Previously they probably didn't want to promise something that might not work. With all the recent high-profile problems they probably feel they finally have to.
Hey, you know what's a radical new idea? Shipping production-quality software when you make a new release! Just imagine for a sec... company releases a new product and instead of a POS beta-quality software, you get a decently-working software.
I have OS 2.0 right now and yes, despite what Apple may say it IS beta software and it is embarrassingly slow and laggy.
But, it is tough in some markets where it's very difficult to test many of the customer configurations that can mess things up. Like anything on Windows that's sensitive to DLLs.
On mac os, there's little excuse.
On a hardware platform you built yourself, and have full control over, there isn't an excuse. Just failure.
It's hardly a failure. Just because the phone has bugs doesn't mean it isn't useful. It's very handy to have a mobile phonebook with maps, for example.
The reality is that software doesn't have to be bug-free to be successful. That's not to say bugs shouldn't be fixed. However, features are more important than fixing every bug. Perfectionism has claimed the life of more software projects than we know; we just don't hear about the fate of the true failures.
Yes, this upgrade is the reason I upgraded iTunes to 8.0, as the installer said I had to in order to get the iPhone upgrade. Sadly, as noted elsewhere, my itunes install is now borked. Thanks, Apple!
Please, please tell me that is true. As it is, it's embarrassing..."let me just add you to my address book... just a second. ok hang on... erm. got a pen?"
Yeah... that was a great improvement in 2.0 to 2.02... instead of contacts pausing for a minute when it displayed, it paused for a minute before it displayed. Great.
FINALLY!