Just after the iPhone OS 3.0 was released I was waiting to upgrade to iPhone OS 3.0 until it could be “easily Jailbroken” (see “Need for Speed II“). Well, I couldn’t wait. Within two days I had upgraded my iPhone to OS 3.0 then Jailbroke it almost as soon as the iPhone Dev Team released their “redsn0w” multi-platform Jailbreak utility. The main cost of being on the bleeding edge was discovering first hand a number of apps which were not iPhone 3.0 OS compatible.

But enough about Jailbreaking. I’ve been using the iPhone OS 3.0 for over a week now, and I like it.

One of the new features of the iPhone OS 3.0 is that you now have more pages for Apps. It looks like it has been increased to 11 pages (or “Homescreens”). Now instead of a maximum of 148 Apps, the max is 180 Apps, although I have heard that this is affected by available (storage) memory. This is great, because now there are more pages for me to try to group my apps more logically, the most used ones on the first couple of pages, eBook and reader type apps on one page, games grouped together over two pages and other apps after that.

The new landscape keyboard also really does make a difference, and is much more conducive to “Thumb- typing”, with my typing speed considerably faster than in portrait mode.

At the everythingicafe forum, members came up with this list of the more than 100 changes in the iPhone 3.0 OS and iPhone 3G S.

Once again, I’ve been listening to a voice and following its instructions without question. Of course it helped that I really didn’t know where I was and the voice was saying:
“Take slipway right onto I-87”

Almost a year since our last road trip, we went away for a long weekend to Lake George, in upstate New York. The voice was from a Garmin nuvi 760, a GPS with Text-To-Speech, and clearer maps and instructions than the old GPS. It always helps to be told which side of the road to find your onramp or your destination. Its successor, the Garmin nuvi 765T has even more features.

I must admit that I’m really sold on the Text-To-Speech feature. Combined with intelligent lane instructions it really takes a lot of the guess work out of driving with a GPS. This was one of the longest road trips so far with a GPS instead of a map. At stops along the way it was simply a matter of unplugging the unit from DC power, and letting it power down by itself. Then, when we were ready to go, the GPS quickly started up where we had left off.

The Garmin nuvi 760 is also good at finding satellites. I was pleasantly surprised that it was able to get a satellite fix while laying on a table about two feet from a west-facing window at home.

The Garmin nuvi 760 is not perfect. I’m not sure If it was the particular unit I had, but the volume just didn’t seem loud enough. This was solved by connecting it to the car stereo.

Yesterday the iPhone OS 3.0 firmware was released, and tomorrow the iPhone 3G S is available online and from select stores.

The new iPhone 3G S has a 600MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM, up from a 412MHz and 128MB RAM in the 412MHz in the first-gen and the 3G iPhones (from Engadget Mobile). That should certainly provide a Speed Boost.

In “Need for Speed“, my blog entry about the new iPhone (”iPhone 3G S”) and the iPhone 3.0 OS update, I mentioned “Jailbreak” twice.

Now I understand that some of my readers do not want to Jailbreak their iPhones (or iPods). That is perfectly valid. I felt like that for the first six months that I had my iPhone 3G, and found all the “How To Jailbreak” videos from major tech websites mildly aggravating.

I’m going to have to make a hard decision whether to sit it out until the iPhone OS 3.0 can be easily Jailbroken, or do without all the tools I’ve grown used to over the past few months. From what I see the OS 3.0 cut, copy and paste are better integrated into the OS than the Jailbroken one was, but that is to be expected. Other than that, I’ve grown so used to the SBSettings app, which will pop-up with simple left to right swipe on the Status bar and from there it is one tap to toggle Wi-Fi, and two taps through the Power icon to reboot the iPhone.

This week I finally canceled the monthly voice and data plan on my T-Mobile G1. It was just getting too expensive to have it and the iPhone.

This was before hearing about the T-Mobile G2 which is rumored to be coming out in July – I first heard about it from a Blog Entry by Keith “Next Generation Android Phone Out” on the Gottahave Blog.

Unfortunately, the G2 or HTC Magic, drops the one thing which made the T-Mobile G1 one of the more viable alternatives to the iPhone – the hardware keyboard. Now the slide out keyboard of the G1 has been criticized by reviewers since day one. The fact is, I would rate it better than any of the Palm smartphone keyboards – and from what I hear the Palm Pre’s keyboard is just too small. The keyboard may add at least a third to the thickness of the G1, but it is by no means a brick.

My only real gripe with the G1 is that you must have a Gmail account to activate it. Using it without a cellular data plan – which prevents the phone verifying your Gmail account, even if you are on Wi-Fi, disables the Android Marketplace (equivalent of the iTunes Store) and several other features on the device. That really sucks.

I’ve considered just using the T-Mobile G1 as a portable internet browsing device, as its browser is pretty good. It is a difficult choice between the G1 and the N810 Internet Tablet, which has an even better hardware keyboard.

“Need for Speed – Undercover” is one of the best racing games for the iPhone so far. If the announcement at Apple’s WWDC on Monday is to be believed, the game should load even faster on the iPhone 3G S. That is because the “S” is for Speed, and here we thought the iPhone 3G was supposed to be fast. No, the 3G S is faster still!

Actually, I’m quite excited about both the new iPhone (”iPhone 3G S”) and the iPhone 3.0 OS update.

Although physically there are no major changes, the third version of the iPhone adds some neat features. Improved battery life is one of them. Another is an upgraded 3-megapixel camera with built-in support for video recording. Then there is voice control, and a compass.

The iPhone 3.0 OS update (features available to the older iPhone 3G, as well as the iPhone 3G S) adds Cut. Copy and Paste (finally, you don’t have to Jailbreak to get this feature), a Landscape mode keyboard, MMS support, a search function and Voice Memos.

Also, surprisingly, the iPhone will now support tethering (using the iPhone as a wireless modem for a notebook). AT&T will not be offering tethering until their networks are updated. If you want tethering in the US you still have to Jailbreak your iPhone to get it.

As expected, the new iPhone comes in a 32GB capacity. It also has a 16GB version. One surprise is that the 8GB iPhone 3G is still going to be sold, but it is now the $99 iPhone.