As rumored earlier iPhone Firmware 2.2 is now available for download via iTunes to general users, apart from several new features and performance improvements the new update fixes critical security vulnerabilities and is being labeled as a "essential update" by Apple.

The new firmware update brings the following new features:

• Google Street View with public transit and walking directions with handy option to share location via email.
• Mail improvements like better formatting of wide HTML email with resolved issues with scheduled fetching of emails.
• Availability of millions of free podcasts from your device.
• Performance and stability improvements to Safari.
• Handy option to turn text auto-correction on and off from the Keyboard Settings.
• Now pressing the Home button from many Home screen takes you to the first Home screen.
• Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls.
• Better sound quality of Visual Voicemail messages

Despite strict Apple iPhone Developer NDA agreements, a reader of TUAW leaked screenshots of iPhone Firmware 2.2 Beta 2, the screenshots indicates that the new firmware will support direct downloading of podcasts onto the device.

As of now, you can only sync podcasts on iPhone via iTunes, the new direct downloading support will definitely help users avoid the hassle of manual syncing.

Apple iPhone now officially supports ringtones but require you to pay and purchase them from iTunes Store, However, you can easily create and use custom iPhone ringtones from your existing MP3 music library for free, there exist several different tricks and utilities to create iPhone compatible ringtones with ease.

Ring Ring would be the most easy to use free utility for creating custom iPhone ringtones, to convert any MP3 file into iPhone compatible ringtone format all you need to do is to simply Drag-and-drop it into the application and choose start and stop timings, details of the full procedure are as follows:

1. Download and Extract Ring Ring - iPhone Ringtone Maker.
2. Double-click "RingRing.exe" to launch application.

3. Drag-and-drop or Double-click and browse desired MP3 file from the Drop-target as shown above.

The famous iPhone Dev Team have released another iPhone Jailbreaking utility - "QuickPwn", as the name suggest the Windows only batch files let users jailbreak iPhone more quickly and easily without requiring a full restore, the software is labeled as pre-release developmental snapshot so better handle with care.

Now this is really some hot news on the iPhone front, according to the information uncovered by Jonathan Zdziarski author of the book iPhone Open Application Development and an iPhone Forensics manual, Apple seems to have included has a application blacklisting mechanism in the latest iPhone OS 2.x, using which the device can phone back home and check for unauthorized applications, and disable them if found on the blacklist acting as a hidden kill switch.

While doing extensive forensic examination of the iPhone 3G, Jonathan found a configuration file deep inside the Core Location having callback to the below URL on Apple Site:

After a long wait iPhone 3G is finally getting launched in India, country's leading mobile operator Airtel announced the iPhone India launch date to 22 August 2008 (Yahoo News), Unconfirmed reports are also coming stating Vodafone launching the same on 18

Apple released beta of its next major iPhone OS upgrade - iPhone OS v 2.1 to developers for testing, this should not be mistaken as iPhone Firmware 2.01 which is also expected to be released soon as an maintenance release fixing bugs appeared with the latestiPhone Software version 2.0 update.

The new beta firmware update supports much demanded Cut, Copy and Paste functionality with notable additions and tweaks to the iPhone GPS system, The new GPS code now allows tracking of direction and speed enabling the device to provide turn-by-turn directions.

iPhone Dev Team released the Mac version of iPhone unlocking utility Pwnage Tool 2.0 few days ago and today announced the release of much awaited windows version of the utility "WinPwn 2.0" for public downloading.

Winpwn does the same job on windows what Pwnage does on Mac, Similar to Pwnage Tool 2.0 Winpwn 2.0 will allow windows users to jailbreak and unlock their 1st Generation iPhones and allow jailbreaking of 3G iPhone and iPod Touch.

Please note that Winpwn 2.0 only supports Windows XP and Vista 32/64bit. Windows 95, 2003/2008 server are not supported.

WindPwn 2.0 Features:

• Support for both 1.1.4 and 2.0
• Custom Payload Support
• Custom Image Support
• 3g iPhone support

If you upgraded to the latest iPhone firmware version 2.0 by mistake and bricked your iPhone or don't like the new upgrade here are simple to follow step by step instructions to restore iPhone or iPod Touch to an earlier firmware of your choice.

1. Uninstall iTunes 7.7 and Install iTunes 7.5.
2. Connect your phone to computer via USB.
3. Turn off the phone.
4. Place your phone in DFU mode (Device Firmware Upgrade) as described below:
• Push and hold Home and Power buttons on your phone simultaneously for 10 seconds.
• Release the Power button but keep holding Home until the computers beeps recognizing the USB device.
• You should be in DFU mode now.
5. Download and save your desired iPhone and iPod Firmware Version Files.
6. Now go ahead with the restore to your desired iPhone firmware using iTunes 7.5, to do so simply Hold down Shift key and press the Restore button in iTunes.
   
   
7. Select your iPhone restore file to continue.
8. Once restored you can Jailbreak and Unlock your iPhone using various other methods.

Here are the video instructions for the steps above.