June 17th, 2009 
By MobileApp Guru filed under iPhone Reviews, iPod Touch Reviews

Tags:mobile apps, mobile devices

Apple has just released their eagerly anticipated iPhone 3.0 update. There are many blogs on the topic already but most of the blogs are based on pre-release information.

I just downloaded iPhone 3.0 and will detail both the steps involved in downloading it and some of the new features as viewed directly from my own iPod Touch 2nd Generation.

Installation of iPhone 3.0 on an existing iPod/iPhone
1. First, Connect the dock Connector from your iPod/iPhone to your computer.
2. Launch iTunes™ from your Mac or PC
3. Select your iPod/iPhone in iTunes and choose check for updates (as the screenshot below indicates).

4. You will be asked to agree to Apple’s license agreements and then a Buy button will appear if you are upgrading an iPod or should be free if you have an iPhone.

The software will download to your iTunes and will take awhile as it was roughly 257 megs according to the iTunes software. It took about 8 minutes to download to my computer on my 7meg dsl connection. I suspect if you wait till later in the week to download it, the download will likely be quicker without all the server load from users trying to download it on release day.

Once the software has downloaded (as long as your iPod/iPhone is still connected to your computer via the dock connector) it should begin installation. Your iPod/iPhone will show a loading bar for a good 5 or 6 minutes while the software is updated and verified and the firmware version updated. Once the install is complete, the iPod/iPhone should automatically reboot and it is important that you let the iPod/iPhone reboot without turning it off at this point as it could hinder the install.

After I installed the update, I noticed that my icons for my apps were out of order. At first, I thought the update had somehow deleted all my apps. But I suspect what happened was that the new Voice Memos icon pushed one of my apps onto the next screen all by itself. So when I scrolled over one screen from the home screen, I had one single icon on it. Because Voice Memos is a new feature of iPhone 3.0, it adds a new icon to the home screen and likely the extra icon shifted all my icons for my apps over. I suspect that other users may also have their icons shifted around due to the extra Voice Memo icon.

Another annoyance I found with the new software, when I played around with the new Parental restrictions and disabled Safari access the Safari icon disappeared as expected. When I re-enabled the Safari app using the parental restrictions, the Safari app reappeared on the home screen. However, I noticed when I rebooted my iPod Touch that the Safari icon (though enabled again) appeared on the very last page of my apps instead of on the home screen. I repeated this process twice just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke and both times after a reboot Safari ended up on the last page of my apps. So it appears when you disable an app with parental restrictions, that you may get some shuffling of your icons. This could fool users who aren’t computer savvy into thinking that the app is still disabled. You can, of course, inconveniently drag the icon back to its previous location but it seems bizarre that the icon is rearranged only upon reboot of the iPod/iPhone.

I had an opportunity to play with the new copy and paste features as well which I have provided screenshots of later on in this blog post. Overall, if you are an iPod Touch user the primary advantages of this update are the landscape keyboard, copy and paste functionality, spotlight search, Voice Memos (only if you have a set of headphones with a built-in mic which doesn’t come standard with the iPod), parental controls, auto fill in Safari, ability to hold more apps, iTunes rentals and iTunes U.

The iPhone 3G S of course sports additional features which you can check out on Apple’s web site.

To do a search using spotlight on the new iPhone 3.0, simply flick your finger to the right on the iPod Touch home screen and you should be taken to the spotlight search where you can search your entire iPod or iPhone for music, podcasts, movies, apps, pictures, or files that are stored on it. A screenshot of the new home screen and the Spotlight screen appear below:

As you can see from the screenshots, the spotlight icon is located at the bottom of the iPod Touch/iPhone home screen. Flicking your finger to the right should bring up the spotlight screen in the second screenshot above.

The Voice Memo feature is the next most obvious feature. Pressing the Voice Memo icon should launch the app and present a screen similar to the following screenshots:

If you press the record button (the button with the red dot), the Voice Memo will start recording unless you have an iPod Touch or an iPhone and do not have a Mic connected. The iPod Touch does not come with a Mic as standard equipment but you can purchase headphones with a Mic from most retailers that sell Apple hardware if you wish to use the Voice Memo feature. If you have an iPhone all the hardware you need should have come with your iPhone. Pressing the second button on the Voice Memo takes you to the screen as shown in the second screenshot above. You can choose to share or delete the voice memo.

Next up I tried the landscape keyboard in my email app and it definitely was a pleasure to use over the portrait keyboard. Though I have fairly small fingers, even I had difficulty using the portrait keyboard. So the new keyboard should make it very easy for those of us with small fingers and somewhat easier for those with fat fingers. I was able to type a whole sentence on my email without a single spelling mistake which I couldn’t accomplish before with the portrait keyboard. A screenshot of the keyboard in action appears below:

Cut Copy and Paste is relatively easy! Simply place your cursor before the word you want to select and a box will appear prompting to Select, Select all, or Paste. If you choose select, only the word immediately following the cursor will be selected. If you choose select all, all the text on the screen will be selected though you can drag the bar at the end if you want to select just specific text (i.e. more than a single word but not the whole text). The screenshots below will help you to visualize the process:

Tune into my blog for my upcoming review of the new iPhone 3.0 Parental Controls