TUAW Mailbag: your iOS 4.1 tips and tribulations

The first one (above) is actually a bug with iMovie 1.1, although the app was updated yesterday and requires iOS 4.1. As you can see, reader Sean P. is still seeing a glitch in iMovie for iPhone that makes clip trimming a haphazard affair.

Eric B. reports that the headphones he received with his "iphone 2g" (we're thinking he meant the 3G) now work, whereas before 4.1 but after 4.0 they did not.

John T. tells us "the iOS4.1 upgrade somehow 'recovered' clued 2+ weeks of lost voicemails that I really wish I had received, well, 2 weeks ago." He reports others have seen this as well -- have you?

Joseph T. says there's good news for Bluetooth headset users who jam out on their headsets: "...the new AVRCP profile allows Bluetooth headsets to FINALLY skip forward and rewind."

A few of us noticed it, but Jonathan L. wrote in to point out the icon for "deleting" an email in Gmail accounts has changed to indicate that you're not deleting, you're archiving the email. Instead of a trash can, you now have an arrow pointing to a file cabinet. If you want to go back to trashing email, however, you can set this in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > choose the account (Gmail only) > Turn OFF "Archive Messages."

Jeff V. reports a welcome enhancement regarding app updates on the phone: "Guys, I haven't seen anyone cover this yet, nor do I know if it is a really big deal, but now in iOS 4.1 you can download and install more than one app at a time. Up to three at a time from what I see. I noticed this while updating some apps on my iPhone after updating to 4.1. I had twelve updates, told it to download all, and then it started downloading 3 of the apps at the same time (I have a screenshot showing the three blue install bars at the same time). Again, I thought this was nice, and I wasn't expecting it, so I figured I would pass it along in case you hadn't noticed."

Reports from our commenters on the next page.

Confucious says, "On my camera, it actually did appear to fix the yellow tint issue in low light situations."

Stephen notes, "Finally my (3G) phone works properly again, after weeks of getting more and more interested in Android by the day. I can even make phone calls again."

EIM takes the good with the bad:
"The 3G update works great on my wife's phone. Much faster and less crashes! However, the 4.1 on my 3GS seems to have picked up an interesting feature - the Power/sleep/hold button works sporadically - usually not working. I can't seem to turn it off - I'll be attempting a restore shortly to see what happens." and follows up with, "Finished the Restore and the button still isn't working - time to go see Apple..."

Michael M. sends this list:
"Done earlier today. So far, impressed with a couple of things. on my updated iPhone 4:
a. Look MA the bars stay on and there's a LOT of them. With the deathgrip in a known deadzone, was able to not only use the phone, but also to use the web as well to access facebook, foursquare, etc. Very nice.
b. Did not have the proximity problem so that's nothing I can report on.
c. seems zippier as well.
d. HDR...not happening for me. Love the Pro HDR app and will continue to use that one until the next rev when Apple figures this out.
e. Game center...have not even launched it.
Watching the app updates come in and well...let's go from here."

lens42 sends another list:
"For those wondering about moving from 3.1.3 to 4.1, I upgraded my wife's 3G to 4.1, and left my 3G at 3.1.3. Here are the results. All the tests were done with WiFi. Two 8GB 3G iPhones tested side by side.

Full Power Down - 4.1 is 1s to 3s faster
Power Up - 4.1 is about 5s faster!
Slide to Open - 4.1 is 1s faster
Safari Open - tie
Mail Open - tie
Loading Engadget - 4.1 is a bit under 1s faster
Opening Settings - 4.1 is 1s SLOWER
Opening Google Earth - tie
Spinning globe in Google Earth - 4.1 is very slightly jaggier, stutters a bit more than 3.1.3. Can't quantify.
Opening Youtube - tie
Starting Youtube Clip - 4.1 about 2s SLOWER"


A number of apps like Contacts, Remote, iCamcorder, iPod, and others load about 0.5s slower on 4.1, but they also close about 0.5s quicker.

In summary. It seems like 4.1 holds it own vs. 3.1.3 in responsiveness except for starting Youtube video and Google Earth animations. I'm not a software guy so I can't explain any of it. I did most of these tests a few times. Some of the longer time differences varied from test to test. The numbers I show are sort of an eyeballed average."

Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
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