My thoughts on iPhone 3.0
Well, as most people would know by now, Apple have released the latest update for the iPhone, iPhone OS 3.0. If you didn’t then it’s time to come our from under that rock. I’ll must admit thought that I did stay up till 3am Sydney time for this, though I didn’t plan on doing so.
iPhone OS 3.0 brings with it many new features, of which I’m not going to list, but I will make not of some of the ones that I have grown fond of already. The install went without a hitch though it was slow downloading as every man and his dog was also downloading it.
I have already noticed that my phone is much quicker and snappier at launching apps, though I haven’t test them all out, and the addition of Spotlight to search most places is great.
So, features that I’m loving so far are:
- Spotlight: it’s so much faster and easier to find a song, contact or email;
- Landscape Keyboard: For those who like landscape mode, and it does make it easier to type;
- Push Notifications: I haven’t had a chance to use this yet, but I’m looking forward to have an IM app that supports it;
- Tethering: Will come in handy, though Optus are charging AU$9.95 to do so, there are ways around;
- MMS: Finally able to send picture messages like every other phone out there.
I spose one of the biggest downfalls so far though is with my carrier Optus. Their MMS system is not working to well. Currently all MMS’s recieved have a number in the format of 614xxxxxxxx which is missing the + at the start, so when you recieve a MMS rather then having it listed under existing conversations, it starts a new one and doesn’t list the persons name. Optus are aware of this and are working on a solution.
The other downer is that Optus is going to charge users AU$9.95 to be able to tether your iPhone to your PC for mobile internet. The problem with this is that tethering will use the data allowance from your plan, so they are double dipping here. Not very Australilan in my books!! So, to fix this little problem, so wonderfull users over at the forums on Whirlpool have worked out a way to bypass this, though no one is sure when it will cause excess charges. Stay tuned for more on this.
Overall, iPhone OS 3.0 is a great update and should keep the iPhone 3G going for a little while longer, till next year at least.
What are you favourite new features of OS 3.0? What are your gripes? Leave comments below.
