Software Upgrade Disables Functionality

Software upgrading is one of those common chores that many computer users have grown accustomed to. It’s something you need to do from time to time, because it fixes bugs, plugs security holes, adds new features, etc. The upgrade it usually something good. So, it is quite frustrating (at least to affected users) when some upgrades are designed to break something.

That’s something that is beginning to happen quite often with Apple’s software upgrades for a variety of their products such as their iPhone and iTunes software.

Today’s iTunes 8.2.1 upgrade is described briefing as follows:

iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update. iTunes 8.2 also includes many accessibility improvements and bug fixes.

iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices.

I’m not sure what important bug fixes were rectified. However, it was reported that it breaks the ability for the Palm Pre to directly sync with iTunes. It was later confirmed by an Apple spokesperson that they have disabled devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. I think Palm was probably expecting this day to come sooner or later. (Good thing that Nokia builds a separate Nokia Multimedia Transfer application to integrate into iPhoto and iTunes.)

For the upcoming iPhone 3.1 software, it looks like Apple will disable something too. The latest iPhone 3.1 beta 2 disables unauthorized AT&T tethering. I know, you’re thinking it is unauthorized anyway, so this sounds more like plugging a hole.

The iPhone software continues to be “amazing”. The upcoming 3.1 will feature voice commands over bluetooth. It’s really catching up with other phones… just that it is perhaps 3 years behind time.