iPhone Firmware 2.1 On Its Way Shortly

Yesterday Apple began providing developers access to the next major iPhone update — version 2.1. (I say major update because it’s rumored that Apple and AT&T are already working on a minor update — version 2.0.1 — which will address a number of bug fixes.) The two biggest features of the new 2.1 iPhone firmware are enhanced location-finding and background push notification.

The enhanced location-finding feature involves iPhone being able to determine cardinal direction and velocity, both of which are necessary for implementing the turn-by-turn direction functionality requested by many iPhone users (myself included).

Meanwhile, the background push notification will actually be a service that addresses a key limitation of Apple’s iPhone SDK: the inability to run apps in the background (i.e. have AIM running while sending an email or watching YouTube videos, etc). As it stands, in order to use a program like AIM you must keep it running in the foreground. As soon as you exit the program to do something else, the connection is lost in that you will no longer receive IMs instantly. However, once the background push notification service is up and running, new IMs will be sent as notification messages (similar to when you receive a new text message) and you’ll know to go back into AIM if you want to respond.

Currently there’s no official release date for iPhone 2.1, but Apple has mentioned previously that the background push notification service would be launching in September so it shouldn’t be too bad of a wait. I don’t suppose there’s anyway we could maybe get some data tethering is there Steve?