The iPhone 3G S could be turning out to be a hot item in more ways than one.

It was first reported on Nowhereelse ( a French website) via Engadget, by a user of a 16GB white iPhone 3GS who noticed that their iPhone got very hot while using the GPS and 3G of the phone. The only damage appeared to be that the back of the iPhone had a pink discoloration.

Then two PC World journalists had similar problems. Melissa J. Perenson from PC World reported in “Apple iPhone 3GS Overheating Reports” that her 16GB iPhone 3GS become very hot during use while being plugged in. David Coursey wrote of his problem in “Fahrenheit 113: Hot iPhone’s Tragic Number“.

So far Apple has not responded except for blaming hot weather or user negligence in their support article “Keeping iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS within acceptable operating temperatures“. Notably, this article covers both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. It advises users not to leave the iPhone “in a car on a hot day” or “in direct sunlight for extended amounts of time“, and not to use “certain applications in hot conditions or direct sunlight for long periods of time, such as GPS tracking in a car on a sunny day or listening to music while in direct sunlight“.

So, is this just a general problem with the iPhone getting warm under high usage, or is there some hidden fault somewhere? What do you think?

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.

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.

“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.

It was inevitable I guess, that sooner or later there would be cracked Apps available for the iPhone. (for a explanation of what I mean by “cracked app” or “pirated software” see the article “Software cracking” in the Wikipedia.).

I had heard that some cracked Apple App Store Apps were being distributed in some way on Jailbroken iPhones. It was only when I was doing some research for the Blog Entry “148 Apps“, that I came across some evidence of this. I was going to refer to a blog where someone had installed the maximum amount of apps on his iPhone, and had a picture showing all the screens of his iPhone full of Apps. Then I spotted a suspiciously named app, Googled the name and discovered it was a source for cracked Apps. It was a good picture but I could not use it.

So why am I writing about cracked Apps? Well, first I must make this disclaimer: as a former Software Developer, I’m definitely against using cracked apps. Also, searching the web for and downloading cracked apps for any platform is one of the surest ways of getting some sort of malware on your machine.

One of the primary methods to install cracked apps on an iPhone is by using tools only available on Jailbroken iPhones. However, the developers of software for Jailbroken iPhones are very much against cracked apps. The last thing they want is to give Apple another reason to want to shut them down. Also, their apps are among the ones being pirated.

Of course cracking of Applications happens on every popular platform. One of the most pirated applications in the world today is an Operating System: Windows XP Professional.

148 Apps is one of my favorite iPhone App tracking websites. It is also the maximum number of apps you can get on the iPhone and iPod Touch. That is 16 Apps per page and 9 pages equals 144 plus 4 applications on the Dock at the bottom of the screen .

With so many iPhone Apps coming out all the time, it is harder and harder to stay within the 148 App limit.  There are even Apps which track or review Apps, like PandoraBox, BargainBin and AppReview.

If you happen to install more than 148 Apps, the apps at the bottom of the ninth page are moved to a tenth hidden page (see “How Many Apps Can Your iPhone Hold“). This can be temporarily used to hide App Icons, but on a Jailbroken iPhone the “BossPrefs” App will hide the icons you want - for example if you have no need to track the Stock market, you can hide the Stocks app which comes pre-installed. Of course not everyone wants to Jailbreak their iPhone, which quite understandable, considering the cost of the iPhone and the possibility of doing it some damage.

The only way I’ve found to keep on top of too many Apps is to be in constant cleanup mode. Fortunately Apps which are deleted from the iPhone can be easily reinstalled from iTunes or the Apple App Store.