This week’s What’s up Wednesday is all about the iPhone, as  today marks the second major update to Apple’s iPhone in the way of 3.0 OS. After a quick download and install, I had my iPhone (original 8GB) up and running with no issues. This new release has over 100 new features and updates, most of which can be used on any pre-3GS phone. Some major advancements such as the Video Recording & Editing, Compass App, Voice Recognition and Camera Auto-Focus are 3GS only. The new iPhone 3GS launches this Friday.

There are over 100+ features in the 3.0 OS update and during my playtime I found quite a few that I liked. What are your favorites?

Camera & Photos

• Ability to select multiple Images (up to 5) from the PhotoAlbum for sharing (email & MMS) or for deletion or to copy to another album folder.
• The Camera now has adaptive lighting. Sitting here at my desk, when I pointed my phone away from my monitor, the live picture instantly brightened. When I pointed the phone back at the brightly lit monitor, the live picture darkened and clearly showed what was on my screen.

Messaging/Typing

• Text message Landscape mode, my top favorite.
• Copy & paste! Such a simple feature that was severely lacking.
• Text Message forwarding. Text messaging is a quick way to get a message to another person – and now you can forward the details of that next house party to everyone in your contacts.
• Shake to clear/undo typing. No more holding the backspace button to clear those 3 sentences you typed out. Simply shake the iPhone to prompt it to undo.
• Sending a new text message while the previous is still sending gets rid of one major gripe I had while texting, which is a function I use more than talking on the phone.
• MMS & Tethering? I have no way to access these features as MMS only works on a 3G phone and higher, plus At&t has not released MMS & Tethering services for the iPhone in the US yet. However, they both deserve to be on my favorites, as I know they would be if I were able to use them.

Phone/Calling

• Phone numbers listed in the Voicemail & Recent Calls now shows the contact’s location or number type (home, mobile, work, etc).
• Recent Calls now have extra detail. The length of the call, the time the call was made/received, and the date.

Home Screen & Apps

• “Search iPhone” or “Spotlight Search” was another missing feature but now it’s here and incorporated in the Home screen pages – just swipe to your right. The Search will search through your Apps, Emails, iPod collection, and more.
• Whole lot of shakin’ going on… the ability to shake the iPhone to cause the iPod to randomly skip to a new song is awesome. Why? Well when you’re washing your car and your hands are all soapy and wet, do you really want to be touching your iPhone screen to skip a song? Or while jogging or exercising? Didn’t think so! Now a simple shake, now that’ll do.
• YouTube App now connects with your YouTube.com account. I’ve found so many things I’d favorite normally online, but on my iPhone. Now I can actually add them to my account from the iPhone rather than just bookmarking. As an added bonus, the iPhone YouTube app will merge your iPhone favorites with your online account favorites once you’ve signed in for the first time.

Here are some other minor changes I noticed:

Home Screen(s)

• The SMS icon has been updated and SMS has been re-titled: Messages.
• The Phone icon also has a slightly updated look.
• Voice Memo was added, not sure how much use I’ll have with that one.

Settings

• The Fetch settings are now appropriately placed under the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings.
• Form Autofill option added to the Safari settings screen.
• Repeat Alert for Messages can be turned on or off.
• Ability to view iTunes Store account or signout.

App Store & iTunes

• Application screenshots in the App Store no longer need to be tapped to view, you can swipe through the available screens.
• “Updates” is now under the “More” screen along with the “Redeem”  gift card feature.

Even with all of the 3.0 OS features, there are still features I’d like to see Apple implement in the future:

• Ability to associate a contact with a Calendar item. I use my iPhone to keep track of meetings and it would be great to be able to dial the conference call number right from the Calendar item & the alert reminder.
• A setting to change the default the text message orientation to your preference. For example, an “Auto, Portrait or Landscape” option. I refuse to use portrait mode now!
• An extra shortcut option for the camera shooting mode. Currently taking a photo with the phone’s screen facing away from you is a pain, further complicated by the position of the camera shoot button on the Camera screen. You could do the Sleep + Home button combo to take the shot, but if you’re one-handing it, that shortcut is useless.
• Ability to zoom with the Camera. Since the iPhone 3GS is getting a resolution upgrade, the  “Tap to Focus” feature, and Video Recording, the ability to zoom the live image would go along perfectly.
• Safari Flash support. I wish I knew what the hang-up on this is? Adobe’s flash platform is free for download and use on any OS and for any Browser, so what is the deal with it not being on the iPhone? One idea I have is it’s some conspiracy with Apple not wanting people to be able to watch Flash videos from the internet instead of purchasing videos from iTunes. We already can access Youtube, why not anything else?

Need help getting the most out of 3.0 OS, or the 3GS when it releases this Friday? Check out the links below.

Apple.com iPhone How-to

How to Use The Best 40 Features of the iPhone

So what are your favorite new features? What do you dislike? What is Apple missing on the iPhone? Discuss!

Category: Technology, What's Up Wednesday | Tags: 3.0 OS,apple,at&t,iphone

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