The iPhone Blog reports that Apple is taking steps to investigate numerous reports of reduced battery life from iPhone OS 3.1 users. The company’s AppleCare division has reportedly begun contacting users complaining about the problem in its support forums, asking users a series of questions about their battery life issues.

An undisclosed number of users who have posted on Apple’s discussion boards about poor battery life following the iPhone 3.1 software update are being contacted by AppleCare helpdesk with a hefty list of 11 follow-up questions. These questions focus primarily on the usual battery culprits, email (especially push), WiFi and Bluetooth, and App Store apps. Number 10, asking “When you notice a power drop, does it seem to be a legitimate power drop, or rather an issue with the battery icon indicator?”, is certainly interesting.

Users are also being sent a “Battery Life Logging” configuration profile for installation on their devices. The configuration profile reportedly tracks battery usage data and syncs it to iTunes, where users are asked to send the data back to Apple for analysis.

Update:
Download:
iPhone 2G EDGE 3.1 ipsw Download
iPhone 3G 3.1 ipsw Download
iPhone 3GS 3.1 ipsw Download

Today, Apple released a new firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There’s a ton of new and improved features in this awesome new update. The update will also be able to take advantage of the new Genius feature for apps to help users users find new apps that may be of interest based on past purchases and will also allow wireless downloading of new pre-cut ringtones.

• Improved syncing for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos
• iTunes U content organization
• Redeem iTunes Gift Cards, codes, and certificates in the App Store
• Display available iTunes account credits in the App Store and iTunes Store
• Save video from Mail and MMS into Camera Roll
• Option to “Save as new clip” when trimming a video on iPhone 3GS
• Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
• Remotely lock iPhone with a passcode via MobileMe
• Use Voice Control on iPhone 3GS with Bluetooth headsets
• Paste phone numbers into the keypad
• Option to use Home button to turn on accessibility features on iPhone 3GS
• Warn when visiting fraudulent websites in Safari (anti-phishing)
• Improved Exchange calendar syncing and invitation handling
• Fixes issue that cause some app icons to display incorrectly

The iPhone OS 3.1 firmware is free for all existing iPhone customers and iPod touch users already running iPhone OS 3.0. iPod touch users running earlier firmware versions can upgrade to iPhone OS 3.1 for $4.95. You can update via iTunes.
Note: If you have a jailbroken/unlocked iPhone or jailbroken iPod Touch, you will loose that jailbreak and/or unlock until the iPhone Dev Team come to the rescue so do NOT update unless you know you want to or you know what you’re doing. You have been warned!

Download:
iPhone 2G EDGE 3.1 ipsw Download
iPhone 3G 3.1 ipsw Download
iPhone 3GS 3.1 ipsw Download

source: apple.com

With the announcement from AT&T that the MMS Carrier Update rumors started circulating that iPhone OS 3.1 will appear alongside the AT&T MMS Carrier Update on September 25.

Many sites are pointing to Know Your Mobile as the source of the rumor. That story, however, appears to be a slight embellishment of claims made by FSMdotCOM last week. FSMdotCOM’s report, in turn, quotes a ModMyi user who noticed portions of MMS functionality in the iPhone OS 3.1 beta and who reportedly received word from an AT&T representative that MMS would be enabled by the end of the month in backing up a previous FSMdotCOM report from early August simply claiming that MMS functionality would be coming “later this summer” after the launch of iPhone OS 3.1.

Further confusing the issue is that the follow-up FSMdotCOM report citing the ModMyi claim was made in late August, and the end of the month has come and gone with no sign of MMS on AT&T. Other sites, however, didn’t pick up on the story until September, and some have misinterpreted the report to be claiming an end-of-September timeframe.

All of the claims seem to stem from the original FSMdotCOM report from early August that simply noted what was already known or reasonably surmised.

The information i just got from my AT&T ninja , seems to be the same as “later this summer”. He told me that AT&T will enable MMS for its users once the new iPhone firmware 3.1 will be released . Released date for the new firmware is not certain, all we know is that it will be released towards the end of August or early September.

This is not to discount the possibility of iPhone OS 3.1 being launched next week with MMS from AT&T coming along for the ride, as it is a reasonable guess based on Apple’s introduction of iPhone OS 2.1 at last year’s event and MMS being turned on by default in iPhone OS 3.1 betas, but claims of anything more than speculation appear to based on little solid information at this time.

Ars Technica reports that the latest version of the iPhone OS 3.1 beta seeded to developers last week contains an updated configuration file that references two mysterious products known as “iProd0,1″ and “iProd1,1″. A “iProd0,1″ reference was initially found back in March in a version of the same configuration file in an iPhone OS 3.0 beta release, but this “iProd1,1″ addition appears to be new.

The iProd1,1 device has been assigned a new productID of 4762 (versus 4757 of iProd0,1) and assigned a different ConfigurationDescriptor of “standardMuxPTPEthernet.” iPhone models also have this designation, and the additional interface identified in the plist for this configuration is “AppleUSBEthernet.” The consensus here seems to be that the new device may have gained high-speed networking capabilities — though the iPhone uses the interface to tether to a laptop to share its 3G connection.

“iProd0,1″ suggested that the device was simply a prototype, but the new “iProd1,1″ version may be a device that’s ready for public release or public announcement.

What exactly is this “iProd” device, well, that remains a mystery but speculation is fun and people speculate it’s Apple’s rumored tablet computer, however, it’s unclear whether that device would run iPhone OS or something more like Mac OS X. Possibilities noted by Ars Technica include a next-generation iPod Nano rumored to include a camera or perhaps an “iPhone Nano” that everyone’s been waiting for. Personally, I think it’s an iPhone that will be released to the Verizon network. Rumors coming from TWiT.tv’s podcast MacBreak Weekly suggests an iPhone will be released to Verizon in the very near future.

References to unreleased products “iPod2,2″, “iPod3,1″, and “iPhone3,1″ also appear in the configuration file. The “iPhone2,1″ device discovered in a similar manner in January eventually turned out to be the iPhone 3GS.


- source: arstechnica.com

Apple has released the iPhone OS 3.1 Beta 3 (Build 7C116a) to registered developers. Along with the OS beta release, Apple released iPhone SDK 3.1, Beta 3 (Build 9M2808). Both downloads are available only to registered developers through Apple’s iPhone Dev Center.

Changes are yet to be explored and listed.

Apple is reportedly relying on new developer tools present in iPhone OS 3.1 to deploy augmented reality applications that are capable of overlaying live video from the iPhone’s camera with real-time data.

Wow, that was quite fast! Apple, yesterday, released iPhone OS 3.1 Beta and SDK to developers for testing. This firmware will pack quite a hand full of new features that people have been asking for since the release of the iPhone OS 3.0 firmware.

Features found so far:

• Trimming video clips on the iPhone 3GS now offers the ability to save the edited version as a copy rather than simply overwriting the original file.
• Voice Control over Bluetooth is now available, allowing users to Initiate calls and control music playback via Bluetooth headsets.
• MMS is now enabled by default, but still not supported by AT&T.
• iPhone vibrates when rearranging Home screen icons.
• A “Fraud Protection” toggle is now available in Safari settings.
• iPhone startup and shutdown and app launching times have improved.
• New APIs allow developers of third-party application to access and edit videos.
• OpenGL and Quartz have seen improvements.

Just like other beta firmwares, this requires you to have a developer account with Apple.

- source: macrumors.com