My iPod Touch/iPhone OS 3.0 Review

Well, I can’t say i own an iPhone, much as I would want to (now they finally have 32GB!), however I was also eagerly waiting OS 3.0 with everyone else.
I own an iPod Touch 32GB (2nd Gen). It took some time to move me off the older 60GB classic, the iPod Touch just didnt have enough space for my collection. After a week spent cleaning out the kids MP3s onto their own machine, and removing all the live versions of songs (rarely does a live version sound anything near as good as the studio version), I finally was able to get it down within 32GB.

My habits almost instantly changed once I had the new iPod however, i discovered reading ebooks suddenly became appealing. The screen was big enough, the disk space was big enough, and there were plenty of great ebook readers. After a fair amount of reading online I discovered there was a bluetooth chip in my iPod Touch which was not enabled by default, but would be once I got OS 3.0.
For the next week I read copious amounts of notes on bluetooth headphones, and eventually settled on Jabra 620S set which came with an adapter to use on the iPod. This meant I could use them right away, and dispense with the adapter when I upgraded.
My only concern upgrading to OS 3.0 was that it may have to wipe it, and thus I needed to read like a hound for weeks prior to get through the series of ebooks I was reading.

So the night of the release, i sat up until midnight wondering what time the release was going to happen. Eventually I gave in and went to bed.

I woke in the morning to find the download available, however servers overloaded (to be expected no matter how well you planned!). After about 5 or 6 tries I was finally able to download and install the new firmware. Half of those 5-6 times were to accept new T&C they had added in. As per usual I did not read it but just accepted it, if they really want my soul they can just have it!

First impressions were “Great! it didnt wipe my stuff!”.
Second impression was “Oh it looks exactly the same as it did before”. Apon closer inspection there was an icon for Voice Memos, i opened it eagerly only to have it tell me I did not have a microphone.
I opened the Preferences and paired the headset. The Jabra 620S are a full stereo headphone unit with a Microphone. They support Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) and Audio Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP), which means I *should* have been able to use the Play/Stop Forward, Backward etc buttons. However only the Play/Stop button seems to work. The Microphone does not register, however i suspect this is because they paired as a headphone unit rather than headset (the difference is the sound quality, ones designed for phone, one for music).

Spotlight: well searching is handy! it searches all my movies, songs, notes, ebooks. Its very handy!

Voice Memos: Well this is just another app, It’s of no use on an iPod Touch without a headset, and probably been made before. Bit gimmicky?

Landscape Keyboard: I presume the application needs this compiled in, because half my apps don’t do this yet still. It will be great when its fully implimented, I dislike fat-fingering things!

Copy/Paste: Don’t have much use for it surprisingly, but its nicely done and works ok. Double tap on a word, then drag the ends about to highlight what you need. Then you get a popup asking if you want to copy/paste etc.

Undo: There is now a ‘Shake to undo’ feature, which I have yet to need also.
Shake to change song: This was disabled on mine immediately. Not a very handy feature if you go jogging or walking lots!

iTunes Store: I havnt used this yet, but brilliant idea! I have head several people complain that once bought items transfer to computers they have issues over which device is authorized to have that item.

Parental Control: This is a huge one for me. Im strict about what my kids see, and I refuse to let them watch R13 when they are not 13. Loving that!

Most of the rest of the new features I dont actually use (Stocks, MobileMe etc).

Overall, worth the $13.99 NZD I paid for the upgrade.

The best part for me would be the bluetooth headphones, this is invaluble when im at the gym or running and no longer have cables.