nismos, are you still using Windows 3.1? Software upgrades (and I'm quoting Apple here) improve the user experience. A lot of us got the iPhone so we would get software updates for a couple of years, instead of getting stuck with or waiting forever for maybe one update on an Android phone. The average iPhone (well except for the Verizon one for the time being anyway) gets software updates for at least 2 years after it is released. Now don't get me wrong, yes the current Verizon iPhone 4 is better than anything else that Verizon offers (IMO), but no one knows whether or not Verizon will always trail behind the technology curve with the iPhone or whether it will eventually be even up with the rest of the iPhone world. Some people obviously don't care and some do, it's the big mystery that drives a lot of us crazy! 
kaebfly wrote:
Tidbits wrote:
kaebfly wrote:
OSUguy81 wrote:That's what backup is there for, right?
I was thinking about this earlier, and I started wondering - if everyone starts to decide to wait til the bugs are fixed before dling the new IOS/build, then who gets to find the bugs in the first place? lol.
Backups would be great...if you could downgrade back to the previous iOS if you wanted to. For whatever reason, this isn't an option with iOS so once you upgrade you're stuck until the next update. Fortunately, in our inpatient world we don't have to worry about everyone waiting...it would never happen. Even when Apple used to charge for iOS updates you had plenty of people rush to update, so there is little risk of no one being there to find the bugs lol
The only time you can't downgrade is when the update includes a new radio. Usually almost all of them do to break the unlocking. Since CDMA is ALWAYS unlocked then I am unsure if it will always include a new radio.
edit:
technically you can downgrade, but you CAN'T downgrade the baseband and radio.
There are numerous threads (and complaints) about the inability for whatever reason to downgrade...can't recall at what point Apple made this a technical impossibility (excluding jailbreaking methods) or even why they did so, but I do know that since at least the 2nd gen iPod Touch downgrades haven't been possible. Yes, with other CDMA phones downgrades are possible (thankfully this could be done with BB's for example) but as far as Apple seems to be concerned downgrades are not needed.
You can downgrade I have downgraded before. The baseband/radio is the only thing you can't downgrade. There are workarounds to ensure you can downgrade the OS, but it doesn't affect the radio or baseband. So for the CDMA phones you to stop downgrading they would have to update the baseband/radio to stop downgrading.
What Apple did to stop downgrading is they stopped signing older firmware versions on their database. I believe this was done starting 3.2 or something like that with. Technically you still could downgrade if you have your hash prior to upgrading saved somewhere and used it as a server. Don't want to get too technically people can find the information if they searched enough 
So in essence you can always downgrade the OS, but never downgrade the radio/basebands.
dbbrass wrote:nismos, are you still using Windows 3.1? Software upgrades (and I'm quoting Apple here) improve the user experience. A lot of us got the iPhone so we would get software updates for a couple of years, instead of getting stuck with or waiting forever for maybe one update on an Android phone. The average iPhone (well except for the Verizon one for the time being anyway) gets software updates for at least 2 years after it is released. Now don't get me wrong, yes the current Verizon iPhone 4 is better than anything else that Verizon offers (IMO), but no one knows whether or not Verizon will always trail behind the technology curve with the iPhone or whether it will eventually be even up with the rest of the iPhone world. Some people obviously don't care and some do, it's the big mystery that drives a lot of us crazy!
I'm not talking about completely new operating systems, I'm talking about minor updates. My phone works perfectly, I don't need anything to be fixed on it, most of these updates introduce bugs, let them work out the bugs and then whip it out to vzw. Is there something that you absolutely must have right now with your phone? I doubt it.
As a registered ADC member, seeing the Verizon iPhone updates reminds me of how the iPad was when it first came out. It took FOREVER to get the iPad on iOS 4, being stuck at 3.2 (I believe) for months, due to the fact that it came out during Apple's development cycle for iOS 4, so it took extra time to fold the updates into it. Similar approach to the Verizon iPhone. We could get iOS 4.3.2 for the VZ iPhone, or Apple may hold off on iOS 4.4 (if they release something as such), or might just wait for iOS 5 since it's pretty obvious in a couple months at WWDC, it's being unveiled (and probably going to be available shortly thereafter).
It seems, similar to the iPad, the Verizon iPhone was released in-between software development cycles, and as soon as Apple has the chance to fold in the new features to us, we'll get them, and probably see feature parity in the near future. Apple's not going to want to chance someone hollering "fragmentation" by no means, and since the VZ iPhone has been jailbroken, Apple's going to just have to patch that up shortly. 