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?
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):
Well, heck yeah, I’ll accept that upgrade!
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:
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:
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:
Eventually it finishes up and it’s time for the Dance of the Progress Bars…
and
and a’one and a’two…
Not done yet…
Let’s progress just a bit more…
And one more for luck…
Finally, about 10-15 minutes later, we’ve completed the dance and get the delightful confirmation:
And that’s where I hit the brick wall of too much popularity:
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:
A bit more time passes, and…
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:
Finally, after some time passes, there’s a new tab in town:
And under the Applications tab…
Time to sync? Here’s something new:
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.
i have iphone apple but i don’t know how can update and softwear instolation plz help me
How do you get it to work on the last step? Please help me.
I have just downloaded some applications, but when i go to sync my applications the applications tab is not up the top along with music, videos etc. Please help me?
Was trying to get some applications from itune store n it’s telling me to get n account,but I am in Nigeria n cAn’tdoes dis mean I won’t b able to get stuff?
Is it possible to sync my applications on itunes on my iphone 1.1? Or I must to upgrade the firmware?
abc xyz, you’re right: I had a dead phone for a short period, I unplugged it and replugged it in, to have it resync and take the next step in the process. I have read in various places that Apple is having a hard time keeping up with the demand on iPhone updates and reauthorizations on the AT&T cellular network and that there can be delays of up to 48 hours right now (the weekend of June 20, 2009). I’d try every few hours and rest assured that it *will* work once they’re not quite so busy.
Now, seems to me that if you’re updating your Dad’s phone without permission, you have another problem too. 🙂
When i followed these steps, all i ended up with was an emergency call only situation and when i tried to connect to itunes, it said the sim was no longer supported. I presume this is what happened to you when you had your error message, but you failed to say how you fixed it. Please could you reply asap as the phone is/was my father’s and i feel extremly bad about it – also, i fear the punishment may be severe.
Thanks – and PLEASE HELP ME!!!
i have to no for sure that i can update download new applications to the first apple iphone the 8gb is it possible that i can do that so i can keep my phone updated so i wont have to buy another one
I tried to upgrade my jailbroken iphone (original) fro 1.1.4 to 2.0 and all i get is the emergency number thing. the itunes area says my sim card is not supported any longer? what now it is useless to me. any ideas i would sure appreciate it. My thanks for taking the time to help.
seems scarry for me, what can i do if it wont recover after hours….
Can you update to Firmware 2 if you have an un-locked phone or will the software lock the phone again.
Thankyou
Neil