You can download it from iTunes. Changes include:

Fewer in call set-up failures and fewer dropped calls
Much better battery life
Less third party app crashes
Faster contact list loading
Less time to back up the iPhone
Genius playlist creation
Option to wipe the phone after ten passcode fail attempts.
More reliable email fetching, particularly from Exchange and POP
Better txting performance
More accurate 3G signal display
Repeat alert for smses for two additional times

I’m updating this from my iPhone using the WordPress app, on the bus from NYC-DC.

I definitely am looking forward to plugging the phone into iTunes and updating. Particularly getting faster backups after the 2.1 update.

The plan may be in the range of $30 bucks a month, since that is where the tethering plan for the Blackberry is at right now.

Of course you can do this “unofficially” for free (though you will probably be fined if you are found tethering) if you jailbreak your phone. My handy guide to that is found here.

I probably won’t be doing either anytime soon… I’ve found 3G to be really slow recently. =(

I’m going to base a lot of this on my personal experience.

You could either

1. Sell it directly yourself

or

2. Sell it at a discount to a service that will then sell it themselves

Read on for my experience / tips selling your iPhone, and for how to do no. 2 should you decide on that as well.

I think the first idea that comes to mind for most people would be to use eBay.

I’ve personally tried to sell my iPhone one a few occasions on eBay. Did not work well for me. I probably listed my item 6+ times, and not a single time did I get a proper bid. All the typical stuff from Nigerians asking me to send them the iPhone, and them faking emails from Paypal.

Free tip: Don’t email anything to anyone outside the US. It is most likely a scam.

2nd Free tip: If you do get scammed, and ebay charges you a listing fee, just contact eBay and they will get it waived.

Craigslist

I eventually managed to sell my iPhone through craiglists. Just find the electronics section and list your phone there. It’s free, and there’s a pretty low chance that you will be scammed. Of course, exercise caution when meeting up with strangers! I managed to sell my first gen iphone, the week before the 3G was announced, for ~400 bucks. That paid for my 3G quite nicely.

Of course, jailbreak and unlock your first gens before you sell them. Unlocking will fetch a much higher price. Read my prior guide to jailbreak/unlocking here. The app that allows you to jailbreak will let you unlock your first gen iphones. Note: You cannot unlock your 3G iphones yet… until someone figures out how to do it. (You can do it via hardware methods, but there is no software method out there to unlock the 3G iphone yet)

Selling it to a third party vendor

Basically you sell to them for lower than what you’d get if you spent the time to sell the phone yourself through Craigslist, but you are paying for the convenience. Take a look at NextWorth if you’re interested.

First: Wired did a study that asked users from around the world to submit their speeds to the website. There was a great amount of regional variation, from slow EDGE-like 3G speeds to higher speeds in countries like the Netherlands, which have had more time to develop their 3G networks.

Below is an excerpt from appleinsider summarising some key results:

In particular, participants in Australia reported the slowest average 3G download speeds of about 759 Kbps, while users in Germany and the Netherlands reported the fastest average 3G download speeds of approximately 2,000 Kbps.

When breaking down regional results tied to a specific carrier, AT&T of the U.S. reportedly tied for third with Telstra, Telia and Softbank, with users of those networks reporting average download speeds of roughly 990 Kbps. European T-Mobile users reported the fastest average speeds of 1,822 Kbps, while Canadian carriers Rogers and its partner Fido ranked second with an average download speed of about 1,330 Kbps.

However, Wired said that US participants account for more than 75 percent of zero-data results, presumably because those users were dropped from AT&T’s 3G network during their speed tests. Among the U.S. areas that fared the worst were some major metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco, where 10 out of 30 participants reported 3G speeds that barely match that of EDGE.

So as you can see, US seems to get a lot of dropped 3G, and speeds are slower than Canada, and EDGE-like in areas like SF.

Second study:

Some Swedish company did a test on the iPhone’s antenna, and found that reception was pretty normal:

We compare the results with those of a Sony Ericsson P1 belonging to Bluetest’s CEO Mats Andersson, and my Nokia N73. The P1 is a little better at receiving signals and the N73 a little better at transmitting signals. But the difference is small. The difference between the iphone’s and the P1′s receive sensitivity is 2 dB.

Some independent developers have come out with a workaround for implementing cut & paste on the iPhone. This isn’t some sort of Apple led – development, so it is a little sketchy and doesn’t work across all apps on the phone. It’s called OpenClip, and is an open source framework that can be implemented by different app makers to allow cut and paste.

Pretty neat huh? Well, thing is, the framework will no longer work in Firmware 2.1 when that comes out. (Thanks Gizmodo) This is because the framework is based on a loophole that allows applications to reach from each other’s documents folder. I’m guessing Apple has closed this for security reasons. To actually get a more technical look at how the framework works, head on over to Daring Fireball.

While that’s a bummer, hopefully it will prompt Apple to do something about the whole issue, and implement it themselves. It really can’t be that difficult, given that some independent developers with way fewer resources has been able to pull it off.

davelynne @Flickr

Just an update on the 2.0.2 upgrade… You might want to hold off, as instead of improving the 3G connectivity, it has made it worse for some people. Now, it might not be you… but then, it might be.

In further news, Steve Jobs has apparently responded to an email of a distressed customer, reassuring him that an update fixing the constant app crashes will be released sometime in September.

And while many of us are expectantly waiting for the big update that implements push for apps to drop, therefore allowing us to receive IMs even when AIM is closed on the iPhone – this may have faced a setback. Apple has removed that functionality from the latest firmware seeded to developers.

Now, that may not necessarily mean we aren’t seeing the Push functionality in September… but chances are that it may unfortunately be the case.

1. Better 3G reception - There is a lack of consensus on this one, but some people who have been having 3G problems are now getting more bars.

2. Snappier Contact List Load Times - We all love how the contact list freezes for a good 10 seconds each time we start it up, and I’m sure we will all be sad to see this slowdown go. A minute of silence please.

3. Does NOT break unlock! - Currently there is no jailbreak out there for 2.0.2, but those of you with unlocked 1st Gen iPhones, feel free to upgrade your firmware. Your phone will no longer have your custom apps, but the unlock will survive. Hooray!

(Of course, there is still no 3G unlock… software, anyway.)

That seems about all anyway. Please let me know in the comments if there’s more!

Also – those of you with unlocked iPhones, you should be happy to find out that upgrading your firmware will not break the unlock or brick you phone. So that’s always something good to know, right?

Look forward to continued news coverage, and app reviews. =)

Head on over.

ismashphone.com has posted a helpful list of 12 iPhone tips & tricks that most of you will likely find helpful. I’ll add more tips of my own in the future. Meanwhile, head on over.