Hands on: iPhone 3.0 review

10. I cannot understand why so many people are so negative, I have had shed loads of phones over the last 12 years, and this is the only one that actually gets updated to any form of level to introduce new features.

I really think people need to keep this in perspective.

On a hardware note, would you really be happy if the 3Gs was so different that your current 3G looks like the "old model"? I think this is a blessing, I get to keep my 3G without looking like I have old hat technology.

I have a MacPro and MacBook Pro, and owned both for about 5 or 6 months before significant upgrades, I was pretty ********** in the scheme of things, the Pro even had a whole new design. Think about it folks.

9. John, O2's argument with tethering is that people use mobile broadband with computers differently than they do with phones: phones tend to be short, fast bursts of data, computers tend to be sustained, higher bandwidth. I'm not saying that's necessarily fair, but that's the argument. They do the same with other tetherable smartphones.

8. There are a number of nice improvements, but there are still some stupid and annoying omissions:

1. The landscape extensions are welcome but much too little much too late. It is NOT as billed available for all keyboard usage - for example the brand new spotlight search is portrait only. Landscape mode should work always - this would enable landscape mode desk stands for example. Doing it for the home screens would have been trivial effort. They should force all applications to landscape if necessary by shrinking at the OS level which would soon encourage third party developers to support it properly!

2. It still seems to be impossible to delete content from iPod app except by deleting on the PC and synchronising (sorry if I have missed this feature, but if it is there it is poorly interfaced). This is crazy because there is lots of content you want to consume once and then delete (films and podcasts for example). Ludicrously you can now download a lot of this stuff without a PC, but you need one to delete them after use!

3. Tethering is a great feature, but, predictably, it has been screwed up by O2. It is not available at all on Pay-and-go and an expensive extra charge on Monthly. What business of O2 is it what you use the data on when they are already charging you with a MB cap? Also it would have been more ground-breaking (and surely possible?) to allow the iPhone to act as a WiFi access point rather than requiring a wired connection or Bluetooth?

7. I like the airplane mode animation, and the iPod scrubbing speed that can be adjusted (ie, try skipping through a music track).

Last week I was convinced I was going to get the 3GS, now I have 3G v3.0, I'm thinking to just stick with this for a while as I'm happy with what it does.

@201010 - If you have the money and high level authorisation, go for the 3GS. Your geek status will go through the roof.

@Plumtree1303 - agree that more space is needed. Or maybe I just need to compress my music down further. Once Tom Tom is released and if they make the maps available for download, then I'll be definetely struggling for space. Actually, thinking about, will TomTom be out on just the 3GS or 3G as well?

@mwits - you got issues, get a new handset

@babaksondi - you obviously don't appreciate how Apple work and don't seem to even know what features are on which phone, or how to use them.

6. Babaksondi, who is your operator? On O2, MMS should be available right now, tethering too if you're willing to pay extra. Push won't be available until your third party apps support it, and I'd expect that to start happening pretty quickly now that 3.0 is out.

5. I am extreemly disappointed with the new 3.0 upgrade. The only good thing about it is the copy and paste feature. Other that that, there is nothing else good about it. All the features they talked about is missing, such as: tethering, push notification or MMS. This whole thing is a big joke. The new iphone (3GS) is even a bigger joke. So what! It just has a video camera. I did not buy the iphone for its picture taking ability. I bought it for its functionality and features. I am seriously disappointed with Apple. This is a big insult to us as consumers.

4. It seems I'm being unfair about voice control: apparently the 3GS has a digital signal processing thingummybob that makes voice control possible in a way that the 3G can't handle. Of course, that may well be marketing BS.

Another thing I didn't mention in the piece because I don't know if it applies to everyone, but: I've been having horrific problems with 3G/WiFi reception on my 3G of late, and the 3.0 update seems to have fixed that. It might be a coincidence, though, which is why I haven't mentioned it in the story.

plumtree1303, that's really interesting: I struggle to half-fill my 16GB, and if battery life is really important a juice pack would be a lot cheaper over time than a 3GS upgrade and a new 18 or 24-month contract. That said, I can't think of a single reason to justify upgrading my 3G to a 3GS, but I've spent plenty of time thinking about it anyway :)

mwits, I get that from time to time too. I haven't found it happening any more often with 3.0, although sometimes it does seem to be a bit slower to spot the orientation change. I wonder if other iPhone users are getting the same thing?

201010 - ah, the problems of gadget lust. It might be worth hanging on if you're a crackberry addict: by all accounts the Palm Pre is more of a Blackberry killer than an iPhone killer...

3. After I update to 3.0, my phone no longer recognizes when it's being turned on its side. That being said, I am not only unable to benefit from the new "landscape" update, but I am now unable to view Safari in landscape and I cannot use the scrolling mode in iTunes. Two thumbs down.

2. Having been an owner of the Iphone 3g for the past 9 months or so, now running OS3 if it was my money i would get the 3GS, but that's because i need the space (16GB isn't enough) and the extra battery life would be good. I am also fairly impressed by the voice command software it uses.

1. Argh! Curse you Moriarty, my current O2 contract ended today and I'm due to go and collect my new shiny tomorrow; but 3G or 3GS? Its already passed the tough technical test (my wife said it was ok) but should I really shell out my hard earned wonga on this geek status symbol or just put the money on the lottery? WHY CAN'T YOU TELL ME SOMETHING USEFUL???? Like should I really ditch my Crackberry for a black box I can actually whisper sweet nothings too? Dilemmas, dilemmas...!