3.0 is Here!

I downloaded the 230MB OS 3.0 last night, but was able to install it only this morning... the iPhone activation servers were too busy for a while.

My First Impression

Actually, upon first impression there isn't much of a change, except for the new Search screen that has been created, to the left of the Home screen.

About Time!

The Spotlight (search) feature is extremely good, just like what we have got used to on the Mac... Given the extent and diversity of the content you could end up with on the iPhone, this was extremely essential. The copy-paste has been executed very well... very easy to use, and also very useful. Similarly, the ability to forward SMS'es is also welcome. (These are features that Apple should have introduced on Day 1... for a mini-computer, at least the first two are table-stakes.)

Vodafone India: Ages Behind!

There has been a huge hue and cry against AT&T for not enabling many of the iPhone features... Vodafone (at least in India) is no better off! We have not yet got access to Visual Voicemail that was introduced in OS1.0; MMS which is part of 3.0 is also not activated. I haven't tried Tethering, but I am not sure about that too... anyways, with the relatively low speed of the GPRS/Edge network, fat lot of difference that will make.

Stereo BT and More...

An interesting update is that of stereo bluetooth... now you can use the various stereo headsets that you have to listen to music from your iPhone... (considering that the speaker is quite weak and mono...)... For me the interesting implementation of this is to use it with my Samsung Home Theater that has bluetooth to play songs from the phone (again nothing new, most phones today can do that!)... what I would have loved to see was the ability to play songs from the iPhone directly to my Airport Express using WiFi (the only advantage being greater range)...

There are several other improvements like landscape keyboard, parental controls, within-app sales, ... when I get to use them (if at all), I will speak about them.

All in all, OS 3.0 has helped iPhone catch up with its competition on several basic features, and overall has made iPhone one of the smartest devices in its category.