Since the 2.0 firmware upgrade, it’s taking my first-gen iPhone 35 to 40 minutes to sync — with nearly all of the time taken up with iTunes performing a backup of the phone.

Here’s the process, speeded up 2400%:

The time it takes suggests that the system is backing up all the data on the phone, including movies, music, etc. — which is nuts, because after you restore an iPhone backup, you still need to separately sync all the music etc. you want on there.

It’s also nuts because the backup directory on the Mac contains 114.5 MB, which shouldn’t take anything like that long to transfer. I know the USB connection is working properly (and not falling back to a slower speed) because the transfer of media files takes place at the same speed as always.

That 114.5 MB is made up of 2,815 files, though, which could be part of the problem. If the files originate on the iPhone (rather than being split out of the stream on the Mac side), opening all those files and sending them individually could definitely account for some of the time. But 35 minutes? I doubt it.

Not everyone has this problem — Nicole doesn’t have it, and a few times my phone has synced without a lengthy backup process first — so it’s got to be something with my configuration of the phone, which means that there must be a workaround. I haven’t been able to isolate the cause myself, though, and of course there hasn’t been a peep out of Apple despite many complaints.

Most British people, when they attempt to do American accents, generally wind up sounding like movie cowboys to my ear. Actually, just one movie cowboy: It sounds like they should be addressing everyone as ‘pilgrim’.

The guy in their ‘master class’ recording likes to say ‘Louisianer’ when doing what I assume are Texan and southern redneck accents — I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard anyone say that.