It seems like it was coincidental that there was a new iphone OS release and i had hardware problems at the same time. I spent the Friday trying to get it fixed.
Multiple attempts to upgrade the OS and trying to "Restore" from itunes did not work. I kept getting Error 23 while trying to restore. I took it to ATT store. They tried to sell me all kinds of crap without getting my iphone problem resolved. They directed me to the Apple Store. I went to the Valley Fair Mall Store and unfortunately it was just too crowded and I couldn't get an appointment to get my iphone fixed. Apple Stores have a service department called "Genius Bar"s which address Apple hardware problems. The next appt I could get was on Sunday evening which was too bad. I checked the appointment scheduler on the Apple Store website late at night and I got an appt at 9AM at Palo Alto Store. I drove to the store and the "Genius" guy there got me a new iphone 3GS device. He got it upgraded to ios 4.
But the sync did not work and i thought i would not get my data. Fortunately, when I did a "Restore", I got all the data from the backup. I couldn't be happier. I still had to type in all of the passwords again but all of my data showed up.
iOS 4.0 upgrade seems to be ok. The device freezes infrequently and you had to push the power button to kill the app that froze. Lifehacker site has some good tips about iOS 4.0. My main pet peeve about iphone was that the device changed orientation unpredictably and there was no option to lock the orientation. We now have that feature. My next pet peeve was addressed by the folder functionality which helped in organizing Apps into folders so there was no clutter.
I am now able to use Voice Control feature of iphone. It never worked for me before. But after reading some of the websites, it seems like you have to do 2 things:
o wait till it emits a beep/ding before you say your command
o say your command clearly and confidently like a Jedi master.
If you get the hang of it, it works really well and i am very happy with this feature.
Other cool things are the "Universal Inbox" with the mail, the calendar looks better somehow (I now started receiving invitations properly and it never worked before), so is the mail app.
Overall my gloom about iphone gave way to a good feeling with the brand new phone and the OS upgrade. I think Apple has a store that is as good as its products and a phone that is a lifechanger.
