I won’t belabor the point, but the new transit planning feature added to Maps in the iPhone 2.2 update kinda sucks.
The route and stop options it offers are often, um, distinctly suboptimal.
Today Apple released a big update for the iPhone, the v2.2 firmware brings a lot of new features, including Google Street View to the Map app. The map app gets other improvements, including transit information, reverse geocoding, email location sharing.
There are also other enhancements, like the ability to download podcasts over WiFi and the cellular connections without having to sync from iTunes. Apple also lists a dozen security fixes.
The release notes also mention other fixes, but the one I’m looking to most is “Improved Stablility and Performance of Safari.” I’ve been frustrated with Safari since the release of the 2.0 firmware.
More info from Apple:
- Enhancements to Maps
- Google Street View*
- Public transit and walking directions
- Display address of dropped pins
- Share location via email
- Decrease in call setup failures and dropped calls
- Enhancements to Mail
- Resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
- Improved formatting of wide HTML email
- Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network)
- Improved stability and performance of Safari
- Improved sound quality of Visual Voicemail messages
- Pressing Home button from any Home screen displays the first Home screen
- Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard Settings
Users of a variety of smart phones have been able to “tether” them to their laptops in order to allow the laptop to make use of the phone’s internet connection, but this feature has been conspicuously absent from the iPhone.
Nullriver tried to fill this gap with NetShare, but Apple bounced it from the App Store for good only a few days after it was first posted. More recently, PDAnet is available for jailbroken iPhones.
It’s progress then that an AT&T exec said, in an interview with Michael Arrington, that they’ll be supporting 3G tethering on the iPhone in 2009. If the tethering plans for other phones are any guide, we can expect an extra charge on the order of $20-30 for the privilege. We’ll see if there is a way to sneak a little tethering on the base iPhone data plan the way people have with other phones.
Today AT&T announced that it was acquiring Wayport in order to expand its WiFi offering. Wayport offers service in a number of hotel chains, and adds to the reach of AT&Ts existing networking, which is available in Starbucks and aiports, among other locations.
This is great news for iPhone owners, since it was just over a week ago that AT&T announced it was offering free access to their hotspots to iPhone subscribers
via AT&T- News Room
After multiple false alarms this spring, AT&T has finally started offering iPhone users free WiFi access at its hotspots. It looks like it is for real this time, since they are announcing it via text message, and I just received one.
AT&T has hotspots at thousands of Starbucks stores, and other locations.
The process of using it seems pretty simple:
iPhone users, get started with Wi-Fi
- Open the text message and tap on the link for 24-hour access to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot
More coverage:
Apple has been releasing betas of the next major iPhone firmware version, v 2.2. Some long promised and long awaited features, like push notification, remain missing in action, but it looks like we can look forward to a major update to the Map application.
The flashiest feature is the addition of support for Google Street View. Right now Google has street view for 58 US cities and national parks, as well as a few dozen out side the US. It’s a cool feature, but I’m not sure how useful it will be. It may be a while before I can find out first hand, since Seattle isn’t one of the supported cities.
There are other features I’m more eager to see, like directions and times for public transit, again drawing on Google. I ride the bus in Seattle, and its nice to use Safari to to check arrival times at stops near my home and office from my iPhone now, but it will be even nicer to have a better integrated experience, and to be able to more easily discover info about unfamiliar routes and stops. To round things out they include walking directions now, and there is a button for easily sharing your location via email.
Screenshots from user Gordon on iPhoneYap.
Earlier this week, TechCrunch, Mashable, iPhone Atlas, and others wrote about an intriguing iPhone app called DataCase from Veiosoft. DataCase effectively provides a file server on your iPhone. You can copy files to and from your computers over WiFi (much slicker than using it as a USB drive). You can create multiple folders, and set permissions on them, so you can have a place for your private documents, and also a place to trade files with people. What’s more, DataCase allows you to view a variety of file types right on your iPhone, including Microsoft Office files, PDF, text, various image formats, HTML, Audio and Video. Not bad for $6.99.
Given all the attention that DataCase attracted, I figured it was the only game in town. Not so! There are at least two alternatives. Files & Mobile Finder.
Files, from Olive Toast has been out for a week or more and has seen an update. It’s featureset is very similar to DataCase’s. You can transfer files to and from your phone from Mac or Windows & you can open a variety of file types. You can also password protect your files, but it isn’t clear whether you can have different folders with different permissions the way you can with DataCase. Files is available for $7.99.
Mobile Finder, from Pixiotec is the least expensive of the bunch, at $1.99. For that price you get a very full featureset, in addition to being able to transfer files to and from your iPhone from your Mac or Windows machine, you can open a wide variety of file types and save & edit text files. The developer promises to keep adding features, in fact, they’ve already added WebDAV support, and are just waiting for Apple to approve their update.
I just found TouchFS, which is very similar, but currently priced at $14.99. It looks like it is also a WebDAV server.
Mobile Finder is the cheapest of the bunch, but most of the other apps are only ~$5 more, which will hardly break the bank. All of them use WiFi. They all let you view a variety of file types, using, I believe, the built in file viewer that Apple includes for viewing email attachements. So, what sets them apart from one another?
DataCase:
- Shows up automatically in the Finder on Macs.
- Separate permissions/passwords for up to 10 different folders provides flexibility.
- Supports AFP (for Macs) and FTP for everyone else.
Files:
- Client machines supporting Bonjour (Macs, Windows machines with iTunes or Safari) can connect tot he iPhone by a name, rather than an IP#.
- Only supports WebDAV protocol.
- Private and public folders, but not as flexible as DataCase.
- Search file names on iPhone.
Mobile Finder:
- Almost too inexpensive not to try.
- Allows editing of text files.
- Supports WebDAV and FTP.
- Not clear whether it has password protection.
I think all these apps in their current state might prove a little chalenging for less sophisticated or confident users, particularly on Windows. In reading reviews in the Appstore, DataCase seems like it is the most polished, but I expect we’ll see the feature set of all three to improve in the coming weeks. At least one allready has an update with new features awaiting Apple’s approval. I’m mindful that whatever option I choose, I only have an 8GB iPhone and less than 100MB free. I’ll have an update once I have time to put them through their paces.
