Tethering isn’t going to be supported by AT&T, at least not for a while. It’s in the new 3.0 OS so it will work with the current phone, but until AT&T allows it that’s moot.
Video is only on the new phone, but you can jailbreak the current 3g and install cycorder to capture video. It work ok, but not great.
Really pissed AT&T wasn’t ready to support MMS at the 3.0 launch. Complete bullshit considering all their other phones do it. Plus the 3.0 OS has been in beta for a while so they had plenty of time to test it.
You can teather with the correct ippc file. I was using it on beta 5 but have not tried on the GM version yet but its not supported by ATT.
The best feature of 3.0 is the landscape keyboard in a lot of Apps IMO and the global search.
MMS
The reason AT&T is going to be slow on getting MMS provisioned for iPhones is laughable. To prevent MMS from working properly on iPhones AT&T has added “Opt Out MMS codes” to iPhone accounts preventing MMS. Once the codes are taken off accounts MMS will work fine on the iPhone with 3.0 firmware at no additional cost – it is included with the standard $20 SMS/data plan required for iPhones already. The catch is AT&T has to removed these Op Out MMS codes from every iPhone account manually. Hah.
Tethering
Tethering for AT&T is a different monster. The delay is reported to be completely intentional on AT&T’s part and at the launch of iPhone firmware 3.0 tethering will be disabled entirely for AT&T customers. It will become an option at a later date as soon as AT&T has managed to cobble together na unlimited data tethering plan for the iPhone at expense of an additional $70/mo.
As for the hardware in the 3GS, they have actually changed the processor. They bumped the processor from 400Mhz to 600Mhz still believed to be a ARM 7 processor and doubled the RAM from 128 to 256MB. There is also an article in the Apple How-To’s that explain how to clean non OLED screen with just a boring anti-oil oleophobic coated screen.
I have been playing with the AIM Beta. I don’t use AIM a lot but this app really shows the cool Push capabilities in the new firmware.
App closes but you can stay signed on. When you recieve a IM, even tho the app is closed, you get a popup and sound on the lock screen and also a notification badge above the AIM icon. Very cool and cant wait to see some of these apps this month
Tethering is the thing that has kept me from getting an iPhone, can you tether a jailbroken iPhone? I wonder if you’ll be able to tether w/o the tether plan. Right now I’m technically not allowed to tether but still can. I just use it once in a while and its not like i’m downloading huge movies or something so they don’t notice I’m sure.
Just out of curriosity, if you aren’t loading your iPhone with MP3s, do you really use that much memory? I change music frequently enough I don’t have an issue with an 8GB iPod, I find it hard to believe I’d really need more than 16GB of space.
They have the API out for it. 3.0 allows devices to access the port.
I have it enabled on my 3.0 beta phone using simply the carrier setting file and yes, you can use a jailbroken phone to use it too. It sucks that its not supported by ATT since so many people are willing to pay for it. I used it a few times on the road to remote into a server or log into a router somewhere.
The bigger apps I have seen are 100MB but most are under 10MB. The memory is pretty much all music so if you are not big into music and media, 8GB is fine.
I want to see how big the TomTom app is going to be. The map upgrades for garmin is close to 2GB. I doubt TomTom is much differing but I’m thinking they’ll probably allow you to choose what regions you want to install so you don’t have to install the entire US if you don’t want to.
I wouldnt be suprised if they pull some xGPS function where you can have it download them over the air and will save them to the device so you only need the areas you are in.
