Intermorphic Blog

Overall Summary: In my view, well worth the £5.99 ($9.99) upgrade price.

Well, I just managed to upgrade my iPod touch 2g to iPhone OS 3.0. It all went smoothly, although there were some niggles in the purchase process (I had to go through a loop 3 times for some reason). Here are some initial observations:

Bluetooth stereo: The first thing I checked was how it worked with Bluetooth stereo, as I wanted to use it in my (old) car and a newish Sony MEX-BT 3600 radio. The good news is that it paired fine, and the results were good! I initially forgot to turn off my WiFi connection and was finding that the stereo signal broke up or glitched every 15 – 20 seconds or so. Then I turned off the WiFi, and all was fine. The only thing to report is that it is LOUD. I have to turn the car radio down very low, and have not yet figure out how to adjust the volume on the device. If it is not possible to adjust the volume on the iPod touch or iPhone, and you are using a Bluetooth headset, then watch your ears!

Onscreen keyboard: With the car stopped/stationary and engine off (!), I tried typing whilst playing music over the bluetooth connection. I figure this would be a good stress test. Although the audio clicks for key presses were all over the place, typing speed was very very good – much much better than before – even with bluetooth going. And, the landscape keyboard is great!

Just these 2 features make it worth the £5.99 upgrade for me, so good one Apple!

Calendar woes: However, I do admit to being very disappointed that Calendar STILL does not show To Do items from iCal, at least as far as I can see. I just cannot understand why Apple have not fixed that, as there have been plenty of posts I have seen about it. The only thing I can think of is that it is not included for business reasons. I am really surprised by its glaring omission because it makes paying good money for the MobileMe offering seem a lot less interesting – and all the more so seeing as Apple are pushing MobileMe hard these days. If anyone from Apple reads this, please get out a point release fast that fixes that, thanks! My guess is you will sell more MobileMe subscriptions if you do that, so there is a real financial reason for doing it.

TeckNet iPhone composite AV and USB cable: This used to work fine under 2.2.1 but has stopped working under iPhone OS 3.0. I just get a message that this hardware is not supported. That is a bummer, too!

Apple bluetooth keyboard: I did try seeing if the iPod touch would discover a Wireless Apple keyboard (in a vain hope!), but it does not. I seems to keep trying to discover devices, but it never shows up. However, now the onscreen keyboard is so much more responsive, it lessens the desire for that. However, it would still be handy, as you can still type faster on a real keyboard.

Other bluetooth device: I dunno why , but I also tried to see if it would Bluetooth connect to my old N95. Well, it did, but as soon as it got connected the connection was terminated. Happened every time I tried to pair it. This does tend to indicate, though, that it should be possible to pair with other Bluetooth devices and developers could have a lot of fun there!

Voice Memos app and external mic: Just to confirm, this works fine with my external mic and cable system as noted earlier. You still don’t hear what you are saying in the headphones (no input monitoring – what was I hoping for ), and the volume level seems a bit low with the mic.

In-app purchasing: I am looking forward to seeing how in-app purchasing pans out, as this is something Intermorphic really wants to get into, as it would be ideal for getting add-on content for Mixtikl.

That’s it folks, hope it was of interest!