We update our original iPhone to the new firmware and check out the new e-mail features and App Store. Get all the details in our in-depth iPhone 2.0 review.
Review summary of the Apple iPhone 2.0:
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 The new Apple iPhone 2.0 firmware offers some nice improvements for business users, including Exchange Active Sync support, as well as the new App Store. Unfortunately, the software didn't address many of our ongoing concerns with the iPhone, and we even had trouble getting the Exchange support to work properly. The App Store was truly impressive, but the first-party software didn't go far enough to make this a version 2.0 release. Of course, as a free update, the price is right, and we're still happy that Apple is paying attention to original iPhone buyers. Release: July 2008.
Pros: Exchange support. Live, while-you-type searching for the contacts list. App Store.
Cons: Some mail features seemed buggy. Not a lot of improvements for a 2.0 release.
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Full Apple iPhone 2.0 Review:
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Apple today released the Apple iPhone 2.0 firmware. Though the new Apple iPhone 3G won't go on sale until tomorrow, we downloaded the firmware update to our original iPhone and took it for a spin. Of course, the real important feature is the App Store, which offers hundreds of applications for the iPhone, and we'll be featuring some of our favorite apps in the days to come. Today, though, we're looking at the firmware update, and wondering what went wrong.
Mail, contacts and calendars
The biggest improvement found in the Apple iPhone 2.0 firmware is the new messaging features. The iPhone can now handle Exchange ActiveSync accounts, as well as Apple's own MobileMe accounts, which are very similar in functionality to EAS. At first, we were delighted by the Exchange functions. Our Outlook contacts loaded very quickly onto the device, as did our complete calendar. These are features that kept us from using the iPhone as our primary business smartphone. Still, Microsoft has no reason to fear the iPhone just yet, as the phone still lacks the complete integration of a Windows Mobile phone. The calendar, especially, is lacking in fields. We miss being able to invite attendees to an event, a feature we use often in WinMo. The contact list now supports live, while-you-type searching, but this is something we've enjoyed on Windows Mobile phones for quite some time.
The new e-mail features have been a complete flop. First of all, though the iPhone had no problem downloading our contacts and calendar from our Exchange ActiveSync account, we haven't been able to check our actual e-mail yet. This could be a strange glitch in our Exchange Host, but we're leaning towards blaming the phone. Hopefully, a full restore will solve the problem, but this process, which includes reloading all of our music and videos, will take a couple hours.
We were equally disappointed by the so-called "Fetch" feature that comes with the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Fetch is like push e-mail, and it should supposedly work with our Gmail account, but we found nothing in the phone's performance to suggest Push capabilities. Push e-mail should arrive instantaneously. On our Palm Treo 755p, running Good Mobile messaging for push access to our Exchange account, we usually get e-mail on our phone before it shows up on our desktop client. On the iPhone, we didn't see the same improvements in speed, and in a few test e-mails we got our messages quicker by manually checking our inbox, which defeats the purpose of Fetch. Certainly, the constant awareness that Fetch requires is draining our battery quicker, but there is not much payoff of which to speak.
The Mail app does get a new feature or two. Okay, maybe just one. You can now blind CC (BCC) an e-mail directly from the phone. But where are the other features? Why can we not select multiple messages for deletion? Why no MMS on this phone? It seems as though Apple did as little as possible to enable basic business e-mail features, then pushed the software out the door.
The App Store
Even at launch, some of the applications available for the iPhone are astounding. Super Monkey Ball has been a very fun distraction, and we like many of the more useful apps, like the Subway maps, foreign language translators and the health and fitness collection. We'll be previewing specific apps in the days to come, but our overall impression of the App Store has been great. It works quickly, and it was as easy to buy apps on the phone itself as it was using iTunes on our desktop.
There is a significant flaw to these third-party apps, however. The applications you purchase and download to the phone run individually, and don't affect the entire system. So, if you download a speaker-independent voice dialing app, for instance, you have to open the application every time you want to use it. We would prefer these features get added to the dialing screen, so you have access to voice dialing when you press the "Phone" button. Additionally, we downloaded a useful little app that sounds an alarm whenever the phone is dropped. It would have saved us the time we left our iPhone in a taxi in Barcelona (though it was thankfully returned). Unfortunately, if you are not running the Alarm Free app when you drop the phone, you don't get the benefits of its sole feature, which makes the app completely useless.
Applications will also not run simultaneously. Though Apple has created a half-baked solution in its Fetch feature, which also works with IM clients and other apps that need alerts, our experience with Fetch so far hasn't been good enough to convince us this is the best solution. We appreciate having a fast and stable phone, and the iPhone is still at the top of the market in terms of speed and responsiveness. Keeping applications orderly and apart from each other helps Apple maintain a stable environment. Still, we wish Apple had come up with a better solution for small, useful tools at least, which wouldn't eat up all the resources anyway.
Where am I?
With the new iPhone 2.0 firmware, every app has access to location information using the same cell tower and wi-fi triangulation system that Google Maps was using, but unfortunately every app now has to ask permission to use these feature. This was bothersome and reminded us too much of Windows Vista, always asking for permission to perform basic, obvious tasks. We like being able to geotag photos, but we would like it much more if there were proper camera options, and perhaps even a better lens with auto focus.
Anything else?
Other improvements found in the iPhone 2.0 firmware seem pretty minor. There are a host of settings that have been added to the phone, but none of these stood out so much that they deserve mention. Certainly nothing we haven't seen before. Google Maps has gotten a slight visual upgrade, but it still can't handle turn-by-turn directions, so we'll wait and see if a third-party vendor is allowed to release a proper navigation app for this device.
The software seems buggy to us. It wasn't just our difficulties with the Exchange e-mail client. Once or twice while adjusting the settings on the phone, menus came up half drawn and we had to restart the device to get them to work properly. The phone crashed on us a couple times, as well, as we loaded up new apps. We didn't get any fatal errors, and iTunes automatically backs up your phone before you load the new software, so it wasn't bad enough that we would advise against the update. But let's just say we're already looking forward to Apple iPhone 2.1
Can't argue with the price
In the end, we can complain all we want, but the iPhone 2.0 firmware is free, so we're just looking a gift horse in the mouth. It is rare for Apple, or any phone manufacturer for that matter, to provide such a significant update for a phone more than a year after its release, so we commend Apple for taking the iPhone seriously as a platform. The real value comes in the App Store, which will probably fill in many of the blanks left by Apple's own software. We might have had bad luck with the advanced business e-mail features, but at least Apple gives us another option to spend some money and make the phone a truly impressive and fun device. And for that, we won't complain . . . much.
Price and availability
The Apple iPhone 2.0 firmware update is available free. Current Apple iPhone owners can update their phones using iTunes.
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