iPhone News Updated

Review: Apple’s iPhone 3.0 Software Upgrade (4)

Review: Apple’s iPhone 3.0 Software Upgrade (4)

iPod Improvements

The new firmware includes a couple of upgrades to the iPod software that will be extremely welcome to people who listen to a lot of spoken-word recordings. I listen to 3-4 hours of podcasts and audiobooks weekly. One of my chief frustrations with earlier versions of the iPod software was that it was very difficult to rewind by a short amount, say just a few seconds or a minute or two to catch up with something you missed because you weren’t paying attention.

The new firmware now lets you skip backwards by 30 seconds with the touch of a button. It’s not a hardware button, just an icon on a screen, but it’s nice and big and easy to find even while walking outdoors in bright sun wearing sunglasses.

Another new feature of the iPod software: You can double the playback speed, or slow it to half-speed, without affecting the tone — in other words, the speeded-up version won’t sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the slowed-down version won’t sound unnaturally deep and boozy. I found 2x to be too fast to follow, and couldn’t think of a reason why I’d want to listen to something at half-speed, but someone might find that feature useful.

Random Observations About Untested Features

I haven’t been able to test out a few of the features of iPhone 3.0, because applications taking advantage of those features aren’t yet available, or because they require the iPhone 3G S hardware, released Friday.

The chief untested feature: Push notifications, which allow applications that are shut down to send messages alerting the user about new information. For example, the AIM instant messaging application will let users know about new IMs even when the app is shut down. Push is a workaround to make up for the iPhone’s inability to run multiple apps simultaneously.

I haven’t been able to locate apps that take advantage of push, but I expect they’ll surface soon.

The on-board compass, video camera, and improved still camera with autofocus are only available on the 3G S.

I wasn’t able to find any incompatibilities with applications written for older versions of the operating system. I tested the Amazon Kindle app, Evernote, Lose It!, Wikipanion Plus, and TweetDeck; they all worked fine with iPhone 3.0.

On the other hand, I was unable to log in to the Plurk microblogging service using its iPhone app; I don’t know if the problem was with the app or some other random bug. Likewise, I was unable to log into one of my home Wi-Fi networks, but I don’t know if there was some external problem.

I’m pretty sure the software makes the speaker louder, but I can’t swear to it.

[Thanks: http://www.informationweek.com]

Comments are closed.