I love my iPhone 3G but I’ve Had a lot of trouble keeping it running smoothly and it’s frustrating to have to restore and reinstall all the software every time it crashes.

I’ve discovered a few tricks in the process and feel like I know my iPhone much better than most people who just use it as a phone or an iPod.

Here is a summary of everything I have been through:

I got the iPhone 3G almos as soon as it came out. There was a line and activation problems but it was all worth it for me just so I could have the greatest gadget ever invented.

I got a 16 gig white iPhone and as soon as I got it home there was an update in the firmware to version 2.0.1. Up until then I had always upgraded any software or firmware as soon as Apple released it simply because I wanted to have the “new and improved” version of it.

Well I upgraded my itunes to 7.1 at around the same time and my phone crashed about 10 times during the first week. I would have never thought it had anything to do with the software so I took it in to my local Apple store and talked to the Genius who restored it for me. I told him I had already done this about 10 times and he said “we must follow procedure”. I was back the next day with my crashed iPhone and he gave me a new one.

I took my new iPhone home so sure this one would work right only to have it crash that same night. Let me explain that every time the Iphone crashed on me it totally wiped out all the data, programs, music, photos , and any notes I had written on it since they do not transfer to my MacBook during a sync.

I had  enough and went back to the Apple store and returned my iPhone. I have to tell you it was very hard for me to do that but I did it. Apple did not make any trouble for me and refunded 100 per cent of my money. I missed my iPhone as soon as I left the Apple store. I felt as if I had just broken up with a girlfriend and dropped her off at her house never to see her again.

The world became a darker place without  my shini little toy. How could this be. All I had to look forward to was the release of the Blackberry Bold. That sounded soooo boring. Three days went by without my iPhone and finally I found some hope. I stumbled upon the web page of a really nice guy named Jaime Hosticka

In his site Jaime explains some of his iPhone troubles and shows us what he has done to solve them temporarily until our beloved Apple finds the permanent solution. Jaime thinks that the problem lies in the latest version of iTunes and recommends that we downgrade to version 7. Please check hos page for all the information which I found invaluable.

So I followed Jaimes advice, got my computer ready for another iPhone and went back to the Apple store the next day to get a new iPhone 3G. This time I decided to try the 16 gig black model just in case all the white ones had been defective.

I took it home hooked it up and did not have a single problem for 2 weeks. What happened after 2 weeks? Well I guess I got too confident and started installing all kinds of software from iTunes, directly over the air onto my iPhone, upgraded to new versions of iPhone apps on iTunes and directly on to the phone, deleted apps on the iphone and on iTunes without the fear of a crash and  when everything seemed to be like it was supposed to  it crashed again. I guess I got too confident.

So I restored again. I am a pro at restoring my iPhone by now and everything worked great for 3 days until I did another app upgrade and the phone crashed again. I went ahead and restored again. It seems crazy but what are my choices? After the restore everything worked perfectly again and just to test my theory I upgraded some apps and synched and the phone crashed almost immediately.

I am writing this post as I restore my phone again and I will not be upgrading any of the apps installed on my phone at least until next Tuesday when Mr. Steve Jobs will hopefully deliver the solution to this hedache in the form of a new version of iTunes and some new firmware for the iPhone.

Cats have to be the smartest creatures in the world. They have us humans completely figured out.
My cat sleeps all day, and barely gets up to eat. At least my dog runs around the backyard and barks at strangers, but the cat is a lazy bum and we still treat him like a king.
He barely woke up to take this picture.
Do you have a lazy cat?

Welcome to my latest project. I decided to reinstall my blog at armandcerna.com and this time made it iPhone compatible.

I’ll be using this space to talk about all the geeky stuff that interests me, especially Mac, iPhone and Internet related news.

I’ll also be using my iphone to write most of the content using the new Wordpress iPhone app.

In addition to the geeky content I;ll be posting some interesting stuff I find on the real world, so look out for that too.

Thanks for watching!

Armand