iPhone 2.1 firmware going live today

It's an exciting day for iPhone owners. The iPhone 2.1 firmware update goes live today, and Apple is promising it'll squash many of the problems users have been encountering with the device.

Here's the 'read my lips' moment from Steve Jobs, speaking at the 'Let's Rock' event earlier this week:

"The 2.1 software update is a big update. It fixes lots of bugs. You'll get fewer call drops. You will get significantly improved battery life for most customers. We have fixed a lot of bugs where if you have a lot of apps on the phone, you're not going to get some of the crashes and other things that we've seen. Backing up to iTunes is dramatically faster."

Having zonked out my iPhone 3G about 17 times so far, seemingly as a result of loading 20+ apps onto it, I'm glued to my monitor waiting for the update to go live.

So far, it hasn't. But it's unlikely to until later today, when the US wakes up. You can check if it's available by clicking the 'Check for Update' button on your iPhone's summary screen in iTunes. The iPhone 2.1 update is available NOW from iTunes - see our follow-up story for full details of the improvements, and our hands-on article for our first impressions.

The good news if you're an iPod touch owner is that the 2.1 update is already available from the iTunes Store, via this link.