iPhone 2.0 and App Store—First impressions
July 10, 2008 at 11:48 PM by Dr. Drang
I downloaded and installed the iPhone 2.0 upgrade today using this tip from the Unofficial Apple WebLog and then installed a few apps from the App Store. Here’s a couple of sentences on several things I learned or saw:
- The upgrade to 2.0 went flawlessly for me. The iPhone data were backed up, then the data were wiped and new system software installed. When the upgraded iPhone “woke up,” it asked if I wanted to restore the old data (I did) and put everything back. I think the whole process took 30-45 minutes, but I was working on something else away from the computer while it was going on, so that estimate may be off.
- Every time I’ve sync’d to iTunes since the upgrade, a “Backing up iPhone” message appears in the iTunes information panel. I don’t remember that message appearing before the upgrade.
- As you might expect, my kids love the free PhoneSaber app. Me too.
- The Remote app is wonderful. Combined with an AirPort Express, it can turn any set of speakers with an 1/8-inch AUX jack into a player for your entire iTunes library. Perfect for parties on the patio.
- NetNewsWire looks better than the web-based NewsGator Mobile reader. Individual posts are easier to read, and embedded YouTube videos can be played directly. It appears, however, that if you have your feeds categorized in folders, you can’t click on a folder name to work through all the new posts in that folder. This is a very convenient feature and I can’t understand why NNW doesn’t have it—especially since the desktop version of NNW does have it. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Update: Now clicking a folder name does what it should—but I swear it wasn’t working that way when I first wrote this post.
- OmniFocus has been a big disappointment so far. At $20, it’s one of the most expensive App Store offerings, and I’ve had nothing but trouble with it. You have to download an alpha version of the desktop software to sync its task database to the iPhone’s. The instructions Omni gives for syncing through a WebDAV server are flatly wrong, and it was only through a few posts on the Omni forum that I learned the correct steps. SSL certificates are handled so poorly that a self-signed WebDAV server cannot be used through an
httpsconnection. I’ve read that syncing to an iDisk works fine, but I don’t want to subscribe to MobileMe just to sync OmniFocus. - There are several “voice recorder” apps, but I’ve yet to see one that claims to be able to copy the audio file back to your computer. Without that, recordings are pretty useless to me.
- The Jott app seems to be a bit faster to use than the dialin service for notes to myself, but I haven’t gotten any emails from the Jotts I’ve sent through the app. They show up in my Inbox at jott.com, but I want them in my mail, where I don’t have to think to look for them. I have to believe there’s a configuration setting for this, but I haven’t found it yet.
- The Baseball app can keep a Sabermetrician busy for hours.
