About halfway through writing the enormous tome of an iPhone 3.0 review, I realized that there just wasn’t enough room. For every huge new feature, like landscape keyboard, cut-and-paste, etc., it seemed like there were a dozen more smaller improvements and enhancements that cried out for equal attention.
Having painstakingly documented most of these changes during my thorough investigation of 3.0, it seemed only fair to share these results with our dear readers, who themselves have already started chiming with things they’ve discovered. Even with that, I’m sure there are features and changes that we haven’t found yet, so feel free to chime in below if we’ve missed something.
Messages
Messages now works in landscape mode (including landscape keyboard).
The message sending progress bar is no longer a translucent sheet that takes over the whole screen; instead it’s in the menu bar.
You can now delete individual messages (or several individual messages) by tapping on Edit in a conversation, selecting the messages, and hitting delete.
You can now forward messages by tapping on Edit, selecting the messages you want to forward, and tapping forward.
The new Settings -> Messages section features the option for Show Preview (moved from Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock) as well as an option to disable the Repeat Alert (If it’s on and you ignore a message, you will be alerted twice more.).
(Setings -> Messages is also where MMS can be enabled, if your carrier allows it; that will also reveal a slider for enabling or disabling the message subject in MMS messages).
Phone
The Recent Calls and Voicemail listings for the phone now display the location of the call (if the number is unknown) or the source of the call (home, work, mobile, etc.) if the number is in your contacts. Previously, this information was only available on the detail screen for each call.
The details screen in Recent Calls has a more detailed listing of recent calls, including their duration and date and time.
The Phone entry in Settings now says “Airplane Mode On” in gray text beside it when—you guessed it—Airplane Mode is on and it’s inaccessible.
Contacts can now be edited directly from the Favorites screen and, in fact, anywhere in the system that you can bring them up.
Instant message screennames are now listed in contact records, and will sync from your Address Book.
E-mail addresses appear in smaller text to fit the whole address in the contact record, instead of trailing off with an ellipsis.
A new “Share Contact” button in the detailed view allows you to e-mail a vCard of that contact information.
The fields under the “Add Field” section have been slightly reorganized, grouped by logical connections (name, work, dates, etc.).
“My Number” under Settings -> Phone is now an editable field, though so far it seems only that it changes what shows up at the top of the contact list in the Phone app, for what it’s worth.
Photos
The icon for “Share” has changed slightly. Also, the options in that menu have been reordered. Now: 1) Email, 2) MobileMe, 3) Contact, 4) Wallpaper (previously 1) Wallpaper, 2) Email, 3) Contact, 4) MobileMe).
You can no longer initiate a slideshow while viewing pictures; you have to do it from the thumbnail view.
You can share multiple pictures by going into an album and tapping the share button: the options are “share” and “copy” and you can select multiple pictures. You can only “share” a maximum of five pictures via the e-mail option, but you can actually copy and paste an (apparently) unlimited number of pictures into an e-mail.
Camera
The view pictures button now shows you a thumbnail of the last picture you took and tapping it takes you to that picture, not to the Camera Roll thumbnail view.
The Camera sheet that appears when you take a picture from a different app is changed from 2.x; it now resembles the actual Camera application, with a “Cancel” button in place of the “Thumbnail” button.
YouTube
“Bookmarks” is renamed “Favorites” and has switched positions with “Search”.
The “More” tool button now includes options for “My Videos”, “Subscriptions”, and “Playlists.” You’ll need to log in to your YouTube account in order to access them. Once you have, a “Sign Out” button appears in the top left hand corner of the More and Favorites screens.
The details description for video has changed. “Bookmark” and “Share” buttons have been replaced with “Add to Favorites” and “Share Video”. There’s also an “Add to Playlist” button. Info for the video is offloaded into a second detail screen (accessible by tapping the blue arrow next to the video thumbnail). This features more information, including the full description, added date, category, tags, and comments. You can also tap “More Videos” to see other videos uploaded by the same user.
You can now Rate, Comment or Flag videos from the detail screen if you’re logged in.
There’s now a visual cue to indicate you’ve tapped the scrub button (it glows slightly).
Stocks
You can toggle between recent stock change (+ or -), recent percentage change, and market cap by tapping the box next to the stock symbol.
Swiping the bottom chart shows related financial news headlines or more details about a stock (open, high, low, volume, P/E, Mkt Cap, 52w high, 52w Low, avg volume, and yield).
Preferences allow you to set whether default figure is price change, percentage change, or market cap.
Stocks now has a landscape mode: you can tap and drag to get stock price for a given day and swipe to move to next symbol.
Using two fingers in the Stocks app landscape mode gives you the change between two dates in both price and percentage.
Maps
If you use a contact as your destination, then tapping on that pin will take you to the detailed view of that contact record.
Directions are slightly reworded. iPhone 3.0 now gives you the distance you need to go before the next step. That is, instead of saying “Turn left at Highland Ave, then go 0.9 miles” it says “Drive 256 ft then turn left at Highland Ave.”
Clock
In the Stopwatch feature, a small lap timer now appears above the main timer.
Notes
Notes has a landscape mode now, including landscape keyboard.
Notes now recognizes URLs, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses and opens them in the corresponding application (Safari, Mail, Phone, and Maps).
You can now swipe to delete a note from the Notes list.
iTunes
Top Tens has moved to top bar (replacing “What’s Hot”). Bottom toolbar defaults to Music, Video, Podcasts, Seach, More.
Bottom of screen shows your current account; you can tap it to view account details (same as Settings page).
Search now has a “Top Results” option and shows you two results per category along with a “See all” link (Songs, TV Episodes, TV Seasons, Albums, Movies, Podcasts, Music Videos, Audiobooks, and iTunes U).
The “More” section features Audiobooks, iTunes U, Downloads, and Redeem.
Can now Edit toolbar to include Music, Videos, Podcasts, Search, Audiobooks, iTunes U, Downloads, Redeem.
Video section lets you browse, preview movies, buy, or rent.
You can buy HD videos by scrolling to the bottom of a movie’s page and tapping “Also Available for Purchase in HD.” Buying the HD version will download the SD file to your phone, then download the HD version to your computer the next time you sync the phone.
Reviews now appear at the top of media detailed page. There’s a sub-menu for viewing and, if you’re logged in, you can submit a review complete with stars, nickname, etc.
There’s now a Settings -> Store section with “Sign in” or “Create New Account” buttons. The former pops up a dialog box prompting you to log in; the latter walks you through creating a new account (including allowing you to choose from different countries). Once signed in you can “View Account” or “Sign Out.” View account displays and lets you edit your Apple ID and profile (password, secret question and answer, date of birth), payment info (Credit Card type, number, security code, expiration date, billing name, address, phone number), change country or region, subscribe/unsubscribe to iTunes Newsletters and Special Oficers, view Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy. Also shows a current balance if any.
App Store
“More” now includes “Updates” and “Redeem” sections. Oddly, this is now back to the same version 2.0 toolbar, where it just says “Updates.” The “Redeem” section is now gone.
All screenshots in an app record are now in portrait mode, so you have to turn the phone to view the landscape shots. You can swipe through the pictures.
Contrary to previous rumors, you can still re-download apps you’ve bought on the phone at no extra charge.
Mail now works in landscape mode, including landscape keyboard.
The search box appears if you scroll down. When you do a search, there’s the option to “Continue on Server.”
If you tap and hold an image, you get a sheet that lets you “Save Image” or “Copy”.
When you tap Edit while in a mailbox, it retains the blue “unread” dot next to any unread messages.
Tapping and holding a link provides a sheet with “Open” or “Copy” options, and displays the full URL at the top of the sheet.
Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars now has a “Load Remote Images” slider.
If you select some text in an e-mail message and hit Reply or Forward, that text is the only part quoted (Forward will still include the message headers as well).
Strangely enough, the Trash can icon animation is now mirror-flipped from 2.2.1.
Safari
The bookmark filing screen (for assigning a bookmark to a folder) now slides in from the right, instead of sliding up from the bottom. The “Cancel” button in this screen has been replaced by a left-facing “Edit Bookmark” button.
Tapping an image now pops up a sheet with options for “Save Image” or “Copy.”
The AutoFill button appears in forms. When you enter a username and password, you’re prompted when with whether it should be remembered.
Settings -> Safari now has an AutoFill section containing “Use Contact Info” slider, My info (lets you pick which address book record is used for populating fields), a Names & Passwords on/off slider, and a Clear All button.
Tapping and holding on a link provides a sheet of options: “Open,” “Open in New Page,” and “Copy.” The full URL is displayed at the top of the sheet.
When logging into a Wi-Fi hotspot, a special “Log In” sheet pops up. It should remember the next time you try to login to that hotspot.
iPod
Tapping the menu bar or scrolling upwards on any list screen reveals the search field. All media types are searched, regardless of the screen you’re on.
Video podcasts now play in portrait mode by default.
Podcast and audiobook playback now features a 30 second jump-back button and adjustable speed (1x, 2x, 1/2x) instead of shuffle, repeat. The Audiobook Speed sub-menu from Settings -> iPod is gone.
A share podcast button composes an email with an iTunes link to podcast.
You can access the variable scrub rate feature by tapping and holding the scrub bar, then sliding your finger up and down screen. As you do so, it allows you to choose between Hi-Speed Scrubbing, Half-Speed Scrubbing, Quarter-Speed Scrubbing, and Fine Scrubbing.
When the phone is locked, the album and artist of the currently playing song are displayed in small text in addition to the track title.
You can shake the iPhone to pick another new song randomly. This option can be disabled under Settings -> iPod.
Calendar
New search field available in List mode.
When you tap on a search result in the Calendar program, there’s an option at the bottom of the result to “Show in Calendar”, which will jump you to that day.
Meetings in CalDAV calendars showed up as gray-dotted events, but you can’t reply to invites.
If you receive an e-mail containing a URL for a published .ICS file, tapping that URL will pop-up a dialog box asking if you want to subscribe to that calendar. Tapping “Subscribe” will automatically add a subscription for that calendar.
Home screen
You can now have 11 Home screens (plus Spotlight), up from nine total. Supposedly you can install as many apps as space will allow, though they will stop displaying on the Home screen (but will still be findable via Spotlight).
The Messages, iPod, and Phone icons are actually slightly different, featuring a subtly striated background.
Keyboard
Some buttons have new speical characters. For example, holding down the hyphen key lets you type an em-dash.
Holding down the .com key now offers the ability to enter every common top-level domain suffix as well as every country suffix for which you have an input method currently active (i.e. if you’ve also activated Russian and French, you’ll get the .ru and .fr options as well).
Landscape keyboard is also available in Messages, Mail, and Notes.
Landscape keyboard is available for all input methods.
If you have an input method with a different set of numerals enabled (the Arabic keyborad, for example, which uses Eastern Arabic numerals), then you can choose from the alternate numerals by tapping and holding on the number keys.
System
In order to force quit an application, you now hold down the Sleep/Wake button until the red power off slider appears, then release the Sleep/Wake button and hold down the Home button for a few seconds until the app quits.
The Settings -> Fetch New Data section is gone (it’s been moved to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars).
Settings -> About now has an “Applications” entry that lists how many apps you have installed.
Settings -> Network -> VPN now has a Proxy section, just like on the detail screen for Wi-Fi networks.
Settings -> General -> Restrictions. Items have been rearranged slightly. The “iPod Explicit” entry has now moved to an “Allowed Content” section. There’s now a “Location” option as well.
Parental Controls: Allowed Content section has options for turning off “in-app purchase”. and allows you to choose a ratings system (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, U.K., and U.S.). Music and Podcasts has a switch for turning on or off Explicit content. There are separate rating entries for Movies, TV Shows, and Apps which change depending on the country. Options include “Don’t Allow [Media]”, “Allow All [Media]” and setting the highest rating allowable.
Settings -> General -> “Home Button” section simply renamed “Home.” You can now set a double-click of the Home button to go to either the Spotlight search screen or the Camera, as well as the previous options of Phone Favorites, Home screen, or iPod controls.
Settings -> General ->Home also has a section called “Search Results” under which you can choose what kind of results are returned by the Spotlight search (Contacts, Applications, Music, Podcasts, Video, Audiobooks, Notes, Mail, and Calendar). Dragging and dropping the entries lets you choose in which order they’re displayed.
Settings -> General -> Keyboards. New input methods for Arabic, Bulgarian, Greek, French (Switzerland), Hebrew, Indonesian, Macedonian, Malay, Flemish, Serbian, Thai, and Chinese Traditional (Zhuyin).
Settings -> General -> International. New localizations for Bahasa Melayu (Malay), Arabic, Hrvatski (Croatian), Ceština (Czech), Greek, Hebrew, Româna (Romanian), Slovencina (Slovak), Thai, and Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian).
Settings -> General -> International -> Region Format. New formats for Afrikaans -> Namibia, Belize, Bulgarian, Chinese -> Hong Kong SAR China (Simplified), Chinese -> Macau SAR China (Simplified Han), French -> Monaco, French -> Senegal, German -> Liechtenstein, Greek -> Cyprus, Hebrew (Israel), Indonesian (Indonesia), Jamaica, Macedonian (Macedonia), Malay -> Brunei, Malay -> Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Namibia, Punjabi -> India, Punjabi -> Pakistan (Arabic), Serbian -> Bosnia and Herzegovina (Cyrillic), Serbian -> Bosnia and Herzegovina (Latin), Serbian -> Montenegro (Cyrillic), Serbian -> Montenegro (Latin), Serbian -> Serbia (Cyrillic), Serbian -> Serbia (Latin), Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnamese (Vietnam).
Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars: Fetch new Data moved here. Add New Account -> Other now sports options for “Add Mail Account,” “Add LDAP Account,” “Add CalDAV Account”, and “Add Subscribed Calendar.” LDAP/CalDAV require server, user name, password. Subscribed Calendar requires server.
iTunes
You can now encrypt your iPhone/iPod touch backup by entering a password in iTunes.
You can now sync Notes between the iPhone’s Notes apps and Mail.app.
Jason Snell, Rob Griffiths, and Dan Frakes contributed to this report.