iPhone OS 3.1 Quick Review
September 16, 2009 by Ryan Ray
It’s only been a few days now since the big Apple iPod bonanza, and of course they didn’t leave out their precious iPhone from any of the updates. It is after all an iPod too. It wasn’t any big news, iTunes 9 is pretty cool. They did bring back the 160GB iPod Classic. I have one of those before they killed it then brought it back. The nano got a camera and the iPod Touch really didn’t get anything spectacular.
As for the iPhone, she got a little update from 3.0 to 3.1. Some welcomed features, and breaks some things that we won’t speak of. Here is a rough run down of the fixes and new additions…
- Improved syncing for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos
- iTunes U content organization
- Redeem iTunes Gift Cards, codes, and certificates in the App Store
- Display available iTunes account credits in the App Store and iTunes Store
- Save video from Mail and MMS into Camera Roll
- Option to “Save as new clip” when trimming a video on iPhone 3GS
- Better iPhone 3G Wi-Fi performance when Bluetooth is turned on
- Remotely lock iPhone with a passcode via MobileMe
- Use Voice Control on iPhone 3GS with Bluetooth headsets
- Paste phone numbers into the keypad
- Option to use Home button to turn on accessibility features on iPhone 3GS
- Warn when visiting fraudulent websites in Safari (anti-phishing)
- Improved Exchange calendar syncing and invitation handling
- Fixes issue that cause some app icons to display incorrectly
I personally haven’t updated my iPhone to 3.1 because as I mentioned earlier it breaks some features that I rely on weekly. Mainly the tethering hack, since AT&T is really dragging it’s feet on all of this iPhone stuff. Until those are fixed or something of the sort, I’ll be hanging out in iPhone 3.0 land. As you should know, and take note, YOU CAN’T DOWNGRADE FROM 3.1 to 3.0. So beware of the pros and cons of both. You’ll lose the tethering hack, and all of Cydia and it’s apps. But you gain new features if you upgrade. Weigh it out in your own minds and figure out which one is worth it to you. Like I said, I’m staying on 3.0
Anyway, I’ve used a friends 3.1 iPhone that he just bought after selling his iPhone 3G and getting a 3GS for purposes of telling you about my favorite features of this update. It really isn’t anything of an update, but I’ll tell you about two great new features.
#1 – iTunes 9 App Arranging
If you’ve updated your iTunes and iPhone you can now enjoy what I think is the best feature of 3.1. We now have official App arranging inside of iTunes. No more of this fumbling around on the iPhone to arrange your apps. It did work at the time, but using iTunes to arrange the apps on your iPhone is so much quicker, and much more effecient/easier.
#2 – Genius In App Store
We’ve known about the Genius mixes for your music in iTunes. A very cool feature that grabs music similar to what you are listening to and makes a short playlist. Now that feature is on the iPhone and in the App Store. Just hop through a few new agreements, and then bam there you are with app suggestions. We’ll see how this turns out, but I think it definitely sounds like a great feature.
There are quite a few other features as you can read above, but these two make it as my two favorite so far. If you disagree and like other features, leave a comment and let me know. I’d love to hear what you think. As always thank you for reading and enjoy your day.
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