Apple IOS 4.3 Ho Hum...

Well I didnt really intend to write another blog entry today but oh well here goes.


Let me just preface this with the warning that this post falls in the NERD category of posts.  So if you are wondering when I am going to get around to talking about Noah or the girls or Melinda, I'm not. 


Sorry.  


Ive definitely got plenty to say about them but thats for another day.


The reason for todays post is the release of Apple iOS 4.3.  This update to the operating software for iphones, ipod touches and ipads came out yesterday.  It has been anticpiated as a semi-big update that would bring improved speed and features.  Maybe I was expecting too much from a point release but I was less than thrilled with what was included.


The new features were improvements to Airplay which would let you stream content from your iphone or ipad to your television through an apple tv.  I dont have an apple tv so this was useless.  Even if I did Im not sure that I would frequently use this feature.  I mean how often are you going to have content on your mobile device that you need to play on the big TV?  Maybe its just me.


Safari received a speed increase from the updates to the underlying javascript engine that runs it.  This is ok.  I cant say that its a night an day improvement.  The ipad version of safari was already a fairly fast browser.  I can tell that the iphone version seems to load things a little quicker.


Apple added itunes home sharing.  This is the feature that will let you play things from your itunes library on your i-device as long as you are on the same wifi network.  This is a little more useful if you have a home PC.  I do everything on a laptop so if I am going to go to the trouble to open the laptop and start itunes for sharing I might as well use the laptop.  Plus with 16 Gb on the ipad and iphone I already have most everything I would want to play on my device already.


The feature I was most excited about was the Personal Hotspot which would let you use your I-device as a wireless hotspot to access the cellular network.  This has been available through apps like MyFi for a while if you were brave enough to jail break your phone.  I was looking forward to doing it legally.  AT&T decided to step in and felt like they needed to make money from this.  So in order to use it you have to add an additional data plan that changes your 2Gb data plan into a 4Gb data plan for an additional $15 a month.  If you were one of the early iphone adopters that is grandfathered in to having an unlimited data plan (like me) you will have to give that up to get the hotspot feature.  So the thing I was most looking forward to became the thing that I am most bummed about thanks to AT&T.


Therefore the feature that became the most useful to me out of this update is the ability to specify what the switch on the side of your i-device does.  On iphones this switch muted the phone and on Ipads it locked the rotation.  Now you can choose what it does and the other feature is available through the app switching menu (double tap home).


How exciting.


Maybe iOS 4.4 will be better.