iPhone OS 3.0 Review
MMS and Tethering
If you’re in the US, you are stuck as of the writing of this review, with no MMS or tethering. AT&T is not ready to release these features and thus we all must wait. So I was not able to test these. AT&T has always been the weak link in the iPhone ecosystem and here is yet another example of that. Irritating and disappointing to say the least.
Find My iPhone
This is one of the coolest features if you are a MobileMe member (costs $99 per year). If you lose your iPhone you can use MobileMe find it. You have the option to send the iPhone a message it will display telling whoever has it how it can be returned to you. Or you can make your iPhone generate a sound even if it’s in silent mode.
And, if you really want to, you can even wipe your iPhone’s data clean remotely. No need to worry about unauthorized people getting access to your private iPhone data.MobileMe lets you wipe the data right from the comfort of your web browser.
While I love the idea of controlling my iPhone remotely, I found that the MobileMe feature didn’t seem to work with my iPhone 3G. The first thing I noticed was that it couldn’t find my iPhone. It said that my location wasn’t available. I tried to send a message and did finally get a littlepop up message on my phone.
Each time I tried to add my MobileMe account it said it was already on. This was odd as all I had listed were two gmail accounts. That should have tipped me off that, for some reason, my gmail email address was listed as the description of myMobileMe account. Duh. I have no idea how it got in there like that.
Anyway, I turned on the Find My iPhone feature and was finally able to locate my iPhone on my MobileMe account. I had no problem with the location of my device or sending it a message. I did not test the remote wiping feature as I had no desire to spend the time restoring my data but I’m sure it works very well.
Let’s face it, folks. Sooner or later we all lose our phones. It’s happened to me before and I’m glad I have Find My iPhone to fall back on. Because I know that it will happen again at some point.
Stocks
The stocks app on the iPhone has always been a bit lame. But this time around you can now view charts in landscape mode and see even more detailed financial data. While this is a nice update to this app, I’m forced to wonder who is putting money into the stock market these days? Okay, I guess there’s a bold few probably and good luck to them. They might just need it.
(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
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Good review. Did you have any other problems with the upgrade other than having to disconnect you internet connection? Is there an exact time when the disconnect is necessary, and are there any caveats to the disconnect? (Btw, is the bird on the phone in the article a Pionus?
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Hi Grey Bird,
I can’t remember the exact timing of the disconnect. However, I don’t think it should be a problem any more. I think it was just because of the rush of people on the day the upgrade was released. It should be fine now.
The bird is a brown head parrot. His name is Bilbo and he’s a terrific little guy. However, he frequently invades my work area to chew on my keyboard, the wires behind my computer and the wire on the cord on my trackball. He has a plastic fetish big time and can’t get enough of it to chew. So I must manage him carefully. Heh, heh.
Here’s some info on brown heads:
http://brownheadparrot.tripod.com/
yo yo yo