
iPhone 3.1 Firmware Upgrade Crippled My Device


Installing iPhone 3.1 Firmware update crippled my device (iPod or iPhone). Immediately following the upgrade my phone has become completely unreliable. Often to the point of being maddening. The infuriating part is that unlike any other known operating system in the history of computing, there is NO UNDO! That is to say; if and when, for WHATEVER reason, the latest firmware update is incompatible with your device, there is NO REASONABLE fix whatsoever; the official responses to date mostly have been that the hardware is broken you have to buy a new one.. (proven WRONG by the many who have UN-DONE the dysfunctional OS). In the past, should an update 'bork' your system, you would be sad that you couldn't bask in the glory of the new OS, but you could SAFELY and easily REVERT to the OS (firmware) you JUST HAD 10 minutes ago and have a FUNCTIONAL, USEFUL device. Apparently the latest OS was deemed 'so perfect' there was no longer any reason to consider going back (other than the 10s of 1000s or even 100s of 1000s of iPod/iPhone users affected by this bug). The view to post count ratio forums all over the globe is about 100:1.. i would suspect logically to conclude that about 50x the people posting actually have the problem, the rest are just trying to gleam an answer. As of the writing of this petition, The author has tallied up roughly 500,000 views on forums all over the world talking about this problem. In signing this petition, I am affirming that my device was affected by what has become to be known as the iPhone 3.1 Coma bug, and I'm claiming that it is a monopolistic and unfair and troublesome decision to DISALLOW the removal of a non-functional firmware with the replacement of the PREVIOUS firmware that actually works. Case in-point.. when a recent newest baddest os for home computers came out, let's call it smissha.. clobbered millions of computers because they didn't have enough horsepower... the user quickly pulled out the install discs for the previous OS and REVERTED to a functional OS on a functional computer. The POINT of this petition is to get a head count of those affected, and to influence the software maker to make better judgements in the future regarding how to handle software upgrades that have the ability to severely hamper the productivity of millions of users. What is clear to a point of fault: there is some defect in the iPhone 3.1 Firmware update that makes it LESS compatible with SOME devices. This is not a case of damaged or abused hardware, but made PAINFULLY CLEAR by the FACT that a 'strong armed' REVERT to OS 3.0 CURES the device of the 'coma bug'. The only fair solution is to at the VERY LEAST, actually let the end user REVERT to the last state of the device, perhaps a disk-image of the entire device to restore it exactly as it was, just in the case of catastrophic failure, which is what has happened in the 1000s of cases world wide where the 3.1 Firmware update is NOT COMPATIBLE with OUR devices, regardless of the fact that many or most aren't affected. The installing software STRONGLY IMPLIES that the case will be.. that 'if this doesn't work, you can restore your phone 'as was'' because the very last thing before any firmware update is that the installing software does a backup of your device.. there can be NO other EXPECTATION from an end-user than a backup means I can restore what i had just before starting, that is the ONLY logical conclusion from a direct reading of the notices! The opportunity cost to the end-user in loss of productivity, the missed calls, the apparent 'ignoring' of incoming calls, the non-delivery of voicemail, the hundreds even thousands of hours driving to 'genius bars', waiting a week or more, not to mention the gas, and other energy expended QUITE easily has reached well above seven figures collectively, and NOT likely it's less than eight. It's 'killin us'. Give us back our working productivity HELPING devices rather than our productivity HAMPERING devices. In summary, I'm signing this petition because: 1) My device was crippled to some degree by the iPhone 3.1 Firmware Upgrade 2) I was absolutely unaware that the pre-install 'backup' was useless. 3) I have spent TOO much time trying to repair due to the 'no undo' policy 4) My future purchasing decisions will be STRONGLY weighted by this 'no undo' policy 5) I believe software maker in my opinion did a HUGE disservice to it's client base 6) I am VERY concerned about the future of strong-arm practices like this 'no undo' policy
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