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After what can only be described as a disastrous launch for the 3G iPhone, I would now suspect that every iPhone customer has Apple’s latest 2.0 software (as well as some of Apple’s iPod Touch customers – I say ‘some’ because it costs £5.99).
I updated via the ‘leaked’ version a couple of days ago and I’ve had plenty of time to get to grips with the new software. What follows is a quick opinionated review using screenshots from my iPhone (press down the ‘home’ and ‘power on/off button’ simultaneously when on the screen you want to capture.)
The App store is great, but the problem at the moment is that a lot (the vast majority, at least for me) of the apps are useless.
To begin with, I downloaded almost every free app in the store to check them all out. Now, I have only three things installed; Super Monkey Ball, NetNewsWire and Shazam. I hope more apps are released soon because there is a slight sense of anti-climax for me, I’ve been looking forward to the App Store for a long time.
The new features allowing MobileMe to work with iPhones/iPod Touches is great and is working mostly well (I think the problems I am having are due to MobileMe’s downtime and not the 2.0 software. My new MobileMe account is pushing email to my iPhone almost instantaneously, as well as synching calendar events, contacts and bookmarks (I’ve turned this off, I want different bookmarks on my iPhone than on my computers). Another update is to the email application itself, the long awaited multi-edit feature is now availiable, allowing me to move more than one email at a time to different folders etc.
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Strangely, the most previewed and possibly anticipated feature of 2.0 was the new calculator app, don’t ask me why. I probably wont ever use these new scientific functions, but I suppose they’re nice to have. Plus it’s pretty cool to watch the transformation as you turn your iPhone around, can you get any more geeky!?
Super Monkey Ball
I love it. It’s awesome. The controls are fantastic, perhaps a little tricky to get the hang of but once you do, you realise why SEGA spent so much time developing for the iPhone platform. It’s such a great device for these little games. Graphics are much better than those on the Nintendo DS and comparable to those on the PSP. I’ll be downloading Crash Bandicoot racing next I think.
Shazam
Remember that app I blogged about a couple of months ago that identified songs by analysing the track and then sending it to ‘magic’ servers? Well, that’s what Shazam is for the iPhone (I beieve, due to the iPod Touch not having a microphone, that it is an iPhone only app). Hold the iPhone up to a music source, and it’ll send you back the name/artist and even album art and links to buy the song on the iTunes store as well as a Youtube link for the video. I’ve had so much fun with testing this app and found it to be much more effective than the app I reviewed a while back.
NetNewsWire
I hate NetNewsWire for the desktop, I find it much easier to check each webpage individually for my news. On the iPhone, this is obviously not as easy, especially when I’m trying to load up TUAW or Engadget (heavy pages) over an EDGE connection. Even using MobileSafari’s built in RSS reader isn’t a good experience. NetNewsWire for iPhone allows me to get headlines all in one place, from all my favourite sites and synched with NewsGator (should I ever grow to like the desktop app. Well worth a download if you’re a blog addict like me.
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Does what it says on the tin. Allows my iPhone to act as a remote for any iTunes library on my wifi network. The first time round, a code needs granting by the iPhone in the case of each library you want to connect to, this is then entered into iTunes on your computer. Brilliant and simple app, perfect for when you want to change the music playing whilst not at your computer. It also works with AppleTV, which I don’t have, but that would be awesome!
Overall, I think the 2.O software update is well worth the price that iPod Touch users’ have to pay to upgrade. The App Store has great potential and the apps availiable are fantastic uses of the technology that comes with the iPhone.
When it comes to the iPhone 3G, I’m really not sure whether I want it or not yet. I know I don’t need it for any practical use, but still, I NEED it!!! When i find yourself ringing all stockists in the area to see if any are availiable, I guess I want it.
Andrew.
I’ll be blogging about my early experience of MobileMe in a few days time.