What the iPhone 2.0 software update adds
It keeps growing and growing.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)There was more news today from Apple's WWDC than just the announcement of the iPhone 3G. CEO Steve Jobs also announced the iPhone 2.0 software update. Available to current iPhone and iPod Touch owners, the software update adds several new features that are interesting, if not extraordinary. Indeed, I warmly welcome the addition of Microsoft Exchange server support and the third-party applications, but I was hoping for a lot more. The software update will be available in early July; iPhone users will get it for free while iPod Touch users will pay $9.95. Here's a summary of what we'll see.
Enterprise support
As promised last March, the iPhone will support the Microsoft Exchange server. That means you'll be able to get push e-mail, contacts, and calendar. This is a big win for corporate users who have iPhones but have had to carry another device (like a BlackBerry) to access their work e-mail. Other new features will include auto-discovery, global contacts access, and remote wipe.
Third-party apps
The new software also adds full access to the iPhone apps store, which is also set to open in early July. The new applications range from games that integrate with the phone's accelerometer to a mobile version of eBay. We saw a number of apps demonstrated today.
Contacts search
Currently on the iPhone you can locate contacts only by browsing your entire phone book. Now you'll be able to locate exactly the friend you want, which is particularly useful if you're popular.
iWork documents and PowerPoint
That's right, you'll get access to documents created in iWork. And for the presentation-happy, you'll be able to read, but not edit, PowerPoint attachments.
Bulk delete and move
This is a pretty simple feature, but it's one the iPhone needed. It can get pretty tiresome to delete individual items from a list so we're glad to see that Apple took pity on us.
Photo saving
Now you'll be able to save photos sent as e-mail attachments directly to your photo library.
Steve shows off the new calculator.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)
Scientific calculator
Jobs said a lot of people asked for this and frankly, I'm wondering who they are. When you're using the calculator and you tip the phone to its side, you'll get more buttons and a landscape orientation.
Parental controls
Jobs didn't expand on what we'll see here. We'll report back when the software update is available.
Language support
This is exciting for our friends abroad. The software update will bring language support in French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish. You'll also be able to use a graffiti-style application for entering characters in Asian languages.
So what's missing?
It continues to baffle me why Apple won't add multimedia messaging and video recording. Those features are available on even the simplest phones that you can get free from a carrier. Voice dialing would be another huge win and I'd love to see a landscape keyboard for composing e-mails and messages, cut and paste, and a stereo Bluetooth profile. I know I was dreaming when I wished for a user-replaceable battery, a memory card slot, and tactile feedback for the touch screen, but the other omissions I just can't forgive. And now that the original iPhone is being sent out to pasture in favor of the 3G model, it never will.
Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent.
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Also there is no bluetooth tethering so you can't use your iphone to provide internet to your laptop in emergencies. Other smartphones have that feature.
It's very irritating that Apple nickels and dimes it's customers leaving out obvious features so they can sell you practically the same phone the next year with stuff that's been widely available for years.
It was already announced a few months ago Sun was working on Flash for the iPhone 2.0. It will probably be a free download off the Apple store when it hits July 11. So you will have Flash with the new firmware release through Apple store.
Also couldn't some of these things be added via a 3rd party app like MMS? I think so...
Most of the other complaints, however, seem like they're lamenting a lack of features that the AppStore has been created specifically to provide. Rather than Apple dictating how a user will use his or her iPhone, now a multitude of 3rd party programmers can fill functionality voids to their little hearts' content. I'm not trying to defend Apple or Steve Jobs. It just seems as though the critiques leveled against both for dictating what/when/how iPhone features are released have missed the point. I applaud Apple for opening up a powerful mobile platform to developers. I've found the clunky software I've had on previous phones to be limited in both quantity and quality. At least with the iPhone, now I can pick and choose programs from a prospectively massive selection.
Isn't this exactly what Mac users criticize the PC for??? And tout the Mac's superiority for NOT having software developed by countless sources, which creates too many choices that would potentially confuse the 'mindless sheep' that Mac views it's public as??? So, is the shoe now on the other foot?
The iPhone does not have video recording capabilities because people would be streaming WWDC!
My old 8125 has every feature listed save for 3G support (not a shock since the protocol wasn't widely adopted at the time) and the scientific calculator (unless you get the FREE winmobile version of it)
This is what people are salivating about? Really?
I had an iPhone for about 6 months, 2 battery failures and woeful lack of functionality later, it now finds itself a proud resident of the bottom of the LA river. The thing is a brick.
Who cares for iPod like junk... it is a computer for crying out loud! A Full copy of Tiger (several years ahead of freaking VISTA...) and is a true wave of the future.
When I get mine, I'll install OpenOffice (no MSFT crap for me) and I can work anywhere I want with documents, spreadsheets, etc etc..
What a bunch of BOZO-Ville remarks in this thread...
Jim B
Presently I am using a Treo 680. This phone does most everything that some of these posts say the iPhone should; copy/paste-check, video recording-check, ability to work directly in MS Office-check, email-check, web broswer-check, lots of apps to choose from-check, MMS-check, mp3 player-check.
So why will I be at a store on July 11th to buy one? Because it's the real Internet in your hand. Web pages on my Treo are borderline useable, I rarley use the video recorder (I have a small Sanyo that records HI-def video onto SD cards that fits in my palm.) The three things you get with the iPhone that appeal to me are; the real web in your hand, email that looks like my desktop email, an iPod. (I already gave my former iPod to my daughter.)
My wife was an avid Blackberry user and got the first iPhone. You'd have to pry it out of her hands. My son who is in the Marines where he's on the computer most of the time dealing with budgets and purchasing also is a Blackberry user and is planning on replacing it with an iPod.
Apple may not have all the features now on the iPhone that you may want. I should remind you that people said the same thing about the iPod when it first came out ? where is the FM radio? etc. Of course the iPod went on to be a gigantic success and Apple in time added features and capabilities and stayed way ahead of the alternatives (think Brown Zune).
Personally the deal killer for me in not getting the original iPhone was that it worked only on Edge and had no outside apps. available. Apple took care of both those things and I'll have one on July 11.
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by dogdoclax
June 19, 2008 9:56 PM PDT
- Scientific calculator
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See all 26 Comments >>Jobs said a lot of people asked for this and frankly, I'm wondering who they are.
Oh C'mon, don't be dumb. We're all geeks here, and some of us use scientific calculators every day!