iPhone 3.0 first impressions

The initial experience with the download from iTunes wasn’t good. The download was fast enough, but it then took another half hour of repeated attempts to connect to Apple’s a activation server before the update actually started. I also have an original iPod touch, and that took just as many attempts to purchase the update.

The other minor glitch was an update to Apples iTunes conditions of use, which caused my AppleTV to re-synch all of the DRM’d movies.

So far the upgrade has been otherwise uneventful. I used the MMS feature first and sent a photo from the phones gallery to my wife’s Nokia. I would usually do this as an email attachment which is cheaper by the way, but since the rest of the Mobile phone world has this then it’s a handy addition I suppose. I’m looking forward to push notification to make this feature even less relevant especially when sending to other iPhones.

Select, copy, and paste works well and I especially like how it shows a magnified view of what’s selected under my finger.

There’s an extra pane for applications. Prior to the upgrade I had a full first pane. The upgrade added the sound recorder application which pushed one of the third-party apps to a second otherwise empty pane. I’ve also just discovered that an 11th pane can be created by dragging an app to the right of the formally last pane. That’s probably enough until a future upgrade. The new spotlight search pane makes it easy to launch apps without having to navigate the panes. That’s very handy but after quitting the app it returns to the first pane. I would have preferred it to quit to the pane the app was on to make it easier to relaunch. However the results of the last search are still open, so returning to the app from the search screen is not a big inconvenience.

Because I have a MobileMe account I was able to check out the ‘Find my iPhone’ feature. It is at least a phone call cheaper for locating the phone in the house. I think some phone companies charge for making calls even if the recipient doesn’t answer. This feature uses push notification to send a message and play the radar sound, so no need for SMS. This also works for iPod Touches, as long as they are connected to a wireless network. If I really did forget my iPhone in public I would most likely want to use my wife’s iPhone to quickly locate it, as I would not necessarily have easy access to computer at the time I discover that it’s missing. But there’s the catch! It’s not currently possible to access the MobileMe account page using an iPhone!

Apple has added some controls to iPod playback. There’s now a jump back 30 seconds button, an email a link to this podcast button and a playback speed button supporting 1x, 2x and 0.5x speed.

There’s a search box in the mail application allowing selective searches of From, To, Subject, and All. Emails can also be searched from the spotlight pane.

Overall impressions are good. The apps seem to be more responsive. It’s not actually faster. There are just fewer delays especially in the Contacts application.