MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/4631
54 MacDirectory
FEATURE
Sense of Direction
The combination of the GPS and Google
Maps had iPhone users singing
You'll
Never Walk Alone
(or drive, bike or take a
bus, for that matter). But the two big
limitations were that the phone never
really knew the way it was facing and, if
you were out of range of any data
sources, the position information from the
GPS was something less than useful. The
built-in compass on the 3GS is a complete
game-changer.
Most obviously, it opens the door to real
navigation software, ranging from the
Map App's ability to reorient itself to third-
party applications from AT&T, Navigon
and TomTom that compare favorably to
the features you'll find in a dedicated
device. However, the real breakthroughs
should start appearing with the release of
the 3.1 OS. Then, the GPS, compass,
accelerometer and camera all start
working together to provide an
experience being called "augmented
reality." In a nutshell, this means your
location, direction and phone orientation
are used to pull up data that is keyed over
the image from the phone's camera to
show you where things are and the
distance they are from you. An early
demo of this technology helped locate
transit stations. Accessing an online
database, you would be able to get
information on timetables, routes and
available connections. We believe that this
has the potential to be one of the
greatest breakthroughs in handheld
technology since the smart phone.
Slick
There's one new feature that is obvious
each time you touch your phone: the
oleophobic screen. Its primary function is
to allow the screen to be cleaned with a
quick swipe of a soft cloth (microfiber lens
cloth seems to work best, but a T-shirt or
well-worn jeans will do the job, too). But
the benefits go well beyond cleanliness
and clarity. Your fingers glide across the
screen like the skater on a perfectly
manicured rink. This feature hasn't topped
the list in many of the reviews of the new
phone, but it's little touches (so to speak)
like this that helps push a product over
the line from merely "outstanding" to the
"insanely great."
"Sometime Soon"
That's a phrase that we've heard a lot
since the release of the 3GS. The phone
and the OS have been ready to roll for
tethering (serving as a 3G "modem" for a
laptop) and multimedia messaging (MMS)
but the iPhone's exclusive American
carrier has not. As the days grew shorter
and nights grow longer, we began to
wonder about the network's ability to
come through on their promise to deliver
these features this summer. MMS was set
to make its debut on September 25, a few
days past the actual autumnal equinox
(and this issue's press deadline) with still
no official word on tethering. From what
we hear, the features are working well for
users in most other countries that offer
the 3GS. Sadly,
MacDirectory's travel
budget wasn't quite up to sending their
reviewer to Europe to test them out.
Successful!
If you were counting on buying your new
3GS from one of AT&T's outlets, you
probably discovered that the phone was
an instant sellout. Most stores, it seems,
barely had enough inventory to survive
the first few hours and customers faced a
minimum one-week wait. Apple as far
more generous with its own stores, but
after the first couple of weeks, shortages
started cropping up in their stores around
the country and the online inventory
locator kicked in.
Even though the refinements were more
subtle than some expected, those
subtleties add up to an exponential leap
in capability. iPhone developers now have
a host of new tools at their disposal.
Combined with their seemingly infinite
imagination and creativity, we've only
seen the first glimmers of what the 3GS
can do.
Product iPhone 3GS
Made by Apple Inc.