The most useful feature of iPhone I find is the App Store, but sometimes it could well be a Test of your Patience.
Nothing against the App Store as such. I’ve got almost 80+ apps installed on my 16GB iPhone and most of them are quite useful than not. I use or should I say I have to use most of them quite frequently.
Since I’ve got so many apps installed, whenever I go to the AppStore on my iPhone I find there are upgrades available for at least 7-8 of the apps on my iPhone. So I select to update them all! And that is when The Test Begins…
To install/upgrade an app: it needs to first download the package and then install it – the steps that are noticeable by users. And there must also be steps like deleting the old app, deleting the downloaded package after installation, etc – which are not directly visible to users.
Now if I’ve got 7 apps to upgrade it is painstakingly slow and a linear process!! It will download the first package – then install it; then download package 2; install package 2; download package 3; install package 3; so and so forth… Download and install time varies depending on the size of the package. I know the smarter way to get around this is downloading apps in your PC/Mac iTunes and then syncing them with iPhone. But Why? Why should I go through this long process if I am able to use WiFi on my phone directly and access the equally fast internet??
Shame that iPhone lacks big time on being able to run multiple processes at the same time.
Some techy news from last week – 13 September, 2009

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* iTunes 9 with improved Genius (including Genius for Apps) and finally App organisation (you can arrange which screens apps will appear on before syncing to your iPhone or iPod Touch).
* iTunes LPs – single download (note: not this single-file format we’ve been hearing about), including photos, video, liner notes, lyrics.
* iPod Touch 8GB gets a price drop to NZ$349, and we get speedier 32GB and 64GB models for $519 and $699. Bear in mind you won’t get OpenGL|ES 2.0 on the $199 model, so we’ll see some game compatibility issues cropping up there I think.
* More games – notably Madden from EA and Assassin’s Creed.
* iPod Classic gets a capacity bump to 160GB for NZ$429
* iPod Shuffle gets colours at the standard $99 price, and a new “special edition” 4GB model for $129.
* iPod Nano is the biggest change-up, with video camera (640×480 resolution, so there’s no way it’s competing with the Flip-type HD cameras), and FM Radio (!). NZ$259 for the 8GB, and $318 for the 16GB models.
If you’re on Facebook and access it using you’re iPhone, then here is some breaking news for you… Facebook 3.0 for iPhone is here.

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It’s a complete makeover from its previous version and here are some of the new features in there:
– See your upcoming Events and RSVP
– See your friends’ birthdays
– See Pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
– Write Notes and read your friends’ Notes
– Upload videos from an iPhone 3GS
– Upload photos to any album
– Complete photo management (create albums, delete albums, delete photos, delete photo tags)
– Change your Profile Picture
– Zoom into photos
– Like posts and photos
– See the same News Feed as the Facebook website
– Visit links in a built-in web browser
– See all of your friends’ friends and Pages
– See mutual friends
– Easily search for people and Pages
– Make friend requests
– Become a fan of Pages
– Quickly call or text your friends
– Create shortcuts to your favorite friends and Pages
– Friends sorted by first or last name according to your settings
– Chat friends sorted alphabeticaly
Go ahead and try it out and post your feedback or comments on the new version below.
NOTE: You will only see FB v3 on iTunes once Apple clears it cache. If you are keen, then delete the current version from your iPhone and re-install v2.5 from iTunes, it should actually be v3.0
Source: Mashable, Facebook
Infoworld.com has launched a web catalog which will help to find iPhone apps for business, professionals and IT users.

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It is a free service and as of 25 August 2009 it contains 218 iPhone apps.
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