No Upgrade Necessary: The Top New Features That All iPhone Users Will Get

With iPhone 3.0, the keyboard now comes in landscape

There might be a little bit of confusion forming around the latest iPhone chatter. Let’s be clear: All iPhone owners will get tons of new features via a software update distributed through iTunes — for free.

The iPhone 3G S, which goes on sale Friday for up to $300, will have a handful of hardware upgrades that legacy owners won’t have access to, including an internal compass, video-recording and a faster processor. If you can live without those fancy features, then you will be equally pleased with the other updates, such as universal search, a landscape keyboard, etc.

Yesterday, I downloaded the 3.0 software update to my iPod Touch. Unlike the iPhone, the software update costs $9.99 for the Touch. While some people reported problems updating their phones, the software installation process went flawlessly for me. There’s plenty of good articles, detailing all the new features. MacWorld does a good job giving the overview, while PCWorld does a great job of identifying the more obscure new tricks here.

To cause additional confusion, there will be some updates that will be dependent on the carrier enabling. Therefore, even though Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) supports them, you may not receive them — regardless if you have the latest iPhone or not. Those include MMS, or multimedia messaging, and tethering.

After tinkering with the new operating system for the past day, here’s the five things that really stood out to me:

Copy and Paste: One of the big gripes about the iPhone was that it did not support copy and paste when many other smartphones did. Now, it not only provides the functionality, but it’s better than most other phones. Simply press and hold over the paragraph you would like to copy, and it’s highlighted. Or press and hold and drag and drop from start to finish what section you would like to highlight. While it sounds hard to be that precise, Apple does a good job of making it elegant.

Landscape keyboard: Originally, Apple only provided a keyboard when the phone was in portrait, but now the device can be turned on its side. The improvement is significant. Before, people mostly tapped with one finger, one letter at a time. In landscape, users can get into a rhythm using their thumbs to increase their speed. Accuracy seems to be the same, which means it’s not all that great.

Universal search: When on the first page of the phone’s homepage, simply swipe once to the right, and the search bar will pop up. Type in a term and it will find everything from applications to emails. For example, when I entered “no,” I got responses the Notes application, but also songs from my iTunes catalog and emails.

Safari browsing: It is now easier to read multiple web pages at the same time. Simply press and hold a link from within Safari and a menu will pop-up, allowing you to open that link on to a new page. Toggling between the two is a swipe away.

Alerts: This one is significant for people who do a lot of instant messaging. Now when you aren’t within the application, you will be alerted to a new message. The only way I experienced this new feature was by getting a news alert from AP Mobile, which popped up on the homescreen.

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