Review | iPhone 3GS: Check out the improvements

It's easy to forget that Apple is the brash young upstart in the cellphone industry, because in just two years the iPhone has become the reference for how mobile phones should work.

The new iPhone 3GS, which hit the market last week, is available in two memory capacities: 16 GB for $199 and 32 GB for $299 (each requires a two-year AT&T service contract, with variable upgrade pricing — see accompanying story for more details). I tested a 32 GB iPhone 3GS, but really, the upgraded capacity of this year's model is the least of its many new features.

In fact, to stay within the space constraints of this article, I've limited myself to mentioning just the features I feel are most important or noteworthy for the iPhone 3GS itself. Many improvements, such as copy and paste (at last), are made possible by the iPhone OS 3.0 software that runs the device; that update is free to all current iPhone owners and $9.95 for owners of iPod touch models (the latter cost made necessary by the way Apple records iPhone revenue).

Speed. It's one thing to claim increased speed for this or that feature, but the iPhone 3GS feels faster in every respect: launching and running apps, returning to the home screen and accessing the Web are all snappy. The difference is pronounced for me, coming from the original iPhone, but I also noticed more pep compared with my wife's iPhone 3G.

The faster processor in the iPhone 3GS (which runs at 600 MHz, although Apple deliberately doesn't list those types of specifications) combined with improvements made to Safari under iPhone OS 3.0 makes Web "browsing" no longer sound like a lackadaisical stroll.

The faster processor and increased memory (256 MB) also improves 3-D games, with the possibility for even better performance soon thanks to the iPhone's support for Open GL ES 2.0 graphics processing. The phone does run warm when actively engaged in processor-intensive tasks, though.

Voice activation. It's silly that voice-activated dialing is only now appearing on the iPhone, which makes me wonder if Apple was trying to make amends by adding other voice features.

As expected, you can say, "Call Glenn Fleishman" and the iPhone's pleasant female voice will repeat the request and then dial the number. If the contact has multiple phone numbers, the iPhone asks you to specify one: home, work, mobile, and so on.

As a visual guide, the labels float in the background to tell you which options are available. Or, say, "Call Glenn," and get the option to specify which Glenn in your contact list you mean.

But you can also control music playback via voice, too. Say, "Play songs by Crowded House" and in a moment you're listening to "Don't Dream It's Over." The feature doesn't recognize song titles or podcasts, unfortunately.

I've found the voice recognition mostly solid, with occasional stumbles.

Photos and video. The camera's 3 megapixels of resolution are a welcome improvement over the previous models' 2 megapixels, but the best new featured are the capability to autofocus, as well as to tap an area on the screen to focus on and adjust exposure and white balance. The camera also resolves close-up details for macro shots, as close as 10 cm, which is a great improvement.

Taking aim at the compact-video market, the iPhone 3GS can also record VGA video (640 x 480 pixels at 30 frames per second). The output isn't as sharp as a dedicated video camera, but for spur-of-the-moment captures, the output is decent and the convenience is superb (speaking as someone who carries his iPhone everywhere).

You can even trim captured video clips to isolate the best part without editing the footage into iMovie, although footage removed in this way can't be recovered later.

I've posted examples of the camera's output at the following MobileMe gallery: gallery.me.com/jeffc#100249.

Spotlight searching. As we add more data to our iPhones, we need better ways of locating the information. Navigating applications is painful if you have more than a few screens full of applications, and until now the contents of your e-mail and notes have been locked in their apps.

A new Spotlight search interface to the left of the first home screen finds data in applications and offers a faster way of locating apps (like a basic version of LaunchBar on the Mac).

Data need not be on the iPhone to be found. Spotlight can search messages on your mail server, such as messages you sent from your computer. Unfortunately, Spotlight does not search message bodies, only To, From, Subject, or all three fields.

Find My iPhone. With a MobileMe account ($99 a year), go to me.com and locate the iPhone on a map, or send a text message with optional sound alert to the phone.

If you suspect the phone was stolen, you can also trigger a remote wipe of its data (which can be restored from your computer if the phone turns up later). All data on the iPhone 3GS is automatically hardware-encrypted — a great feature that should make corporations more comfortable with deploying the iPhone — so the wipe takes only about a minute.

Worthy mentions. Apple packed a lot of improvements into the same physical enclosure as the iPhone 3G. A built-in compass helps orient you and ties in with the Maps app. Nike+ support is built-in, as is stereo output via Bluetooth (but, darn it, still no support for using a Bluetooth keyboard).

The iPhone OS 3.0 software supports MMS messaging and tethering (using the iPhone's Internet connection by a computer via USB or Bluetooth), but AT&T does not yet support those features.

Apple claims improved battery life in the iPhone 3GS, but in these first few days of using one I've seen slightly worse performance because I've been testing applications and features.

The processor demands of a smartphone, coupled with the large beautiful LCD, make the iPhone a device that needs charging once a day or more, depending on your usage, so I'm not expecting a dramatic difference, plus or minus, in battery life.

The original iPhone was a cellular phone finally done right. Two years later, the iPhone 3GS is defining what a smartphone should be.

Jeff Carlson is one of the contributors to the Practical Mac column in Personal Technology.