For existing 3G owners - summary of the major new features

Since a friend asked me what's new in the 3.0 update, I thought I also put up a post for that. So here they are:

The major ones:

1. Cut, copy, & paste - You can do it to text and images.
   
   
2. Landscape keyboard - rotating the iPhone horizontally in Mail, Messages, Notes, and Safari will turn the app sideways resulting in a bigger keyboard
   
   
3. Spotlight Search - you can search across contacts, emails, calendars, notes, music, and a bunch of other stuff.
   
   
4. Stereo Bluetooth - this one is a big one for me. You can listen to your music without any wires!
   
   
5. MMS support - much needed especially in Japan. Coming later for AT&T folks.

New apps and new features in Apps

1. Voice memos - record audio
   
   
2. Stock app - gives your more info in landscape view
   
   
3. iTunes - buy mvoies, TV shows, and audiobooks. Also get stuff from iTunes U (educational contents from universities).
   
   
4. YouTube - now you can log in, and save and sync your bookmarks

Other nice to know features:

1. Sync Notes - Yes, finally you don't have to email and manage your notes on your iPhone. Long long overdue!
   
   
2. Shake to shuffle to another song in your library
   
   
3. Parental Controls - Although this is very nice for parents, and if you're use the device for yourself, you can use this to turn off some apps. For example, if you don't ever use YouTube, you can disable it.
   
   
4. Internet Tethering - While it's a welcome feature, but seems like carriers are going to charge for it, so that blows. So far Japan doesn't have support for it. This would definitely be nice for business people though. Oh yeah, great for MacBook Air users. All they need to bring is an iPhone to get net access.

For MobileMe users:

1. Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe - I never really misplace my iPhone in my house, but if you do, you can use Find My iPhone to make your phone beep. Other than that, there are two tremendous insurance features for the iPhone. If you lose your iPhone, you can remotely wipe the info - very important if you've got business info on that phone.
   
   
2. Search mail messages on MobileMe servers - very very powerful and useful if you keep your email on MobileMe servers. Only thing is it seems like you can only search within a folder on the server. So if you are very organized and keep a lot of folders, the usability of this one might drop. As for me, most of my messages get dumped in an archives folder. As a result, if I know who sent the message and the general time frame when it was sent, I could pinpoint that message outside with my iPhone.
   
   
3. View subscribed calendars - via a very very non-Apple-like troublesome process - here's the Apple support article

Lastly

Is it me, or my iPhone 3G is slow? Maybe it's trying to tell me to get a 3GS... Well, thanks for reading!