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How do I upgrade my Apple iPhone to firmware 2.0?

I'm excited to add the many new capabilities and improvements to my beloved Apple iPhone, but have heard that the jump from 1.1.4 to 2.0 completely wipes your phone. Can you show me how to step through this firmware upgrade and reassure me that my contacts, photos, music, etc will all be there on the other side?


Dave's Answer:

The release of the second generation of iPhones has been an event of surprising excitement. I even have friends who camped out in front of the local Apple Store overnight to be able to say "I'm the first!" for the new 3G phone.

However, many of the benefits of the new phone, including notably the new system software and many upgraded applications, along with being able to access the new Apple iPhone Applications Store, are available to first generation iPhones with just a little upgrade...

Here's how it worked for me...

First up, the cheery message that there WAS an upgrade when I connected my phone to a Mac running iTunes 7.7 (yes, you need to upgrade iTunes first. If you haven't, just choose "Software Update..." from the Apple menu):

iphone 2.0 available

Well, heck yeah, I'll accept that upgrade!

iphone 2.0 download install

I choose "Download and Install" since I really want to have it happen, not just collect the software for later application. Now I get the first of a couple of warning messages:

iphone 2.0 download install backup

I'm good with that - I like that it automatically backs up everything and restores it all when done. If that works properly, this could be the least hassle upgrade ever.

Now it tells me that there's a download in progress:

iphone 2.0 downloading

Want more information? On the left side of iTunes, while there's a download in progress, you'll see "Downloads" under the store section. Click on it and you can see how far along you are and how big the update is:

iphone 2.0 downloading 2

Eventually it finishes up and it's time for the Dance of the Progress Bars...

iphone 2.0 backing up

and

iphone 2.0 extracting software

and a'one and a'two...

iphone 2.0 preparing restore

Not done yet...

iphone 2.0 restoring

Let's progress just a bit more...

iphone 2.0 verifying

And one more for luck...

iphone 2.0 restoring firmware

Finally, about 10-15 minutes later, we've completed the dance and get the delightful confirmation:

iphone 2.0 restored reboot

And that's where I hit the brick wall of too much popularity:

iphone 2.0 itunes store too busy

For reasons I don't fully understand, even though my phone is ostensibly fully updated to the 2.0 software and fully restored, there's one last visit to the iTunes Store that needs to happen for things to work, and the extraordinary popularity of this upgrade is clearly more than the Apple servers can handle.

End result? I have a temporarily (I hope!) dead iPhone that can only make emergency calls and is otherwise completely useless. I have tried for the last 45 minutes to complete this last step and just see this same error over and over again.

I'll stop my blog entry now so I can publish it and hopefully you'll have better luck, but you may just want to not be a bleeding-edge adopter like me. Losing my cellphone for the day is going to be a big drag, needless to say!

Update! After hours of failure, I got it to work. Here's how it finished up...

I unplugged and replugged-in the iPhone, and here's what I saw:

iphone 2 restoring backup 2

A bit more time passes, and...

iphone 2 restoring backup 3

That's what you want to see!

When the phone does resurface in iTunes, for just a minute you'll see that it's empty, but then the automatic restore kicks in:

iphone 2 restoring music

Finally, after some time passes, there's a new tab in town:

itunes 7.7 iphone 2 tabs

And under the Applications tab...

itunes 2 applications

Time to sync? Here's something new:

iphone 2 sync applications

Finally, finally, we've got an iPhone running version 2.0 firmware. Congratulations!

Wondering how to download applications in iTunes? Check out my tutorial: download applications from the Apple iPhone Apps Store. If you haven't been here before, this site also has a huge amount of iPhone help to peruse too.



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Comments

Can you update to Firmware 2 if you have an un-locked phone or will the software lock the phone again.

Thankyou

Neil

Posted by: neil at July 17, 2008 2:58 AM


I have a lot to say, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!









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