After months of feverish waiting, Apple’s latest firmware update for the iPhone is available. There are a handful of new features, such as the much requested and much needed Copy/Paste function. The update is free for iPhone users, but we will outline the new features anyway, highlighting the pros and cons, so you can decide whether its worth updating.

Spotlight

The Spotlight search is often the favourite feature for Mac users, and it is now available on the iPhone. Has it lost any of its functionality and speed? No. A simple swipe to the left on the main screen will bring up the search bar at the top. Typing the initial words of your query will bring up a flurry of results, which cancel out as you get more specific. The results are linked to the file, so for example, if you click on a video clip in the results, it will start playing. Therefore, the Spotlight seems to be an awesome addition.The Spotlight will be unable to search through a lot of your content, including third-party apps, Maps, SMS. However, in this case pros easily outweigh cons.

Mail

iPhone 3.0 now allows you to search your email over IMAP, which basically means you don’t have to open Gmail in Safari, to search for a keyword in Gmail. However, it can lag a bit over 3G, but it is still functional.

Find my iPhone

This may be a Godsend if you are the forgetful type (like me). This feature is expensive, costing $100 a year for MobileMe, but it enable you to locate your phone on Google Maps, through MobileMe’s website. You can send a message to your iPhone, or even wipe its contents and deactivate it remotely. This seems like a very useful feature, but there is a major flaw, in that the guy who steals your iPhone could simply disable the feature. That seems like a damn big flaw for a feature costing $100 a year, but it could be useful if you dropped your iPhone in your mate’s house etc.

Copy/Paste

This new feature has certainly been the most discussed of them all, but does it work? In all, yes. It certainly does. You simply have to click on a sentence/block of text until the magnifier comes up. Then unclick, to have the option to copy. For ease of use, there is also a bar on the side of the selected block of text, which can be stretch to include more text.

However, the problem with this feature is that the copy option pops up everytime you place a cursor anywhere other than the end of a sentence. This can become an annoyance, whilst working with text.

Overall:

There are many benefits it upgrading to 3.0, namely:

• Spotlight- which is works amazingly
• Copy and Paste is finally introduced
• Its FREE
• There are lots of small improvements some of which must satisfy your needs

There are also some drawbacks:

• Copy/Paste function can become quite annoying
• Find my iPhone is expensive and can be turned off anyway

More to be added on this review…

There are many features like MMS and internet tethering, which we could not test, but will do so in the future (Blame AT&T). If you have upgraded, we would love to hear your thoughts about iPhone 3.0 OS. Did it meet your expectations? Do you have any annoyances? Feel free to comment below.