I need to purge some emailSo, I upgraded my old phone (iPhone 3G) to the new iOS 4 operating system.  The backup process took forever and I fell asleep on it.  When I woke up the next morning the update was done but I still needed to do the restore.

Here are the features I noticed:

  • Unified inbox. Finally!
  • Emails are grouped by threads.
  • App folders.  I love the folders but I wish they looked like folders instead of boxes with miniature icons.
  • Camera zoom
  • Can view photos by places in camera roll.
  • Camera now asks if it can know my location. It’s good that they have added this feature back.  We should be able to decide if we want to geotag our photos instead of it automatically being done for us.
  • Can see what apps have requested my location.  In addition, an indicator on status bar shows when apps have access to location.
  • Birthday calendar. Creates a calendar of contact’s birthdays.  Incidentally, I also figured out how to sync multiple calendars with Google Sync so I can now see Facebook Events, Facebook Birthdays, and other calendars I have in Google Calendar.
  • Syncing notes.  Unfortunately, I’m using Google Sync which does not have Notes functionality.  If I were syncing to an actual exchange server I would be happy with this.
  • Edit playlists
  • Group SMS messaging
  • Google suggestions in Safari. This comes in handy when trying to look something up quickly.
  • Spell check. I can see a red dotted line under misspelled words while composing email messages.

Features I read about that I can’t find for iPhone 3G

  • Multitasking.  I knew that feature was not included already.
  • View photos by Faces and Events
  • Rotate photos
  • Game center
  • Ability to search web or wikipedia from home screen
  • Home screen wallpaper
  • Bluetooth keyboard support

Most of these missing features, I don’t care about at all.  However, I am upset about the Bluetooth keyboard support.  The home screen wallpaper seems easy enough a feature to be included so I was a little disappointed about that as well.  Many have speculated about a unified notification center but that remains to be seen.

Many argue that the older phones are not capable technically of handling many of the new features which seems reasonable.  To some extent, though, I think Apple intentionally leaves features out to serve as a proverbial carrot to motivate users to get the newer versions.  The carrot on stick motivation technique has never worked for me.  In everything, my loyalty depends on how I am treated.  In August, I will be a free agent in terms of phones and cell carriers.  I will be weighing whether or not I should stay with iPhone or move to Android.

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