AT&T can run but can’t hide! Tethering hack and more on iphone v3 software…

Just uploaded iphone v3 to my 3g.  Going to keep a running list of thoughts but here are some initial thoughts.

First, my AT&T rant.  AT&T still, well, sucks.  Almost every other carrier announces support for tethering, i.e. connect your phone to your computer to use as a wireless modem, except, well, AT&T.  That’s the bad news.  The good news, some smart guy figured out how to turn to make it work without jail breaking your phone!  Download tethering here.  About half way down the page, click on “Mobile Configs” and download section and then choose your country, (USA for all of us having to live with AT&T!) and then AT&T and it installs and requires a restart.  Afterwards, on your iphone in the network settings you will see a tethering option using a cable or bluetooth!  Now, allegedly AT&T is going to start charging for this in a month and rumors are that it won’t be cheap.  Maybe an additional $55 which seem outrageous especailly in comparison to the rest of the world.  Apple needs to support another US carrier to get some competition going…  Also, there are instructions to turn on MMS for AT&T as well, but have not done that yet as not a big deal to me.

Anyway, now that I got the AT&T rant out.  Here are some initial thoughts on what Apple as done on the software side.

Good Stuff

1.  Speed – it’s faster.  And the most important place its faster for me is with contacts.  I have a couple of thousand contacts and it sometimes would take 10-20 seconds from when I would start typing a name before any would show up.  now’s its a second or two.  Also, other things generally seem snappier.  Safari seems much faster too.

2.  Search – having search everything is great.  should have been in v1, but great its here. It’s a little strange how to get to universal search in that it is from your home screen and then you swipe to the left.  a search button addition would have been a little more obvious.

3.  Landscape mode for everything – pretty much works as you expect.  GREAT for email.  there are some kinks to work out as the super smooth scrolling from v2 has some bugs in landscape mode but they will figure that out.

4.  Copy and paste – one word, finally.  Ok, maybe a few more words.  works pretty well.  like the ability to extend the selection beyond what is initially highlighted.  now if they would add some of the smarts from the mac for seeing a time and date in an email and offering to put it in the calendar, that would be great.

5.  Calendar – can now synch with CalDAV to Google calendar and others as well as Microsoft ActiveSynch

6.  MobileMe – after a year it seems to work well, which means that I update info on my desktop and it updates my phone and visa versa without having to think about it.  There is still the occassional contacts disappearance but is always solved by creating a new contact and then all the old ones come back.  That said, one cool feature that is new to mobileme is to be able to find my phone and also to wipe the data if I lost it.  That’s a great feeling of security.

7.  Upgrading – i have to say one of the things that is not often discussed is the fact that this is a phone and you can download all kinds of great new features.  That’s actually pretty cool.

Not so good stuff

1.  Buggy – there are definitely some small bugs.  Scrolling issues, some screen update issues

2.  Voice dialing requires new iphone 3gs hardware.  Why?  No idea.  I will keep using Vlingo which works pretty well and does maps, searching, et al.

3.  Maps – when using maps, it would be nice to have a button for current location when getting directions versus having to type “current…” and then choosing it from the top of the list.  I do this all the time.

4.  Camera – when taking pictures and you want to be included in the picture (not that I take lots of pictures of myself, but for example Alexandra and I together somewhere), it would be great if one of the buttons such as volume up or down would take the picture.

5.  Did I mentioned how AT&T still sucks?

I have not tried the new phone itself, but would appreciate any thoughts on other good and bad on the phone.  That said, I have to think that Apple is got something else up their sleeves as this phone design is basically two years old which is a long time for them not to innovate on some new hardware.  Anway, leave a comment with your thoughts on the phone and software.

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Update:

Techcrunch has done some reviews of the 3Gs hardware.  Here are their thoughts on the video capabilities.