What's up with the iPhone Carrier Update?

If you checked for updates for your US-based iPhone in iTunes in the last day or two, you should have seen this:

The standard Apple explanation from the Knowledge Base:

iTunes 7.7 and later has the ability to update the carrier specific settings on iPhone with iPhone 2.0 software or later. Carrier settings updates are small files (about 10k) that are downloaded from iTunes to be installed on your iPhone. The carrier settings can include updates to the default APN (how iPhone accesses the carrier's cellular data network), special dialing codes at Settings > Phone > [Carrier] Services, default settings for Stocks, Maps, Weather, and other items.

So what's actually in this update?

Logo replacements, apparently, for AT&T's upcoming MicroCell service (at the time of this writing, the page is in maintenance mode). 2 images, light and dark versions of the image on the left (courtesy of MobileCrunch). Commenters at The iPhone Blog also confirm the revised connectivity image. Our own commenters note that Apple has added settings for the Mobily network (Saudi Arabia) and Etisalat (United Arab Emirates) in this update as well, which adds weight to the expected 2/15 launch of the iPhone in those countries.

Editor's Note: Canadian and European customers report no carrier update for them, which is understandable considering the AT&T-centric content of this update. To all of our international readers, if we got you all excited about this update, our apologies for your disappointment. With the exception of Jason, we don't have non-US iPhones to test with, so we often can't say for sure whether a specific update is universal or domestic-only.

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Source: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/02/06/what-was-in-that-att-…

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Software Update iPhone

If you checked for updates for your US-based iPhone in iTunes in the last day or two, you should have seen this: The standard Apple...

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Johnny

iPhone carrier? it was done with wire phone service. It just takes collective action and a federal mandate. If America had been as phobic of such things back during the original telephone rollout, 10% of the country would still lack phone service. I got one software from http://www.copy-dvd.org to test its function. I got the yx510 and it works great. I wish I'd done it long ago

May 05 2009 at 4:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ikt

Don't do it! It updates the baseband and relocks your phone. I was careful not to do the apple update on my 3g, thankful that i had the .28 baseband-but itunes kept harassing me to do the "carrier update" and guess what it does? Updates your baseband, relocks your phone.

February 12 2009 at 12:18 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dkusa

Here's link: www.wireless.att.com/3gmicrocell/

February 08 2009 at 10:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dkusa

Check out link on ATT Site about Microcell and click active buttons. Ready to launch.

February 08 2009 at 10:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

vandil

Hate to break it to you, but much of the Internet flows through US servers and equipment.

If the US turned off Internet traffic exiting/entering the US, the global Internet would immediately die or reduce in effectiveness to be effectively dead.

And the domain is .com not .co.uk or .co.fr, so technically this is a US-based site.

February 08 2009 at 10:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Igor

I'm in Portugal and just instaled this update as well...

So, Europeans included!!

February 08 2009 at 9:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Curdo

Just connect my iPhone to the MBP and got a carrier update for Vodafone Portugal.

February 08 2009 at 5:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tim

You want TUAW (of which most of its writers are US based) to talk "to the whole world when it writes an article?" Don't you think that's oh I dont kmow, maybe a tad bit unreasonable? Perhaps you should relax a little bit and realize that no one is trying to slight you and that different blogs have different focuses. As a side note, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the iPhone (and some of its updates) are going to be stratified based on the nation it's being sold in.

February 08 2009 at 4:09 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

brlinux

My local carrier Claro here in Brazil did the same updade one week after the iphone was avaliable in stores *(fix EDGE NETWORK) and another with the same message 3 weeks later *(fix 3g suport when the phone is on other network)

February 07 2009 at 8:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

wally

new and first update to include mobily carrier
in saudi arabia

February 07 2009 at 5:50 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply