As of Dec 08, is there any news on when iPhone/ATT issues will be resolved?

Question

I've found about a billion posts bashing the iPhone 3G, but most of the content and articles are rather outdated. So, it's December 1st and I'm considering getting an iPhone later this month. The 2.1 came out a while back, and 2.2 has now been out for a while...
-Has there been any improvements with the 3G service?
-Has there been any improvements with the battery life and how many hours do you typically get out of 1 charge?
-Does it still have issues with dropping calls / txt messages?
-Are people still replacing SIM cards as a potential fix for issues or will a new SIM card that comes with it be no different than a replacement card?
I'd like to hear experiences good and bad, and if you're in the East Bay (Northern CA), tell me how the coverage has been for you, or even the Bay Area in general. I'm hoping to hear people who have purchased iPhones in the last month or so have had a better experience, but from what I've read so far I'm not sure if that's the case.
Thanks

Answer 1

good luck... it's a "depends" kinda answer you'll receive from the masses. Personally, I went from R2.0 in July to R2.0.2 before experiencing any issues at all with my 3G iPhone... wondering why there were people out there with so many issues. I've since learned the past two upgrades. Simple answer... I'd wait!! Especially if you're not hooked yet by having used someone else's. I feel AT&T connectivity is poor right now trying to get a robust enough 3G network up and running to handle the volume of user's and "forget" their claim to having more "bar's". I live in a dark orange and blue coverage area and reception is inconsistent. If you want to read my specifics, read on....
My issues have been:
1. GPS accuracy... corrected in R2.1
2. Dropped call's from "day 1" more dropped call's on AT&T the first three days in my local area than I have 7-yr's traveling nationwide on business with Verizon (I believe AT&T holds 80% responsibility for this). Just had two today in a dark orange coverage area in my home
3. 3G is intermittent to say the least. I live 3-miles from the closest 3g tower and my svc will vary from No Svc to 5-bars (note: 3G connectivity depends on the number of users on a tower at the same time; therefore, you will watch your connectivity/signal strength vacillate in a matter or seconds or minutes with no consistency) When in strong 3G area's the iPhone will sing...
4. about a month ago they started having FETCH issues on the iPhone where it would not accurately go out and pull emails in from your ISP... my experience was up to 45-60 min after a FETCH setting of 15-min. and "audible" notifications of emails arriving wasn't happening and my volumes are always at max setting. This was seemingly resolved with R2.2 10-days ago and just today it started acting up to where I am no longer receiving audible alerts to emails coming... and FETCH seems to work only 75% of the time. Good news is that when it does act up, the emails seem to arrive earlier than the set FETCH intervals.
Biggest issues I have is lack of any real consistency of the above... I went to Verizon this past weekend to play with the new "Storm" and was really disappointed with its poor intuitiveness and poor ease of navigation. It may have great features and may work 100% of the time, but if I have to waste time navigating my way around it, I might as well keep my iPhone. I really do like my iPhone when it works, but the only way I would abandon it now is if I could exit my contract without penalties to AT&T and even then I know I would miss it. It reminds me of the early days and headaches of cable TV with all its glitches... If your not on AT&T and can hold off a little longer on the iPhone, I can almost guarantee with all the missing features requiring hardware changes and required bug fixes that APPLE will have to release a new generation iPhone... I even heard rumor that there is an iPhone in the works that has a slide keyboard coming out... not that I would be interested in that feature, adding bulk to it. but point being APPLE will cannibalize this current generation iPhone for another in the next 10-months.