Apple announced yesterday that iPhone firmware 2.1 will be available Friday (September 12th).   On Apple's Developer site they are stating that iPhone SDK build 9M2517 is to be used for both 2.0 and 2.1.  This is pretty significant as it means there are no new features being exposed via new versions of frameworks, i.e. no new SDK.  What features *are* in the new firmware?

• Significantly better battery life
• Fewer call drops
• General Bug fixes
• Faster backups to iTunes
• No App crashes
• Genius playlists

Obviously missing is the push notification.  Without a new SDK, there can be no push.  Users will have to update to Mac OS X v10.5.4 and the new iTunes 8.0 to install 2.1 firmware.

Apple has already made 2.1 firmware available for the Touch.  On the Touch there are the following new features:

• Genius playlist creation
• Faster backup to iTunes
• Better email reliability, notable fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• Faster installation of 3rd party applications
• Crashes and hangs from 3rd parth applications
• Faster loading and searching of contacts
• Faster App updates and installation
• Selective muting of system sounds
• Other bug fixes

iPod Touch users still running firmware 1.0 will need to pay $9.95 to upgrade to 2.1.