When O2 customers moaned about iPhone 3G S upgrades, the firm was quick to point out that version 3.0 of the iPhone OS would deliver almost everything the 3G S offered - without the pant-threateningly expensive upgrade prices.
So now it's here, is O2 right? Is Version 3.0 a whole new iPhone?
As far as everyday usability is concerned, iPhone 3.0 delivers three key features: copying and pasting, Spotlight searching and more use of the landscape keyboard. You now get a landscape keyboard in Mail, Messages and Notes, and the new developer APIs should see it in third-party apps, too.
However, we have one big reservation about the keyboard, and that's its size: it's still useless for fingers, but by taking the full width of the screen it's too wide for thumbs. For us at least, it's an ergonomic disaster area.
GO WIDE: The landscape keyboard is now available in Messages, Mail and Notes. The proportions are weird, though, and we found it very uncomfortable
With the arrival of Spotlight you can now search your iPhone in the same way as you search your Mac. Well, almost. While Spotlight does a decent job of phone-wide searches - for example searching for a name will bring up results from your Address Book, from Mail and from any other apps such as Calendar that contain that person's name - it's inevitably less powerful than its desktop equivalent, especially on email. You can search message titles and senders, but not the content of email messages.
SEARCH: Spotlight delivers quick and easy searching across your iPhone
FINALLY: Cut, copy and paste works flawlessly. You can also use it to copy URLs from Safari or images from your photo library
Copy and Paste is much more successful. Holding your finger on an object enables you to drag a selection area for text, and you can then cut, copy or select all; switch to your destination app, hold your finger down again and the paste option springs up. It doesn't just work for text: you can also copy photos, so for example you can copy a picture from your camera roll and paste it into an email or MMS, and it can also copy URLs from Safari's address bar.
Did we mention MMS? That's now implemented in the SMS application, now renamed Messages, although it comes at a price: the application is noticeably slower to load in version 3.0.
MMS: The Messages application feels very sluggish
Your comments (10) Click to add a new comment
gavin
June 18th
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.
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kasino72
June 18th
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.
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johnhind
June 18th
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?
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beefstirfry
June 18th
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.
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kasino72
June 18th
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.
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babaksondi
June 18th
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.
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