Kind of underwhelmed with 3.0

[mkrishnan]

I looked again at the calendar app and did not see anything notable. I have Mobile Me (which frankly I only use to sync with my MBP) but not Exchange. I will have to poke around the new features threads to see some instructions for what I might be looking for.

The new Calendar setup lets the user have both stored local calendars (that are synced with iTunes) and the Exchange calendar, right? In the old setup, basically, if I wanted the Exchange calendar, it became the only calendar on my iPhone, as I understood it.

This is sort of either a huge deal or irrelevant, depending on the user. For example, I have Outlook on my desk at work (from which my iPhone is not managed). It would have been very convenient to be be able to use my work calendar, which can be shared with other users, etc, for scheduling stuff at work. But if I wanted it on my iPhone before, I had to give up all my other calendars, which was unacceptable.

I hear you -- I think the update basically addressed a huge number of holes in the iPhone, and it generally did so quite nicely in most cases -- search is an example. Search I missed hugely from the Blackberry. I think Apple's is actually better than search was on my 8700, though.

I think this is actually going to be a challenge for Apple. The fact that so many things can be done on the App Store means that Apple almost doesn't need to throw out lots of new candy in a firmware refresh. But it also means the firmware is going to be a sleeper hit. Right now, 3.0 has lots of nice little upgrades. Give a couple of months' time for lots of 3.0-centric apps to be on the app store, and I think it'll be a vastly different story. Push, now that it's finally here, and some of the other new APIs, are really going to enhance the iPhone. It's just not going to show up as part of the firmware.

That being said, I think it would be fun if Apple kept working on new, interesting core features. Some of the little pieces of candy in 3.0 were very clever, new, Apple ideas. Most of them were just fixes of things everyone else had. But when the iPhone came out, it had tons of stuff that I never even thought about using my phone for. So it would be fun if Apple kept thinking about core iPhone tools that push the envelope in new ways....

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Of course, upgrading to 3.0 on the 1st gen iPhone is going to feel underwhelming because the only "visible" changes are Voice Memos and spotlight. This is why it's time to upgrade to 3G S.

 

[Scott6666]

If you enable your Exchange calendar in Settings...

Thanks for the info but our company does not have Exchange. It sounds like there is some benefit if you have just MobileMe. I never really thought about creating a MobileMe calendar. It seems like the calendar I have on my MBP is fine. Why would I need a MM calendar? I will have to go onto their website and look.

 

[rushmere]

You guys are impossible to please. Seems like yesterday when everyone was whining about Copy paste and now it is here it is "underwhelming". What were we expecting from a software update, turn your iPhone into a toaster?

mmmmm....toast......

...but I can't find a loaf small enough to fit in that little slot at the bottom. This is outrageous. I want my money back.

 

[anjinha]

Thanks for the info but our company does not have Exchange. It sounds like there is some benefit if you have just MobileMe. I never really thought about creating a MobileMe calendar. It seems like the calendar I have on my MBP is fine. Why would I need a MM calendar? I will have to go onto their website and look.

It's not a different MobileMe calendar. If you have MobileMe the calendar on your MBP syncs to it and then it gets pushed to your iPhone.

 

[sharpycl]

i put my phone with 3.0 installed right next to the dog's leash and it still hasn't taken him for a walk.

what? the 3g s takes the dog for a walk? i don't care, the 3g s is a minor upgrade and i don't want it to walk the dog anyway. i'm waiting until next years iphone that will print money and fly and cure diseases and, and, and......

I'm kinda hoping that 4.0 will do all of my cats grooming for me. I put the brush next to my iPhone and it got confused and turned on the star wars light saber app.

 

[dagomike]

I think people are forgetting about the APIs. The best is yet to come. In app content purchasing and push has all sorts of great possibilities, plus all the other stuff. The iPhone is a platform. This is how it blows the doors off of other phones and I think it's completely missing the boat to judge it as-is out of box.

Cut and paste is really slick. This will totally change how I not only use the iPhone, but mobile computing in general.

Landscape in mail is really nice. Again makes it even more powerful.

Spotlight is pretty nifty, but my brain is wired the old way. It will take a bit to remember to use spotlight rather than go digging through in boxes or playlists.

MMS.... well, TBD.

I'm not really seeing much in Safari and not seeing how the new Calendar helps me. Stocks, meh.

It's a really solid upgrade without even having a 3GS.

 

[mkrishnan]

Thanks for the info but our company does not have Exchange. It sounds like there is some benefit if you have just MobileMe. I never really thought about creating a MobileMe calendar. It seems like the calendar I have on my MBP is fine. Why would I need a MM calendar? I will have to go onto their website and look.

This stuff ends up being really useful for those of us who travel for work a lot, work out of different offices or locations, need to share our calendars with co-workers, etc... other than that, meh. So it might not be that valuable to you, depending on if you meet any of those criteria.

As for the first gen iPhone... There isn't that much that isn't on the first gen iPhone featurewise. No compass, no video recording and no MMS, no A2DP? Is there much else? Most of the candy works quite well on the EDGE iPhone. I was very impressed with how fast search is.

 

[ifoner]

Upgraded last night to 3.0 (with no hassles)

Got to say that I'm quite underwhelmed with it. There really doesn't seem to be much exciting to do with it. \

Of course different updates please different people. You can see that these updates needed to be there though. For me the iPhone has incrementally become the killer app of consumer products.

I know you didn't as for all of this, but anyway...

I'd love to see the master plan for this product. They've executed it brilliantly, to the degree that the world is drooling over every update they put out. Have you noticed that there is always a path forward? How many cell phones or smart phones have you ever owned that did that?

I've owned a lot, and this is the first that made the customer feel that there was anything future to come. (Neither Palm nor Windows mobile has ever done a good job with this)

Not sure how many people understand why this is. I believe it's all due to Apple untying the hardware from the network. So now your phone is truly a computer, and the company that made it is free to put out updates whenever they deem it appropriate, which means THEY are driving the hardware. Without Apple we'd all be on some crappy, buggy smart phone with yearly minor firmware updates. And by the way, the network wouldn't let you have the update because they need to test it for the next two years, which means it's obsolete by the time you get it.

 

[daneoni]

There really is no satisfying some people. Honestly...wow.

 

[Ninja Guidan]

3.0 Upgrade

Hey...isn't the 3.0 upgrade supposed to bring stereo bluetooth to the iPhone 3G? WOW WOW WUBBZY!!!

 

[benflick]

No new apps or changes to apps so it's kind of boring to me..

What?
No new apps, hmm. Well we know one for sure, voice recording. MMS could be considered one, I'm sure there are more.
No changes to apps, do you hear yourself talk?
SMS has changed, Calendar has changed, Photos has changed, Camera has changed, YouTube has changed, Stocks has changed, Maps has changed, Clock has changed, Notes has changed, iTunes has changed, App Store has changed, Mail has changed, Safari has changed, and so has iPod.
Just about every single app on the homescreen has changed, yet you claim that there are no changes to apps. Albeit not all the changes are extraordinary, but they are changes.

 

[JohnnyQuest]

I expected 3.0 to be underwhelming on my 2G iPhone, and it is. Just some minor, but great, changes. I really like it though. 2.0 was a major release with the App Store and all, but it was really unstable and bad, unlike 3.0, which is very stable and just as fast as 2.2.1. I can't wait for the 3G S with 3.0 though, it's going to blow me away.

 

[Superdelphinus]

In app content purchasing and push has all sorts of great possibilities,

like what?

 

[Superdelphinus]

also, how has the maps app changed?

 

[Scott6666]

What?
SMS has changed, Calendar has changed, Photos has changed, Camera has changed, YouTube has changed, Stocks has changed, Maps has changed, Clock has changed, Notes has changed, iTunes has changed, App Store has changed, Mail has changed, Safari has changed, and so has iPod.

I know I must be dense. At first glance all of these virtually the same.

You force me to poke around more:

Photos: I can see multiple selection. Picture taking seems identical. OK some interest in sending multiple pictures.

Camera: Missing it.

Maps: Missing it. Maybe the little dot giving the approx address. Not so interested. Doesn't seem to incorporate any Google Latitude features.

SMS: Missing it. Same bubble sitting there. Maybe the edit feature? That's something.

Clock: Totally missing it. Same alarms, same 4 items on the bottom. I like it. Use it daily. Not complaining but not different.

Stocks: OK, now I see the 3 dots at the bottom. Got some news and stuff. Turn sideways get big chart. That's OK.

Mail: Missing it. Looks the same.

Safari: Missing it. Looks the same. Looking harder I see the hold link and open in new page. Nice addition.

iPod (iTunes): Looks the same.

YouTube: Don't care. My kid might.

I think your are overstating it, but I guess you could say that I am understating it.

You sure do have to look hard for any new features though. Perhaps that's the beauty of evolution.

 

[Scott6666]

Hey...isn't the 3.0 upgrade supposed to bring stereo bluetooth to the iPhone 3G? WOW WOW WUBBZY!!!

Now that could be something. Anyone pair with some BT headphones yet?

 

[benflick]

Now that could be something. Anyone pair with some BT headphones yet?

Someone posted here and said it was working.

 

[joebob222]

Voice Recording is available on ALL iPhones.

AAAnd he never mentioned Voice recording...Do you just like making things up?

 

[anjinha]

I know I must be dense. At first glance all of these virtually the same.

You force me to poke around more:

Photos: I can see multiple selection. Picture taking seems identical. OK some interest in sending multiple pictures. You can copy photos (to later paste on an email or something) or share multiple photos by email, MMS or Mobile Me.

Camera: Missing it. You now have an icon on the bottom left corner that shows the last picture you took.

Maps: Missing it. Maybe the little dot giving the approx address. Not so interested. Doesn't seem to incorporate any Google Latitude features.

SMS: Missing it. Same bubble sitting there. Maybe the edit feature? That's something. You can now MMS, forward texts, delete individual texts (you could only delete conversations before).

Clock: Totally missing it. Same alarms, same 4 items on the bottom. I like it. Use it daily. Not complaining but not different.

Stocks: OK, now I see the 3 dots at the bottom. Got some news and stuff. Turn sideways get big chart. That's OK. When in landscape you can also click on a point of the graph to see the stocks at each particular day

Mail: Missing it. Looks the same.

Safari: Missing it. Looks the same. Looking harder I see the hold link and open in new page. Nice addition. Auto-fill

iPod (iTunes): Looks the same.

YouTube: Don't care. My kid might. You can now login to your account and access your favorites, etc.

I think your are overstating it, but I guess you could say that I am understating it.

You sure do have to look hard for any new features though. Perhaps that's the beauty of evolution.

These are just a few new features. There are a lot more.

 

[benflick]

These are just a few new features. There are a lot more.

Thanks for listing them, I was too lazy.

 

[Ninja Guidan]

Someone posted here and said it was working.

Stereo bluetooth is all I need. WOW WOW WUBBZY!!!

 

[michael31986]

i love the 3.0 and i use all the features!

 

[Jowl]

- Free Internet Tethering <cough> On O2 </cough>

Really......er.....I'd be interested to know how that is done

 

[QCassidy352]

You guys are impossible to please. Seems like yesterday when everyone was whining about Copy paste and now it is here it is "underwhelming". What were we expecting from a software update, turn your iPhone into a toaster?

Amen. Do you even remember the iphone forums between the 2.0 release and the 3.0 event in March? You couldn't go two threads without hitting one dedicated to complaining about the lack of some feature that 3.0 has added (C&P, landscape mail, stereo bluetooth, and MMS being the biggest). I mean seriously, apple has addressed 90% of what people used to complain about in this update.

Moreover, just as 2.0's potential wasn't realized until the app store really took off, so too will the power of 3.0 not be fully apparent until developers start using push notifications, p2p functionality, and in-app buying, and perhaps most importantly, linking with hardware.

I don't usually think of myself as a "glass half full" guy, but look: I'm still using an iphone I bought 2 years ago, I haven't paid a penny more (except for carrier fees, which I would have had to pay anyway), and now I can do literally orders of magnitude more than I could on the day I bought this iphone - and I thought it was darn cool that day.

So in short:
1) 3.0 has lots of great additions that address very vocal compliants
2) 3.0 will only get better as devs make full use of it
3) It cost you nothing and improves what was already a great user experience

Just sayin'.