Newly Ancient

iPhone OS 3.0 has been released and I’ve had the opportunity to play with it. All in all, it is a very welcome improvement, with numerous enhancements and improvements. Quite a few guides have been published enumerating these additions, so I’ll keep this brief. Among the many new features, I found the following seven to be particularly helpful.

• Spotlight. While being able to access everything in a couple of keystrokes is extremely useful, the real benefit is in the iPod app. I often have a particular song on my mind, and I can now call it up within seconds. For apps, it’s still easier to swish between screens: typing on the iPhone still isn’t efficient.
• Notes Syncing. The previous lack of Notes syncing forced me towards Evernote. With syncing now supported, it’s more of a toss-up: Notes is easier and more efficient, but Evernote is more powerful.
• Widescreen Keyboard. The widescreen keyboard which previously was only available in Safari has been extended to Mail and Notes, making typing a quick email a breeze.
• Undo. Shake to undo. Simple and intuitive.
• Stocks. There is now a landscape view featuring a large graph, which can be clicked to view historical prices. Stocks also have more information available, including market statistics and news. It’s still far too cumbersome to quickly look up a stock.
• AutoFill. Safari now automatically saves form and login information, nullifying the need to mess around with 1Password.
• Google Calendar. Though iPhone OS 3.0 includes support for CalDAV, it unfortunately doesn’t support delegated calendars, making it relatively useless for my dozen calendars. Thankfully, Google has updated their Exchange-based sync tool to support up to 25 calendars.

For the low price of free, it’s a no-brainer for existing iPhone owners to upgrade. For iPod Touch users, the added features merit the $9.95 upgrade price.