iPhone 3: Bad, yawn and good

Apple really does have some kind of mind lock thing going.

Here's the antidote -- what's bad, yawn and good about iPhone 3.0. I'll update it over the next week or so. The functional updates are actually very limited, so we'll have to see what third parties do.

Bad

• The maximal interval for a meeting reminder or alert is still two days. Every other calendar app on every other platform in history has better functionality.
• Byline, one of my favorite apps, is completely unstable if you view by source. I'm sure we'll find other problems. In some cases the updated apps may have more problems than the older, non-updated apps.
• Some UI glitches even in newly updated 3rd party apps. These should get fixed soon. Evernote is particularly troubled and even slower than before. I've kind of given up on it.
• Extremely dumb change to the screen lock while on phone behavior.
• Battery life reduced on iPhone 3G - especially if subscribe to push notifications.
• Problems with iPhone 1 may be pretty significant. First generation iPhone users probably should not upgrade.
• More issues with Wifi connectivity.
• Worsening AT&T service, but that may be due to the 1 million plus new iPhone 3GS models crushing AT&T's cruelly burdened network.
  

Yawn

• Spotlight is good for finding contacts, appointments and finding apps in the crummy iPhone "Finder". It's not clear, but I suspect 3rd parties can't use it.
• The Voice memo is nice enough, but they should have used all that space for a giant record button (for car use). My old VoiceRecord.app is better, so I'll stick with that one.

Good

• Thanks no doubt to the Palm Pre, I can now sync my iPhone with both my Mac Contacts and my Google Contacts (via Google's Exchange service) and keep the two sources distinct. This is a very large benefit for me. I do hope to get a single source for my Contacts but this feature is worth the update all by itself.
• A bug fix in OS 2 means Google's ActiveSync service can now sync up to 25 separate Google Account calendars to your iPhone.
• It doesn't use up any of your precious storage space. The OS is stored separately, so even if it's bigger your usable memory is unchanged.
• When you install new apps, instead of messing up all your screens it creates a new screen between the first and 2nd (unless you hit the maximal number of screens).
• iPhone is now a better podcast player
• I updated sooner than expected because the new versions of my apps required the update. I haven't yet had the kind of disastrous problems I expect with major Apple product updates.
• Moving the App icons between screens is much easier. No more bumping repeatedly trying to force the iPhone to jump screens.

I've yet to test all the old bugs, like the bizarre behavior of Calendar and Contacts Notes fields with large notes (like airplane itineraries).