by Charles Fawkes

Created on: October 15, 2009

Apple released an update to the iPhone OS on Thursday of last week. Will this help with reported downfalls of iPhone OS 3.1.1?

One of the best aspects of modern day smartphones is the ever increasing pace of updates. These new additions of your phone's OS can bring mighty features and fixes. But they can also make your gadget quite unusable.

Apple pushed an update to the iPhone and iPod touch users on October 8th to fix some shortcomings in its last update (iPhone OS 3.1.1).

Since the last update, iPhone users had complained of a few issues with their phone. Some had experienced what is being referred to as "iPhone coma". This is when the iPhone would not come out of its sleep mode. Without being able to come out of sleep, the iPhone must be reset in hopes that it doesn't happen again the next time.

There were also reports of network issues after the last update. IPhone OS 3.1.2 is supposed to cure spotty network coverage for users.

Other users reported incidents of their iPhone crashing when streaming video. The update will also fix this issue, according to Apple.

I think these quick updates are fantastic ways to fix bugs in the iPhone OS. I also commend Apple for being quick on the draw to keep its customers happy.

But when new bugs are introduced along with the updates (as was the case for iPhone OS 3.1.1) it is bad for the iPhone's reputation.

Will users start skipping updates, waiting to see if it is stable before applying it to their own handset? It's a possibility. At least Apple and AT&T aren't experiencing T-Mobile's and Danger/Microsoft's woes. Looks like the trio lost all their Sidekick customer's data (you read more about that here).

I know that in other OS atmosphere's, users will wait for reports on an operating system before installing it. This is the case with Ubuntu (a GNU/Linux OS) as well as obviously with Microsoft's Windows OS. Microsoft's last OS, Vista, was barely adopted and their next, Windows 7, is running the same risk.

On a side note, I have had both iPhone OS 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 on my iPod touch. I have good news that I have not experienced any issues with either one. My iPod Touch has been working perfectly with both versions of the operating system.

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