A quick one about iPhone 3.0

A lot of people have been underwhelmed by the new iPhone firmware. Which is a bit odd. It's doing all the things they told us it would be doing, and pretty well for the most part. But the best things are the tweaks they didn't make a song and dance about. More on those in a minute.

Some of the new features we were told about are situation specific - I'm looking forward to my iPhone automatically logging on to BT Openzone hotspots, for example, which was always a pain under the old firmware. When we get to use those kinds of features, I suspect the upgrade will feel a whole lot more significant. Push, in-app purchasing, Safari autofill and the iTunes refinements also fall into those categories. (Also, proper satnav, when tomtom pulls its finger out and I decide it's worth the vast money they're sure to charge.)

Other developments are relatively simple tweaks or features that probably should have been in the original iPhone, so don't appear that amazing - I'm thinking MMS. But that's well implemented (once you've texted 1010 with the message "MMS" and been activated, of course) and looks like being really fun to use.

Cut and paste works well. I love the new Spotlight search. The landscape keyboard is much faster, even with fat thumbs. The new stocks app is lovely - I might even start putting individual companies in there now, not just indices.

Here are the things I'm loving that weren't flagged up. First, it feels faster. Maybe that's just the reboot effect, and of course some of the upgraded apps like Safari are designed to be faster. But it's still a plus. Second, when I added a couple of new apps, they didn't appear on my first menu screen - they went to screen two. That's important: most people designate the first screen with their most-used apps, so new purchases appearing there makes no sense. Third, I listen to a lot of podcasts - so the new controls on the iPod app are brilliant. I haven't tried out the mail button yet, but the "rewind 30 seconds" will be a boon to anyone who loses the thread during a podcast or radio show; and "play 1x, 2x 0.5x" option is perfect for fast forwarding through boring sections. Fourth, the camera is faster - and is it my imagination, or are the pictures slightly crisper? I'd need to take some shots in the same lighting conditions as some grainier photos from the old firmware, but they seem just a bit sharper. Also like the thumbnail view on the camera.

Overall, then, I can't exactly disagree with the people who say they're a bit deflated - this is not a brand new phone, it's true. But I still really like the refinements, and I'm guessing I'm going to keep on discovering new things to like about iPhone 3.0 for a while yet. And hey - perhaps I'm not the fanboy - perhaps the people who are disappointed are the real cult members. They're the ones who somehow thought this new, free software was going to Santa them up a magic new communications device.

UPDATE: Already, another nice hidden feature, courtesy of MacOSXhints: in Mail, if you select text in an email, then reply, only the selected text is quoted. Nice.