MacAppZone

iPhone 3.0: Some Favorite New Features

June 18th, 2009 by Erik Bernskiold

I’ve quite made it a point not to cover much in regards to the iPhone here on the site as it is supposed to be about Mac applications, however I think the iPhone 3.0 firmware is too good to pass on! I’ve been using the 3.0 firmware since the first beta version back in March and now that I have been using the golden master seed for about a week and I really, truly like it!

What I am perhaps most interested in seeing still, is all the push notification applications, and I say this up-front! Even though I have been using the 3.0 firmware for all this time, it is a lot of the developer API features that I am very interested in seeing in the applications and using! As there are very few of these ones out yet, I cannot say much about it, although using the AIM developer preview version, made it look really sweet! It works as advertised in my limited testing!

Spotlight Search

Something I didn’t think I would use a whole lot is the spotlight search option. It lets you search through your entire phone, including applications. What I have found it useful though, is to quickly get access to older emails. Since it also searches online on the server, it makes finding that old email with the information I need very easy!

Voice Recorder App

I was really surprised at how well the voice recorder application works and how crisp the audio sounds. It syncs right into iTunes and adds your memos in the iTunes library. You can also send memos as MMS’s or email them out. A bummer with the email is that you only can send clips of two minutes or less! Basic trim features are also available right from within the app, in a nice Apple style.

Cut/Copy/Paste

Haven’t everyone been waiting for this just about since the original iPhone launch? It’s here now and works as advertised. Just double tap on some text to bring up the controls. You can change the length of the text that you want to copy and then just tap copy when ready. Where you want to paste, just double tap and select the paste option! Simple!

Note Syncing

As you can see from the previous screenshot, notes also sync right back to your computer when you do an iTunes sync. I definitely want to be able to sync through MobileMe and hope that it will come soon.

Undo

A very neat feature (that I find myself activating often by accident) is the shake to undo. If you’ve done typed something in that you wish to undo, just shake the phone and tap the undo button!

Internet Tethering

Living in Sweden, I have a carrier that allows me to run tethering (off the data plan I already have it seems)! It’s just a matter of activating it from within the network settings, connect via cable or bluetooth to your computer and off you go! Simple!

Landscape Mail and Messages

All the official Apple apps on the iPhone now support landscape view, which I really love when it comes to mail! The landscape keyboard is far superior for writing long emails, faster on the iPhone. I must say I can do without it for SMS’s, as they are typically shorter, but it is very welcome!

More!

There are many more new features in the iPhone 3.0 update, but these are a selection of the ones that I really like and find myself using the most so far. There are some great new features in the messages app (apart from MMS support) that allows to delete individual messages or forward messages. You can now share contacts from within the address book, sync both from iTunes and through MobileMe, purchase TV Shows and Movies from iTunes, have more home screens (total of 11), auto-fill in Safari, just to mention a few more that are also neat, but don’t warrant a full-space here!