Perhaps this might help for the iOS 5 update?

Question

Ok, here are the steps I took when performing my iOS 5 update on my Verizon iPhone 4.
I have a Macbook Pro (2008). I had upgraded to OSX Lion about 3 months ago. The FIRST thing I did was upgrade my iTunes to the latest version. If you check the specs for iOS 5 update, it says it needs iTunes 10.5 to run. So, I downloaded the iTunes update directly from the apple website.
After this was completed, I checked for any and all upgrades for OSX Lion and discovered there were 2 available to me, so I downloaded those (which took about 20 minutes from start of download to reboot time.)
Now at this point I had waited over 24 hours to upgrade to iOS 5 because of the sheer amount of traffic I'm sure the servers were getting. My first step after I plugged my phone in to update was to BACK IT UP!
When iTunes prompted me to download and update I simply chose to DOWNLOAD ONLY. After the download process was complete (about 10 minutes,) I backed up my phone one more time.
At this point I decided to update the phone. Now the process in and of itself took between 1 and 2 hours. I have a lot of apps and that process seemed to take the longest to restore (about 45 minutes.) Not once did my phone freeze or lock in any way and my phone works fine running the iOS 5 software. Nothing was lost, and everything on my phone was restored completely.
These were my steps in updating to iOS 5. I'm only submitting my helpful hints and this is what worked for me.
**HERE'S THE CATCH** b/c let's face it, there's ALWAYS a catch!
I had a phone issue BEFORE the update. My phone would not allow me to hear through the speaker the sounds of incoming voices nor could I hear anyone while making a call. I could only hear people who I called or who called me when the phone was on speaker mode. I thought that maybe upgrading to iOS 5 would fix the issue. After the update, I did any and all tips for fixing the issue including restoring the phone completely. After talking with Verizon they're sending me a "replacement" a.k.a refurbished phone. This is not satisfactory to me in any way, so a good friend who works for the local Apple store here in Cincinnati told me to bring the phone in w/ the original receipt (the phone is almost 4 months old,) and they would replace it with a new one. Kudos to Apple if this is the case.
Issue 2, could not connect with iCloud and I'll just chalk it up to server overload.
Hopefully this helps anyone in any way. As I said before I had no problems and I just took a few extra steps in the process. iOS 5 is really some nifty software and I'm really digging the iMessage feature.
To anyone having difficulties and issues, I'm truly sorry and hope you all get it taken care of. Have a good one!

Answer 1

If you cannot wait:
download the iOS5.0.1 file directly to your PC (~700MB), if that works better, connect the iPhone and Alt+click on the "Update" button, choose the newly downloaded file.
If you cannot wait at all, do the update on the iPhone itself (~38MB), but you still have to download the iOS full file to your PC, otherwise it will not be there when one time you need to restore: copy it to
for XP:
Documents and Settings\<User>\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates
for W7:
Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates
You throw awy the downloaded when after a time you are sure that everything is OK and the full iOS stays in the Updates folder.