Right. So everyone is plenty excited to update to 2.0.2 to fix all those nasty bugs in 2.0 and 2.0.1 right? Well don’t bother. As far as I can tell it fixes nothing… unless you are on a 3g.

Before I say any more, I will say that the 3g baseband update to 2.08 provided me with a significant increase in signal bars for EDGE. I still cannot get 3g in my office, but my EDGE went from 2 bars to 5. If you have a 3g device, I suspect this, alone, is worth the update. Note though, the baseband update will probably neuter your ability to unlock with the upcoming unlocker from the dev team. Other benefit noted is that 3g to EDGE fallback now can occur without losing service which is nice if you’re on a call and it switches during you call.

Now then. The official release notes for the 2.0.2 firmware says “bug fixes”. So what bugs are fixed?

Reports on the internet say these bugs are fixed:

Sync time: Sync time with appstore apps takes forever. And I mean in the range of 1-2 hours. Anyways, this is not changed on 2.0. The sync time is stll horrible.

Stability: So far, 2.0.2 has crashed for me more times than 2.0 and 2.0.1 combined. In fact, the device managed to crash just sitting idle doing nothing! I mean literally the iPhone was in the dock and a few minutes later, apple logo and rebooting. App crashes have actually increased since the update. I have two devices updated and both exhibit the same behavior. If you are looking for increased stability, stay 2.0.2 does not provide it.

Contacts Lag: I never saw contacts lag in the first place and I still don’t see it now. Perhaps that is because I’m a hermit and don’t have enough contacts :)

Signal Bars: Ok significant gain due to 2.08 baseband for 3g. If you have a 2g, you do not get a baseband update and there will be no change here. This means if you were unlocked on 2g you will still be after the upgrade. When pwnage comes out, upgrading with pwnage will disable the baseband update (most likely) and you will not benefit from this. I am not sure if I get 3g from more locations around town or not though. I will take my iPhone out for a drive and test it. Update: I actually do get 3g more than I did on 2.0.1, but the same as I got on 2.0. 2.0.1 really was horrible for the 3g baseband.

AppStore / Cydia Lag: This is the most ridiculous bug and it’s still not fixed. Want to reproduce it easily? Install “Platinum Sudoku” followed by “Super Monkey Ball” and good luck ever installing anything from Cydia or AppStore again. It’s not as bad if you avoid the above two app installs, but it still is a pain in the back side. This is still not fixed. Our only hope is that Saurik can neuter this in Winterboard/ Mobile Substrate.

Mail Sync: As always, my mail crashed after I restored my backup just like 2.0, 2.01 etc. I can’t believe Apple would allow this problem to continue. Anyways, BossPrefs ‘fix user dir permission’ solves the problem. I guess it’s another example how the hacking community managed to fix one of Apple’s bugs. For those that don’t jailbreak? Well, I guess you can’t restore your backup.

Tags: 2.0.2