I did the upgrade last night, and noticed this morning that my data network didn’t work at all. WiFi was working fine, but network data wasn’t at all.

After a bit of googling, I came across this post which states that it is due to the jailbreak

So, to anyone running 3.1.3 jailbroken, here’s how to upgrade

First, do a restore rather than an upgrade (click restore in itunes and it will basically do a clean install of iOS4 then resync everything) – you won’t lose any data. This should work fine and you won’t have any data issues.

If you did a normal upgrade rather than a restore, you must have a backup pre iOS4 to be able to get it working again. In this instance, simply restore the device and then restore the backup pre iOS4. For more information on how to save multiple backups at any time, check out my earlier blog post.

If you did an ‘upgrade’ and don’t have a backup pre iOS4 any more, it looks like you’re going to have to do a clean restore and not use a backup. You can get some of your data (SMS etc..) back by using the advice in the link above.

Good Luck!

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Also, the fact that iTunes backs up as soon as you plug the phone in is annoying. If you plug in to restore something you’ve removed and aren’t quick enough to ‘slide to cancel’, a new backup will be created and overwrite your old one.

It’s actually fairly easy to keep old backups – it’s not something you can do automatically, but is worth knowing. All you need to do is make a copy of your current back up, and rename it to something else in the filesystem. You can also change the description of it so that it shows a more friendly name when you attempt a restore.

First, browse to the folder containing the most recent backup:

Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

Windows 7 and Vista:
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

Mac OSX:
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Inside this folder, you will see another folder with a long string of numbers and letters, something like…

To keep this backup, all you need to do is make a copy of the folder, and rename it to something like ’20100311 – 8deabb43……’.

Next, enter this folder, and open the file ‘Info.plist’ in your favourite text editor. To give the backup a meaningful name, you need to find the key ‘Display Name’ and change the <string> tag to anything you want.

Once this is done, open up iTunes and plug your phone in. Now, in the future when you want to restore one of your previously saved backups, just right click the iPhone in iTunes and click ‘Restore from Backup’.
Now you will notice that you have multiple backups to choose from, and can restore back to any of the backups which you’ve saved. Note that the display name I edited above is the one which shows in the drop down list.

Apologies for this last one being a photo rather than a screenshot, but I’m writing this on a macbook pro (running windows 7!) and there’s no print screen key, and when trying to use snipping tool, the drop down box closes when it loses focus.

There you go, that’s all you need to be able to manage multiple backups on an iPhone. I assume this will work for iPods as well but I don’t have one to test it on.

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I don’t like iTunes, and generally prefer to manage my music manually in explorer, and use winamp to play songs/albums. I know of alternatives like SharePod which allow you to manage music on your iPhone or iPod, but you still need to use iTunes for things like backing up etc..

The way I get around this is fairly simple, I still do everything in iTunes but manage my music manually. Firstly, I use a great free app called mp3tag to make sure that the music has the correct id3 tags, album art etc..

Then it’s just a case of putting the music I want on my iPhone into iTunes, and nothing else. First, set iTunes to sync all music with the iPhone, and then simply drag and drop folders or individual songs from explorer into iTunes and sync with the iPhone. To remove music, just delete it from iTunes and sync again.

I find this an easy way to make sure that I don’t have to use iTunes to actually listen to music or manage my collection, but I can keep my phone happy by using iTunes to sync music to it. It’s much easier than having all your music in iTunes and telling it to only sync certain artists/playlists.

I have some friends who either use the ‘selective sync’ option, or just use alternatives like SharePod or Media Monkey to copy music, but after I show them the simplicity of this method, they make the switch. Hopefully a couple of others will find this useful.

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