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Apple finally made their iPhone 1.1.2 update available via iTunes yesterday. One thing I noticed after installing this update was the speed increase. Switching from vertical to horizontal application views now feels smoother. Accessing messages from the SMS application is now a bit quicker.

Could this be my imagination? Did the Apple software engineers optimize the code or did the reset during the upgrade process clear out the crap in my iPhone?

From reports I hear, this update also bumps up the CPU speed of the iPhone from 400MHz to 412MHz. I charge my iPhone every night so I can’t confirm whether this change has decreased my iPhone’s standby time.

Here’s an interesting article from Ars Technica:

We have long since known that the CPU under the hood of the iPhone is an ARM processor but we did not know the processor speed. According to Craig’s article, many “hardware reports” have shown the CPU of the iPhone to be a 600MHz processor. Craig’s results, though admittedly questionable, show the processor to be running at 400MHz with a 100MHz system bus—roughly the same speed as that Strawberry iMac iMac DV/SE sitting in your mother-in-law’s living room. Craig thinks the discrepancy probably has to do with battery life:

There have been various hardware reports that place the ARM chip’s frequency above 600 Mhz. Maybe sysctl() is lying to us, or maybe the CPU is clocked down to give improved battery life. Only Apple knows that for sure.

If this is true, perhaps Apple will give us another speed boost early next year when another update hits iTunes?

Do you feel any kind of change? Does it feel faster? Have you noticed an increase in battery consumption? Drop a line and share your thoughts.

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[Image courtesy of Engadget]