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Apple 2.0 Software Outshines Even the New iPhone 3G

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 July 2008, 15:00 CDT

With all the Apple frenzy dying down after the launch of the new iPhone 3G Friday, I'm finding it's the new iPhone 2.0 software upgrade that is the most impressive _ allowing users to connect seamlessly to business e-mail and run hundreds of new games and programs.

Don't get me wrong... The new iPhone 3G is fast. Broadband fast, running on AT&T's 3G (third generation) wireless network. For the customers who stood in line from predawn to the 8 a.m. opening of Apple and AT&T stores Friday to get one of the new phones, and then waded through long delays in activation, I'm sure by now they are impressed with those new phones. The phones work great and the activation difficulties are but a faded memory.

But now that I've had some time to check mine out, I'm convinced that even bigger than the upgraded phone is the new iPhone 2.0 software upgrade from Apple that works with the older iPhone models, too.

Let's start with Microsoft Exchange. That's what most corporations use to manage e-mail, calendaring and contact info and it did not work with the first iPhone operating system. The upgrade changes that.

When you go to set up a new e-mail account on the iPhone (either the 3G model or the older model) you'll find, under settings, a new icon, labeled Microsoft Exchange. Enter in the corporate business user ID, the mail server and login details and, in seconds, your iPhone is getting push e-mail, meaning instantaneous connectivity to your company e-mail.

As e-mail arrives, you get it on the iPhone. As you schedule a meeting or add a contact, those changes are made on your desktop and laptop computers, too, as long as they're accessing your business Exchange server, through the Microsoft Outlook or Entourage programs.

It took me all of three minutes to get all my Free Press Exchange mail on the iPhone. Hallelujah!

Those push feature is what made the Blackberry, and to a lesser degree, other smartphones, so hugely popular with corporate types. And now it's part of the iPhone, meaning that a whole new market has suddenly opened up.

Then there all the new programs for both the new and old iPhone, available for over-the-air downloads from Apple's new Apps Store. It shows up as an icon on the iPhone screen. Like iTunes, you get a list of all the programs, a preview description of what they do, and usually a screen shot.

I downloaded Monkey Ball, a surprisingly addictive little game that has you tilt the iPhone screen to move your character across a suspended series of platforms and through a goal.

I downloaded an RSS newsreader, a blogging tool, a searchable Bible, a bicycle training program. Most prices range from free to $9.99, with many at $2.99 and $4.99. You buy programs just as you do songs or videos from Apple's iTunes site.

Now almost all of my iPhone use has been on my home Wi-Fi network. What I'm most interested in checking out is the 3G network that AT&T uses for the new phone.

My early tests were restricted to reading my blogs here at freep.com. But whereas the first iPhone on the AT&T EDGE network took as long as 50 seconds to draw, with the new iPhone, I got full display in 20-30 seconds... or, just as they promised, twice as fast.

Source: Detroit Free Press

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