FW2.1 Review
source:
Bigboss Blog
When 2.0.2 came out, I wrote a nice post about how iPhone firmware 2.0.2 sucks. Now 2.1 is out and let me tell you, it is fantastic. Let us get started.
1) 3g reception is so much better. The new baseband, v2. 11.07 comes with 2.1. The baseband is so much better. For the first time ever I can actually get 3g in my house! 2.0 came with 1.45.01 which was ok. 2.0.1 came with 1.48.02 and it was horrible. 2.0.2 came with 2.08 and it was much better (similar to 1.45). Now 2.11.07 is way better than any of the previous versions. This is a serous improvement. Note: 2g reception is identical. The baseband on 2g did not update. No better, no worse on 2g.
2) Appstore Works! Apple finally solved the app mapping issue (sort of). I have been bitching about this problem since 2.0. Once you have a lot of apps or certain apps installed, AppStore becomes basically useless. Many people have experienced a spinning wheel of death after installing an app because the iPhone Springboard mapping agent had to remap all the files on the iPhone everytime something was installed. This has been solved via a cache file. So new apps get added and the file does not need to be rebuilt everytime. The result: you can use your AppStore! And Cydia! Yay.
3) The lag is gone. Finally all the lag is gone! I can type an SMS and not be 20 letters ahead of the iPhone. Overall speed is equal to 1.1.4 again. Finally.
4) Sync time is fixed. While it used to take 30-120 minutes to backup my iPhone, now it does not. Apple finally realized that my computer with an internet connection can also pull the files off appstore. Instead of backing up my files, it just remembers what I had installed and downloads it again in iTunes. This is how it should be. The backups are usable again.
5) Mail sync. For the first time, I restored my backups and the mail app did not crash. No need for bossprefs: fix user dir permissions this time around. It just works how it should.
How To Restore Your 2.1 Backup
source:
Bigboss blog
So you have jailbroken your 2.1 and it worked well. You went and restored your backup and all of a sudden it wont boot. Just apple logo! So, grumbling in anger, you start all over and go to restore your backup, and same thing. Now you have to type in all your contacts from scratch, right? Wrong.
There are two common issues you may face when restoring your backup:
1) iPhone wont reboot - just apple logo and maybe vibration every 10 seconds.
2) iPhone backup works fine. But now you only have a few icons. Cydia is missing. What can you do where did all your icons go?
The answers to these follow.
First, to address issue #2, missing icons (because this one is easier). This occurs because you had installed categories and moved a bunch of files into folders. When you restore, your springboard plist will be restore and that contains a bunch of hidden icons. Here are your options
1) Prevent this situation by unhiding icons and/or deleting your folders before you do yoru final backup before you upgrade
2) After your jailbreak ends, before you restore your backup, install some things that will help you such as: openssh, poof, bossprefs (any of these you did not have installed before would be great). Here is a prioritized list of options:
a) Install Poof if BossPrefs was hidden install BossPrefs if Poof was hidden. Either of these can completely unhide all your apps. If both were used and hidden then move to B.
b) If settings is available, run that. Enable restrictions, disable restrictions. All your apps will be visible. If settings was hidden, move to C.
c) SSH into the iPhone with scp or ssh. Navigate yourself over to /var/mobile/Library/Preferences and delete com.apple.springboard.plist. Respring your iPhone by typing 'killall SpringBoard' into SSH or, if you don’t know how to do that, just reboot. All your hidden apps will be visible.
The first issue, the iphone that wont reboot, can be caused by a couple things. One is having 5 icon dock installed and then restoring the backup without it installed. To prevent this, install 5 icon dock prior to restoring the backup. Also install openSSH before restoring your backup. In worst case event, you can ssh in and delete /var/mobile/Library/Preferences/com.apple.springboard.plist. This should let the iPhone boot up.
Note: if you had jailbroken and decided not to jailbreak 2.1 you are screwed. You must jailbreak to fix this.
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