I’ve spent the last few hours trying to update the firmware on my iPhone to version 2.1 as most of the applications in the Apps Store are starting to require it.

First a bit of background info: I’ve been a passionate Linux user for the last 4 years and I don’t see why I should switch to Windows just to sync my iPhone (which btw. isn’t working as my Thinkpad T400 has successfully blocked as the Windows installation crashes with a BSOD) and I don’t see why Apple can’t support Linux too.

So I was thrilled when I heard that I could use VMWare Workstation v6.5.0 to sync my iPhone and all worked well for a while. But then I thought “why not try a firmware update?”, and all hell broke loose. After waiting for iTunes for more than an hour to give me back an absolutely generic failure message I gave up on my first attempt. Today on my second attempt I got a little bit farther. I now realize that it has something to do with the updater disconnecting the device and then waiting for it to reappear (why that is, I have no idea) but instead of the iTunes updater to respond to the device in recovery mode, it is Linux jumping in as it should and thus invalidating the update.

It’s getting really annoying by now, and resetting (15 seconds holding both home and power and then holding 2 seconds the power button, for those like me who can’t remember how) isn’t too nice…

When will Apple finally learn that there is a huge market for their devices if they’d only open up a little bit or provide us with the tools to use them under Linux?