready to improve my typing speed yet, but it could be a great tool for Blackberry switchers. They can’t type without tactile feedback.

According to Mobile Mechatronics the iTwinge is released today or tomorrow:

On Thursday September 16th Mobile Mechatronics will launch the iTwinge™! The world’s first commercially available iPhone® keyboard

Shipments begin November 19th or November 12th, depending on which page you are currently reading on MobileMechatronics.com.

Who will buy one first?

iTwinge – The keyboard for your iPhone is a post from: The Inquisitr

There have been plenty of iPhone overheating rumors, heck some claims even point to the consumer friendly devices acting less than consumer friendly when they burst into flames. Now there appears to be a picture of one such occurrence posted by a Dutch blog.

If the pictures are real it looks like the iPhone 3G took a pretty good toll on the vehicle in question.

Albeit there is really no way to tell if this exploding iPhone scenario is in fact the real deal or another elaborately placed practical joke. Either way the idea of a Steve Jobs created device attempting to destroy an entire vehicle will always brings a smile to my face. It almost makes me wanna take my Macbook off my lap as I type this story. [via Gizmodo]

iPhone 3G Bursts Into Flames. Scorches Car Seat is a post from: The Inquisitr

According to many rumors we can expect a new iPhone in June or July. Let’s say the Apple Developer Conference in San Francisco from June 8-12 could be a great place to announce the new iPhone.

I won’t bore you with the technical details in the iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3, but instead tell you what you can expect from the new iPhone.

• Close all open Safari windows. In iPhone OS 2.x you can’t close all Safari browser windows. You have to open a blank window to close the “last” window. With 3.0 you can close even a single window.
• Numeric update on the battery indicator. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, then you probably already have this, but with 3.0 you can toggle battery percentage on/off.
• Push notifications. Do you want your notifications from 3rd party apps as sounds, alerts and/or badges?
• Data detection in more apps. The iPhone recognizes phone numbers and emails now, but the detection will be enhanced in 3.0. You can now add the info to your address book (yes, that’s very advanced.)
• Video recording and auto-focus. It might take more than just an upgrade to OS 3.0 to record video. According to rumours the new iPhone will support video recording, but no video on iPhone 3G. (Again if your iPhone is jailbroken you are probably already recording videos.)
• Voice control. No many details on this yet, it sounds fancy, but most cell phones (Nokia) already support this.
• Playback and scrubbing. You can now listen to your podcasts at variable speeds and better navigate tracks.
• Copy and Paste.

Some of these features might seem pretty standard, but they are dearly missed.

iPhone 3.0 beta firmware reveals more features on upcoming iPhone is a post from: The Inquisitr

To celebrate, Apple is hosting a contest worth over $10,000 (yes, that’s not a typo, Apple is giving away prizes worth $13,746!!!) The prizes are: 17-inch MacBook Pro, 32 Gb iPod Touch, $10,000 iTunes gift certificate and an Apple Time Capsule.

To enter the contest all you have to do is visit the Apple 1 billion app countdown contest page and sign up or download an app from the App Store. You can make 25 entries per day.

At the same time Apple has revealed the 20 most popular paid and free apps. I’ll just give you a few seconds to guess the top 3 ones.

Crash Bandikoot, allRadio and Texas Hold’em are the top 3 paid apps, while Facebook, Labyrinth Lite Edition and Touch Hockey are the top 3 free apps at the time of writing.

For a service that has existed less than a year, this is a spectacular milestone. I guess I’ll write a similar post around February next year.

(While I’ve written this post there are “only” 36,055,610 downloads left, so you better hurry.)

App Store about to celebrate 1 billion downloaded apps is a post from: The Inquisitr

Banned In The U.K.

The most recent case involves an iPhone 3G commercial that shows users surfing the Net at superfast speeds. The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the spot exaggerated the phone’s speed, showing Internet activity far faster than any regular user would experience. A disclaimer at the end stating “network performance will vary by location” was not sufficient, it said.

Apple responded to the initial complaints by claiming the ad showed “relative” speed and was meant to demonstrate how much faster the 3G iPhone was than past devices. The ASA, however, didn’t buy it.

Common Trend

This is becoming a surprisingly common trend for Apple. The company saw another iPhone ad banned in the U.K. back in August. In that instance, the ASA said the ad’s claims that “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone” were misleading, as the iPhone didn’t support Flash or Java. (Apple said it only meant to imply that you could get to any Web site with on the phone, not that any Internet technology would necessarily work on it.)

Just a couple of months before that, a lawsuit was filed against Apple for its ads suggesting the iPhone 3G is “twice as fast” as past models.

And, looking even further back into the calendar, the cases keep coming. This past March, Apple settled a suit over ads for its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks complaining that the computers didn’t support “millions of colors” as their ads had claimed. And back in ’04, the ASA banned a spot for the Power Mac G5 that stated it was the “world’s fastest personal computer.” Independent testing found a couple of Dell systems were in fact faster.

Putting It All Together

So is Apple a little lax when it comes to making bold and superlative-filled claims? Or are people just too fast to nitpick and jump at any opportunity to stick it to a big name corporation?

In this instance, I have to lean toward the former. While they may be nitpicky, the complaints — particularly those recognized by the ASA — do seem to have validity. You don’t see other major tech corporations being banned from the airwaves this frequently, and the public is certainly just as eager to stick it to Microsoft or any number of other big name entities.

Ultimately, you’d think Apple would take some extra caution in its claims and its commercial presentations at this point. You’d think it would do that anyway as part of a moral obligation to its customers. But particularly with its ever-expanding history of issues, it’s hard to believe that the folks signing off on the ads haven’t figured out that exaggerations — even in the slightest ways — are going to get called out.

What’s the Deal with Apple and Misleading Ads? is a post from: The Inquisitr

So where’d they come from? A full 47 percent deflected from Verizon. T-Mobile accounted for 24 percent of the users, and Sprint took up 19.

The study also says the 3G phone has grown iPhone’s smartphone market share from 11 percent, before the new phone came out, to 17 percent now. While the iPhone dominated sales over the summer (followed by the RIM Blackberry Curve and RIM Blackberry Pearl during the period of June to August), it’s the second-best selling overall phone in America. Motorola’s RAZR V3 holds the top spot, according to NPD.

Think the Android G1 can inspire any measurable amount of carrier-switching when it comes out later this month? T-Mobile’s certainly hoping so. The company is shooting for sales of 400,000 to 500,000 devices in the remainder of 2008 alone. The G1 is set to become available October 22, with pricing starting at $179 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. (Data plans will run $25-$35 a month, and a separate T-Mobile voice plan is also required.)

T-Mobile, by the way, recently set up a G1 emulator where you could check out a simulation of the mobile software. Oddly, the URL now returns a “403 Forbidden” error. That can’t be a good sign.

iPhone Inspired Carrier-Switching — Can G1 Do The Same? is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’ve only just now upgraded as I had to wait for the Pwnage team to release their latest version that supported the update (I like having streaming video at hand, even if my data cap restricts my use).

The result is best expressed in pictures before and after, showing 3G bars from the exact same location: my home office, sitting at my desk

Full bars vs nearly none at all before. Now being the weekend I don’t get a lot of calls on my mobile, so I can’t vouch for the drop out issue being fixed, but presuming that the issue is strongly linked to signal strength, I’ll tentatively add that issue to the fixed list as well.

It’s good news for Apple and iPhone users after speculation that the issues were related to dodgy 3G chips and that Apple may have had to recall the phone to fix it.

I haven’t had any crashes yet relating to apps, but given they came at odd times previously, it’s too early to tell. There were other issues, such as iTunes 8 deciding to uninstall all my apps and removing all my sync settings, but this is a minor inconvenience on the path to having a decent phone to talk on again.

Finally, Apple might have fixed the iPhone 3G is a post from: The Inquisitr

i.TV delivers users relevant and up-to-date TV and movie listings based on their current location and other customizable settings. The service includes rich background information for most programs, including celebrity photos, biographies, show synopses, ratings, and reviews. Users can sort options that make it easy to organize television listings according to categories such as channel, show, and genre.

On the social side, i.TV includes a number of community features, including the ability to recommend shows to friends via email, star ratings and user reviews. The app also delivers trailers and other rich media so users can interact around that, or just sit back and taste test.

The app should be available on iTunes shortly if you’re in the US or Canada, and the price is a winner: completely free.

Louis Gray has some screenshots.

i.TV offers a movie and TV guide for the iPhone is a post from: The Inquisitr

An e-mail said to be from Steve Jobs indicates a new update slated for September. The update will fix a bug that causes the phones not to load some third-party apps at startup, AppleInsider reports. The site says a user had e-mailed Jobs and then received a one-line personal response:

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September.”

The app issue is the latest in a line of widespread problems for the iPhone, which started right off the bat with the activation day meltdown. MobileMe problems followed, and then, most recently, we’ve seen the well-reported coverage and dropped call woes.

Still, Apple is doing all right on the whole: A consumer satisfaction study made public this week shows the company scoring a record-high number, with 85 percent of its users saying they’re happy. The next highest-rated company, Dell, came in 10 percentage points lower.

Of course, that survey was probably taken before the iPhone came out. Are people still satisfied?

Another iPhone Fix on the Way? is a post from: The Inquisitr

MG Seigler at VentureBeat reports that post update he’s getting better 3G coverage in San Francisco, but there appears to be no official word yet as to whether the upgrade included a patch for the problem.

Obviously if they can fix it via software update, everyone wins, however I sort of can’t upgrade it yet. I couldn’t resist running Pwnage on my 3G iPhone so I could install Flixwagon for live video streaming. A test video below on the subject. I’ll add Qik to the mix as well later in the week to see if there’s any noticeable difference.

iPhone 2.0.2 the magical 3G Fix? Whoops, I can’t upgrade yet is a post from: The Inquisitr

iPhone 3G users worldwide have reported ongoing issues with 3G call quality, including signal issues and call drop outs, and I’m among them. BusinessWeek reports two sources saying that Apple hopes that the software remedy will fix the problem and negate the need for an iPhone recall. Notably any question of the problem being real or imagined has been put to rest, so if you’re experiencing issues as well, they are real.

As per our earlier report, the problem does seem to lie with the Infineon 3G chip in the phone, although it will be interesting to see if a software fix can do the job alone. Either way, please hurry up Apple!

Could iPhone Salvation be a Software Fix Away? is a post from: The Inquisitr

A quick search of Google finds that I’m not alone. Here are a few samples of similar issues with iPhone users on the Optus network. There was an outage a couple of weeks back, but not reports since. Thing is, I can’t find people complaining that their Nokia’s are having similar issues, simply because they’re not. The natural assumption I made is that the issue is with the Optus network, but could it be the iPhone itself?

GigaOm reports that the issue may be with the Infineon 3G chip used by the iPhone:

Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities in a research note today said: “We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain Infineon is the 3G supplier.”

Windsor writes that the problem isn’t likely to be solved with firmware updates, which means Apple could have to replace the chips so users get the performance they were promised. If the chip is the problem, this would be the second large chip failure this summer, with Nvidia’s faulty graphics chips placed in thousands of laptops grabbing most of the headlines so far.

Could Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G to repair the faulty chips? Telco’s never like unhappy customers, and there is growing noise around this issue. They are not going to take the blame if the issue is hardware related, and that puts immediate pressure on Apple to act. If it is further proven that hardware is to blame, there is also the risk of Government intervention, at least in Australia and other nanny-state nations where Governments can and do intervene to force product recalls of faulty products.

I still love my 3G iPhone, but I’d also like it to work. Apple, please fix this issue.

iFail: Will Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G? is a post from: The Inquisitr

The new iPhone IS a gaming platform.

Om Malik over on GigaOM asked the same question this morning, and noted figures from Cellufun that iPhone users are playing games at a rate four times that of other mobile phone users. And why wouldn’t they? the phone is built for gaming. Full color, decent sized screen, easy to navigate a game by touch or moving the phone, as opposed to the cumbersome keying required by other phones.

Figures from Apple also prove the premise. 8 of the top 10 paid applications on iTunes are games. Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D sits on top from Texas Hold’em and Super Monkey Ball. The ridiculously stupid iPint sits on top of the free applications list.

My own challenge at home is to balance my sons use out so it doesn’t kill my phone. As per my walkthrough the other day, I upgraded my old cracked iPhone to 2.0, and one of the driving reasons for that was to offer it to my son on occasion. I’m even considering the need for an iPod Touch just for him to play games, and considering the cost of games on competing devices such as the Nintendo DS, the Touch would be a bargain. Sure, iTunes doesn’t have the range of games available quite yet, but with such a strong uptake, expect a variety of additional choice as the year goes on.

The new iPhone IS a gaming platform is a post from: The Inquisitr

Step 1: Update your iPhone to the iPhone 2.0 software using iTunes.

On a Mac, plug in you iPhone, enter iTunes, click on the iPhone via devices in the sidebar. You’ll see Version and some buttons, if it isn’t telling you your iPhone is up-to-date, click Check for Update. If it has detected the need for an update, update the phone to 2.0.

Step 2: download and run Pwnage 2.0

Download available here or visit the iPhone Dev team site here for mirrors if this link isn’t working. Safe rule is to download from a mirror on the site, not others, as you don’t always know what you get.

You’ll also need to download the Bootloaders here.

Run Pwnage Tool (look for a pinnaple icon in your downloads folder).

Step 3: follow instructions

The Pwnage Tool may ask you for your iPhone file and Bootloaders, or it might find them no problems. Point them in the right direction. You have downloaded the bootloaders, and iTunes will have a copy of the 2.0 firmware

Step 4: Don’t panic

The Pwnage tool will compile a new loadable version of the firmware for your phone. When asked “are you legit iPhone,” hit no if you’re upgrading from a jailbroken iPhone. This is very important in activating the phone later, I was thrown by it the first time and hit yes. If in doubt, hit no anyway.

The Pwnage tool may ask for a system password, this is to write the new file, give it to them.

The last stage here will ask whether your iPhone has been pwned before. This is for users who have unlocked the iPhone previously with earlier versions of the Pwnage tool. I previously used ZiPhone so I hit no, if in doubt, hit no.

Step 5: DFU fun

The Pwnage tool will now try to put your phone into DFU mode presuming you hit no to the last step. This is where it got hard for me.

Firstly I couldn’t get it to go into DFU mode at all, and continually got a failure message. The trick to get past this stage is to enter terminal, and enter the following:

mkdir “~/Library/iTunes/Device Support”

Simple as that. If you are caught here just start the process again, follow the steps, and you’ll get to the same screen. At this stage the PwnageTool walks you through how to put your phone into DFU mode. I tried this over and over again with absolutely no luck. It turns out that at this stage you have the file anyway, so you don’t have to use Pwnge to put the phone into DFU.

Step 6 (if required) put your phone into DFU manually

Attach the phone to your Mac
Turn the phone off
Hold power and home together for 10 seconds exactly
Release power but keep holding the home button until iTunes pops up and recognizes the phone.

and that’s it. Note in DFU mode you should see nothing on your screen, if you see anything, try the steps again.

Step 7: restore using iTunes

iTunes will deliver a message along the lines of “phone in restore mode.” At this stage you need to restore the phone using the file Pwnage has created. To do this, click on the Restore button in iTunes while pressing the Option key, doing it this way allows you to pick the restore file for your phone. Pick the file from your desktop of where ever Pwnage created it, then let iTunes do its thing.

Step 8: patience

At this stage you just have to sit back and let the software install. You’ll hit some screens on your iPhone about flashing memory, loading bootloader etc, the only tip here: just don’t touch or unplug your iPhone during this process.

If you’re more comfortable with pictures, Sleepers.net has a walk through here.

Upgrading a hacked 2G iPhone to iPhone 2.0 is a post from: The Inquisitr