We've been hearing that Apple was planning on releasing a new version of iOS 4 in the near future that it says will remedy the reception issues people are experiencing with the iPhone 4, and today we got the first evidence of that.  Apple has released the first beta of iOS 4.1 and iPhone SDK 4.1 to developers, but it's unclear exactly what the update contains.  Rather than just release an incremental 4.0.1 update to fix only the signal issues, however, Apple has most likely included that patch along with other bug fixes in version 4.1.  It's hard to tell how many beta revisions the 4.1 software will go through before it's finally released to the public, but at least we know it's on the way.

There are people waiting patiently for Apple to release iOS 4.1 for many reasons.  Some people are hoping that the fix will correct the reception problems they are experiencing with the iPhone 4 like Apple promised it would.  Others, however, want to see the update pushed out quickly so that a jailbreak and unlock method for iOS 4 can be released to the public.  Either way, I think we can all agree that we want iOS 4.1 to be released sooner rather than later.  If you're an iPhone developer with access to the iOS 4.1 beta, let us know about it!

UPDATE: It appears that Apple's fix for the signal issues is included in the beta, as expected.  You can see in the photo below that the bars are slightly taller than in previous versions of iOS.  The modem firmware has been updated from 01.59.00 to 02.07.01.  There's no word yet on whether the changes have actually resulted in an improved signal.

Via MacRumors(1), (2)