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As expected, the new iPhone 2.2 is here and we have tried it night and morning. Like Apple says in their documentation, the stability and performance seems to have improved, but the spotlight falls specially on the new and improved Maps application, which has been polished almost to perfection thanks to its public transport and walking directions, as well as the smooth, fast Street View, and many other interface details. There are a lot of unexpected new features—no, no cut and paste—and fixes as well, and we have tried them all here:
Enhancements to Maps
• Public transport and walking mode: The most impressive part, at least for a public transport user like me, is the new public transport and walking directions mode. They work as you can expect, no glitches. This mode has all the information you need, at least here in New York, and it showed me the fastest way to get from my house to Gawker offices (cleverly avoiding the damn 6, which is always arriving late for me).
Not only it showed the route clearly, with nice new icons, but it also gave something unexpected: subway timetables. As you can see in the gallery, it tells you what's the departure time for the next Manhattan-bound L train, telling you how many minutes you have to get there on time. It can also calculate the total time of your trip, which is always useful.
• Street view: It works great. You can't access street view by clicking on any place in the map, but the way Apple has implemented it makes sense. When you do a search (or drop a pin) an new little guy icon will appear in the address pop-up. You just have to click on it and the map will zoom and smoothly change into Street View mode, rotating the display to the left automatically. From there you can navigate easily, using one finger to look around the panorama and clicking on the overlaid arrows to navigate. It works hot-butter-over-pancakes smooth.
• Other new features: When you drop a pin, it displays the exact address of the location. You can also share any location via email very easily, just by clicking on the location itself and hitting a Share this location button. It's a quick cut and paste substitute (of course, no cut and paste yet).
iTunes and App Store
• Podcasts over the air: As expected, they work flawlessly, both audio and video. I accessed the new feature and I was downloading them in no time. Unfortunately, the artificially-imposed 3G network 10MB limit is easy to reach for video content. While the TED Talks downloads work great over wireless, the store will tell you that you can't download them over 3G. One good thing: It leaves the podcasts in a queue so the next time you get into a Wi-Fi spot, they will download automagically.
• App store reorganization: It has been sightly reorganized. The interface has been polished. The categories, for example, now display bigger and with icons. As I speculated in our iPhone 2.2 rumor round-up, the icons shown seem to show the top free application
Fixes
• Improved stability and performance in Safari: In my informal testing, it feels a bit faster to me, specially on javascript heavy web sites.
• Resolved isolated issues with scheduled email: Wasn't able to test this one, as I don't use scheduled checking to save on battery life.
• Improving wide HTML email display: If you have ever ran into this problem, you know it's extremely annoying. When somebody sends you an HTML styled email, sometimes it displays very long lines and tiny text. I received a mail like that the other day from my sister and went immediately to try it. Unfortunately, the fix hasn't worked for me on that one, but it did work in another email I got from a company. Weird.
• Decreased in call set-up an call drops: Too soon to tell. So far, so good.
• Improved sound quality on voicemail message: I saw this yesterday so I went and tried them in 2.1. Indeed, there were pops and hisses. After the update I tried under 2.2 and yes, they have better sound quality.
Other little additions
• Clicking the home button while you are in the home screen takes you to the first page of the home, which is very welcomed, as that's where I store my main applications and I have several pages of additional apps and page links.
• Safari: They have streamlined the interface for address and search, like we already saw in previous leaks.
• Preference to turn auto-correction on and off: This is a welcome addition for me, because quite frankly, no matter what Jason says, my iPhone corrects fuck with duck every single time. So duck auto-correction for a little while. I'm going to ducking see if it affects my ducking speed or not.
Verdict: It works as expected, feels smooth, and the new features are a must to have, specially the new Maps application. Ducking good. Go get it now.
Ted Shelton: "Frankly I felt that BlogOn was a waste of time and money."
I think the BlogOn conference was overproduced. In the name of professionalism the organizing firm turned off potential speakers, oversubscribed sponsors, etc.
I would have liked a debatable topic (aside from *blogging = journalism*. Two people slugging it out. Or a devil's advocate taking challenges from the floor.
I would have liked more hard numbers. Facts. Charts. Diagrams. We have the analytic tools to BS-check them; harder on vague opinions and single-points-of-observation.
I found it disturbing how much money was being commanded (from both attendees and sponsors) for a conference at a university. Maybe it was because it was at Berkeley? Maybe we should have taken over a community college or a Cal State or a DeVry. The facilities costs would have been cheaper at least. I heard an organizer apologize and say the next one would be at a hotel, like that would have been better.
Cost wasn't the whole problem. We're at a stage where early adopters are meeting folks who want to leap the chasm. Huge gaps in knowledge, experience, context, culture, vocabulary. It's the gap.
There are huge ideas to be explored, even in the world of applying blogs to media strategy and the enterprise. And most of the big ideas weren't even on the agenda at BlogOn. Probably because it was catering to those who want to commercialize, fund, and otherwise exploit (excuse me, "get in on") the emerging medium.
Let's fork these conferences so advanced topics on business and technology and culture fit the participants.
