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New iPhone Firmware 2.0 Features Uncovered

Aside from the wealth of business-friendly features that will be added to the iPhone come firmware version 2.0, seems Apple has a number of other nifty upgrades to the iPhone's feature set. You'll now be able to search your contact database, as well as save photo attachments or Web images directly to the iPhone.

As iPhone developers dig more and more into the iPhone SDK and 2.0 firmware beta, they are finding a host of unannounced new capabilities. I am sure you all know about the enterprise features of iPhone 2.0, which include WPA2 security for Wi-Fi, more secure VPN capabilities, remote device wipe, Exchange ActiveSync, and more complex password support. These are all long overdue and are sure to entice enterprise buyers. Its the other, lesser upgrades that interest me most, because they go to the device's basic usability.

You can now place Wi-Fi networks in order of preference. That means the iPhone will automatically connect to whichever network you set first in the list of known or friendly networks. This is a nice little touch if you often use an iPhone in multiple networks.

The e-mail program itself has received a small upgrade in that you can now multiselect messages. When you hit edit, you can select as many messages as you want and delete or move them as a group. One of the iPhone's failings as a real e-mailing device is the lack of robust features in the mail program. This is a step in the right direction.

There also is a new scientific mode calculator. I personally will never have the need to perform any calculus on my iPhone, but I am sure there are some teenagers somewhere who are just dying to use their iPhone's as real calculators for their math homework.

Last, but not least, is the most recently uncovered feature: the ability to save photos that you receive in your e-mail to the iPhone's camera roll. I was stunned the first weekend I had the iPhone when a friend sent me a picture in my e-mail. I attempted to download it and save it as his photo ID. I couldn't. There's no ability to do so with the iPhone with firmware versions 1.1.4 and earlier. Now that is changed.

Not only can you save e-mailed photos, but you also can grab images from Web pages or even take snapshots of Web pages themselves and download them to your iPhone for use as a wallpaper, etc.

Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that many other smartphones platforms, such as Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS and S60, already can perform many of these functions...

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