Quick thoughts on iPhone 2.0 software and iPhone 3G

July 20, 2008

I downloaded iPhone 2.0 software the day it came out, and I’ve been using it for a week now. And yesterday I finally got the iPhone 3G as well. Although the online widget said there aren’t any 16GB models in Pittsburgh (because that’s what I wanted), I just walked in the store and got one anyway. No line, no fuss, no problems, 5 minutes in and out. And I had to activate it in the store as well.

Here are some random ideas. Many of them apply to the 2.0 software, not just the 3G hardware.

• The color temperature has definitely changed. I’m not sure I like it, but I can’t change it either. My iPhone wallpaper is black-and-white, and with the new 3G hardware, it has some weird yellowish tint to it. I’d definitely want some sort of advanced preference for is.
• The new hardware is a bit wider, meaning an increased bezel between screen and the software edge. Many people say it’s a bad thing because bigger is worse, but I actually like it because in the old hardware, it was kind of hard to type characters like Q on the keyboard that were “too close” to the edge, especially if your device has some sort of sleeve so there is a ridge. Now there is enough space to tap on any part of the screen, including the edges.
• Most of the settings were nicely restored from backup of the old iPhone, but one exception was e-mail configuration. I have three custom IMAP/SMTP servers, and while inbound IMAP worked fine, outbound SMTP configuration was broken. There is in mail settings a place where you can select outgoing IMAP servers for each account, but it’s ugly and I don’t really understand it.

Here’s the screen I mean. (Which among other things shows nice screencapture capability of the 2.0 software, just click Home and then Sleep buttons.) First of all, there’s no way to rename the SMTP servers, so if you have several accounts against the same server (very often the case for Gmail), they appear the same. Secondly, I don’t understand how the Primary server is determined, and what do the On and Off settings really do. And you can delete some of these servers, but not others.

In the end, the only way I could make my email accounts work again on the iPhone was to fully remove the accounts and then add them again from scratch, because at adding time, you just specify the IMAP and SMTP servers you want, and everything works again. (I don’t use mail account syncing from Mail in OS X because I don’t use Mail as my e-mail client.)

• Super Monkey Ball is a scam and a waste of money. The controls are unusable and it does not save progress, so you have to start from scratch every time. They better release an update soon which fixes at least the saving part, if not the controls too.
• GPS works nicely for walking. It does not work so well when in a car or bus, because it needs line of sight with the satellites, which kinda sometimes works when you sit near a window, but not really. But I use it for walking in unknown places, which is really nice in conjunction with Google Maps and address finding and all that jazz. No nonsense, just works and takes you to places.
• The 3G network is nice and fast and a cool escape from the EDGE slowness.