So I took a plunge last night and just upgraded my 1st-gen iPhone to 3.0. The phone is from the US, but the unlock held through the firmware upgrade, which was painless. I was pretty psyched about all of the new features, but one thing that also struck me was how some of the best features were actually held back…with seemingly no good reason.

Why hold back, Apple?

I can take the lack of video or compass since those features have a lot to do with hardware, but why gimp voice control capability or Bluetooth stereo? As far as I know, the iPhone 1st-gen has the same processing power and memory as the 3G, and it also has the same Bluetooth 2.0. I think this must have been a purposeful crippling of the older generation devices to “inspire” people to get new devices. Well, it obviously worked on me, since I’ve ordered a 3GS, but it’s too bad they did this. I see it just like the first iPod Touch’s launch, when Apple decided that Touches weren’t worthy of having actual calendar app functionality.

More 3.0 impressions

Complaints aside, 3.0 is cool so far. I’ve noticed some definite slowdowns on my device, but it’s great to have all the little extra features. It’s surprising to see what people see as the main features of this new firmware. People at work seem to see the compass as a huge deal and a reason to upgrade, but I just see it as a useful little extra. Cut and paste is remarkably well done (about time!) and very fast, and the new Spotlight features just makes sense. I’d really love for it to search the internet a la the Palm Pre, though. It’s mostly a local search for now, with the exception of searching your mail servers for messages that aren’t on your device.

One of the biggest features of 3.0 – push notification – is still nowhere to be seen on my iPhone. I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Beejive 3.0 which will allow me to receive IM’s in the background, but so far Agile Messenger is the only messenger with any Push.

Would love some different notification styles

As a last note, I just wanted to think out loud about the way the OS handles notifications: I think it’s actually a little too basic. Android and WebOS devices both have trays that hold notifications for later viewing, but the iPhone can ever only show one thing at a time. What’s more, there’s no way to hide a notification except for closing it. If you can’t deal with reading a long text message at the moment, you’ll actually mark it as read by closing the notification. That means that there’s nothing to remind you to read it again later. I think the iPhone will really need some notification innovation to truly take things to the next level. Apple’s platform has a great lead in terms of app selection and popularity, but the others are really getting it right when it comes to multi-tasking and managing lots of incoming information.

How about you, dear JAMM readers? Any thoughts/wishes on 3.0 so far?

Be Sociable, Share!

•