iPhone Firmware 2.0 - First Weekend Review
Well, Apple finally got around to releasing the first major firmware update for iPhones - “Firmware 2.0″ - and after having spent a weekend with it, I have to say that Apple has definitely done it again.
The new firmware adds a few new business capabilities, such as native “push” synchronization with Microsoft Exchange, and better VPN support - both of which seem to work very well so far. The new firmware also adds integration with “MobileMe” - Apple’s new replacement for .Mac, available over at me.com. Through me.com, you can have real-time push of calendars, contacts, and emails with the MobileMe “cloud” - and while its launch has had some bumps, over all it works very well. I currently have all my data synchronized between my 2 Macs and my iPhone, and I’ll be adding two Outlook PC instances to that as well shortly.
But by far, the biggest improvement to the iPhone is the new App Store - the ability for 3rd party developers to write their own applications and make them available to iPhones all over the world as easily as buying a song on iTunes. When tied in with the location-based services of the iPhone, the possibilities available to some of these applications are simply stunning.
Case in point - just last weekend, I was heading to HR-57 with some friends to hear some Jazz music. The plan was to meet up at Bar Pilar first, have a few drinks, and then head over. Of course, I was the first to get to Bar Pilar … so while I was passing the time, I decided to bring up a few of the 3rd party apps I’d installed on the iPhone and play around.
The first was Exposure - a “location-aware” Flickr client. I was curious to see what photos, if any, had been uploaded to Flickr and geo-tagged in my area. So I launched the app - and can you guess what was the first photo to come up? A shot of the front entrance of Bar Pilar, where I was seated. Pretty cool!
But the real home run was when I started playing around with Yelp for the iPhone. I’d not used Yelp before - but was familiar with their “Real People, Real Reviews” concept. So I wanted to see what Yelp thought might be a good restaurant for us to try out later after we were done with the Jazz bar. Firing up the application and asking it to give me a list of nearby restaurants - the 3rd choice that came up on the list was Ben’s Chili Bowl, a very famous restaurant here in DC that’s been around for 50 years and I’d never had a chance to go to before!
Once my friends arrived, I pointed at my iPhone with a sense of giddiness and said “Hey! iPhone says we should go here for food later!” and sure enough, that’s exactly what I did. Being a “suburban fellow”, I’ll admit I don’t know my way around DC all that well and therefore had no idea I was just around the corner from such a DC landmark! And without the iPhone, I would have missed it once again.
So firmware 2.0 is definitely a big hit. Apple is going to do well with the iPhone, I have a feeling. I only wish I had bought Apple stock when it was $60 and I was thinking about it. Alas, hindsight is always 20/20 …