MacShrine

MacShrine is officially returning to the Mac web from today! We took a break for what seemed like forever, but now we’re amped up and ready to return. Some of our older readers will remember that we launched back in 2005, so our 5th anniversary on the 1st November 2008 is just a few weeks away. To celebrate we shall be launching a total redesign and many new features that will remind you why we were one of the best Mac websites.

Thank you for all your support and here’s to the future!

As Apple promised, today they have released the new iPhone 2.1 firmware this morning. The iPhone 2.1 firmware contains the following updates:

- decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
- significantly improve battery life for most users
- dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- improve email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
- faster installation of 3rd party applications
- fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
- improved performance in text messaging
- faster loading and searching of contacts
- improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
- repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
- option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
- Genius playlist creation

The 2.1 firmware is listed as build 5F136 and can be directly downloaded through iTunes. The new firmware also contains a number of security fixes including the well publicized passcode flaw.