Can it be done?
I know the phone's CPU is capable in running at 677Mhz and apple underclocked it to 412Mhz to conserve battery.
The iPod touch 2g is running at 512Mhz so I'm sure it is safe to run the iPhone at 512Mhz as well (only drain the battery faster).
Has anyone ever done this? googling this does not bring much info.

Id be interested in this too....

It should be possible to overclock (or un-underclock, actually) the iphone's processor through software. Apple increased the iPhone's clock speed from 400mHz to 412mHz with the 1.1.2 update, so the clock controller is definitely software controlled.

That being said, there is no software currently on the market to allow this, perhaps mainly because one doesn't usually overclock a cellphone . It would be a great idea, though, especially since the 2nd gen ipod touch successfully utilizes the same ARM11 processor at a higher clock speed.

but the ipod touch 2g doesnt have to deal with all the radios the iphone does... running higher speeds will certainly have a serious impact on the already limited battery life.

Originally Posted by IphoneEntusiast.

but the ipod touch 2g doesnt have to deal with all the radios the iphone does... running higher speeds will certainly have a serious impact on the already limited battery life.

Ya, it would only make sense if the speed could be changed on the fly.

It would be awesome if Apple implemented some kind of max battery life/max performance selector in the settings app.

Even if your phone is plugged in, power could be a problem. The iPhone has the unique capability to discharge its battery faster than it can be recharged (see netshare/pdanet), and this problem would probably be much more evident if the CPU was run at its actual speed.

On pre OS2.X phones you could change the CPU speed using the command sysctl on jailbroken phones.
This command became read-only for some reason on FW2.X. if anyone can find how to disable the read-only limitation of sysctl..we might be able to change the CPU speed and many other features.

this would be awsome. I charge my phone every nite, and im usualy at ~50% battery when I get home. I find that my phone sometimes is running too slow for my likes, and i would love to find a way to bump the clock speed on my phone.

in the iphone its not all about clock speeds but memory management.... if you run apps that have memory leaks everywhere.... no matter how fast your cpu runs.... your phone will still be sluggish.

Not accurate. some gaming applications simply require more CPU power and will run better if the processor can run at a faster clock speed.

Originally Posted by IphoneEntusiast.

in the iphone its not all about clock speeds but memory management.... if you run apps that have memory leaks everywhere.... no matter how fast your cpu runs.... your phone will still be sluggish.

Yeah, were not talking about speed in everyday tasks, we want to OC the iPhone so it can get a better framerate on games like the 2nd gen iPod Touch. This has little if anything to do with memory management so long as you clear your memory before you start up the game.