Software updates are a lot like stockings on Christmas morning.

Stocking stuffers are never as exciting or expensive of presents as the wrapped ones under the tree, and you can usually see most of what you’re going to get before you even dump out the sock.

But a present is a present, and there is always the hope that at the bottom of the stocking there will be a few unexpected surprises. Such as a fix to that one pesky bug I keep noticing, and maybe, just maybe, a snappier OS.

The bug I was hoping to see fixed was in the SMS app. Before this software update my text messages had been intermingling with one-another. When I got a text message from someone, that message would often display inline with my most recently opened SMS conversation. Moving up one level to the top-level list in the SMS app and then opening up the conversation would fix the problem. Fortunately, since the update I haven’t noticed it at all.

In hopes of a snappier OS, there is the rare occasion in which you can clearly tell that the OS is faster. But usually, minor software updates are more like placebos regarding response time—some people swear the thing is lightning fast now, and others can’t get over how darn slow it got.

And now, in good old-fashioned unordered listery, here is a short handful of thoughts on the actual software update:

• After the update my screen was noticeably more dim. I went in to adjust the brightness meter, anticipating the phone had set the level at 10% for some reason, but oddly the level was set at the same place I normally have it (around 70%). Moving the bar up to nearly 95% now gets me the same level of brightness as I previously had. My first concern is if this will affect my battery life.
• Streaming a podcast via the Edge network works great for me. What threw me off when streaming a podcast, is not that it continues to play even if you leave Mobile iTunes, but that the stream is not controlled via the iPod app. You have to go back into Mobile iTunes to pause or stop it.
• I am a big fan of the Home button’s new ability to get me back to the Home screen. That was a clever idea, for sure. It’s amazing how many things they can get just one button to be capable of doing.
• The feature I am most glad about? Better audio quality for voicemail. Seriously. I don’t know what happened but one day all my voicemail messages began to sound like they had been recorded in a tin room by a robot. Thank goodness I’m getting messages from the real world again.

A couple days ago I was at a prayer meeting. I was sitting in a blue chair, and had strategically reserved an empty chair on my left and one on my right so I could have my space. There was live music and I wanted to read.

My iPhone buzzed, and I pulled it out to read, and then reply, to a text message. A few minutes later it buzzed again. Reply. Buzz. Reply.

By the third text, a 30-something Asian lady, sitting two chairs over (and who I’m nearly positive had never seen an iPhone before), asks me what sort of phone I have. In very broken English. In a room with live music. Two seats over from me.

At first, she asked me to show her how it worked. I held it out and used my thumb to slide back and forth between splash screens, and I pulled up the contacts app and showed her the keypad for the phone.

After my 10-second demo she asked if she could check her email really quick (which I knew was surely just an excuse to fiddle with the phone). I put it back in my pocket and told her that only my email works on it, because you have to set it up.

But her eyes had already been lit up, and I knew for sure she had never seen one before, because she pulled out her Fat ‘Lil Notebook and asked me to write down what it was and what it does.

I wasn’t quite sure how to fulfill her request, so I took a pen and wrote:

• Apple iPhone

• Make calls
• Get text messages
• Check email

She then asked me to write down where she could go get one. So I cleverly wrote:

• Apple Store

If anyone was watching us it must have been a hilarious sight. I was clearly in an awkward situation, and this lady was oblivious to it. She was enthralled and apparently had no pre-conceived notions about social boundaries.

As I hand her notebook back she finally works up her confidence and flat-out asks me to hold the thing.

I very much wanted to say ‘no’, but I like to think of myself as a nice guy; sharing is caring, you know? I slowly pull it out of my pocket and as I’m hesitantly passing it over the empty chair my first thought was, “Is she going to steal it?”

But my second thought was, “If she does try to run I could totally take her.”

I pass it off, and she plays with it for (not kidding) 30 minutes. Every couple minutes she leans over and asks me how to “get back to that one screen,” or “make the things stop wiggling,” or “open up Google”.

Once I was settled that she was innocent and harmless I relaxed a bit. At the 25 minute mark I leaned over and ask if she was done with it.

“Umm… No, not yet.” She replied.

Finally I just had to ask for it back.

The awkwardness was totally worth the great story I got out of it. Plus, it was a hoot to watch someone discover the iPhone for the first time.

Usually, when someone who hasn’t had a hands-on experience with an iPhone asks me to look at it, they will unlock it, stare at the home screen, maybe click on Safari and then hand it back. But this woman was dedicated; she was determined to fiddle until she was done.

And finally, to top it off, today I opened up Mobile Safari to see what sort of web-browsing she did. The four new browser windows she loaded?

1. A Google search for Tom Cruise Movies
2. The Official Jet Li Website
3. www.finalfantasy.com (which doesn’t exist)
4. Totally Obfuscuated

A few additional notes from my post last week on the iPhone 2.0 OS. Thanks to those who passed these on via email.

• The .com button, when held, now offers three other TLDs: .net, .org and .edu.
• If you’re composing a message in Mail and press the home button to look something up, the save draft dialog doesn’t interrupt you any more. Instead, when you return to Mail, your message is still open for editing.
• You can now turn Wi-Fi on while in Airplane Mode.
• Password fields on iPhone only show the last letter typed for a short while, and then convert it to a dot. So my previous example of ••••w would only appear that way for a second or two, until being changed to •••••.

An un-ordered list of observations regarding iPhone OS 2.0 and the freshly-launched iTunes App Store.

### MobileMe, Exchange and Push Data

– When composing an email there is now a CC/BCC/From field in Mail. Tapping it, expands the fields, from which you can not only select recipients to be CC-ed or BCC-ed, but (assuming you have more than one email account set up) you can also select which account you’re sending the email from. Regardles of which account you were in when opening a new email message.

– Pushing contacts, calendars and email currently only work when initiated on my phone. In Mobile Mail I can delete an email and within seconds it is deleted on my laptop. The reverse is not true.

The speed only works for my Exchange email account. My MobileMe calendars, contacts and mail do get over-the-air syncing but not instantaneously yet. Emphasis on the “yet”, considering the .Mac to MobileMe switch has been over a 24-hour process. (Lord knows how much coffee has been consumed at the MobileMe HQ in the past day.)

**Update:** MobileMe is up (for now), but my MobileMe related info is still not pushing. My guess is the servers are slammed.

– Selecting to push calendars over MobileMe only sent me my MacBook Pro’s native iCal calendars. Unfortunately, those which I’m subscribed to (National Holidays and Basecamp Milestones) are no longer in my iPhone.

– Setting up my work’s exchange account was incredibly simple. Much, much more simple that before. The exchange support seems to be flawless. I now have push email for work, which I honestly don’t know is a good thing or a bad thing.

The App Store

• Initial impression of the the iPhone’s app store is that it is first-rate. It’s easy to navigate, and too easy to buy stuff in.
• You can download apps from WiFi or EDGE. The apps I downloaded over EDGE downloaded pretty quickly.
• There are 52 productivity apps (8 of which are for “getting things done” and use a check-mark icon. The Abacus app boggles my mind.
• Clicking a link to the desktop version of the iTunes App Store from Mobile Safari doesn’t open the iPhone’s app store. Instead you get an internal server error from Apple.
• Some apps, like AIM and PayPal, have additional settings which can be accessed in the System Settings menu, at the bottom.
• Re-Downloading an App Store App. John Gruber notes:
  

  If you accidentally delete an app you’ve bought, you can re-download it for free. The App Store UI doesn’t make this clear, but Apple describes it in this KBase article. What you do is act like you’re buying it again — tap the app’s price, and the App Store will recognize that you’ve already purchased it and ask if you wish to download it again. You can also do this from iTunes, to re-download an app to your computer that you originally purchased on your iPhone.

Other Miscellany

• My iPhone now has the iPod Touch’s Contacts App. It is the exact same as opening the Telephone App and clicking Contacts.

  If I am scrolled half-way down in my Phone’s contact list and then quit out and open up the Contacts App, it will refresh itself to match, and thus it too will be scrolled half-way down. Curiously though, the reverse does not work. Meaning if I scroll back up to the top in the iPod-version Contacts App, the change is not reflected when I go back to the Contacts list in the iPhone’s telephone app.

  Oddities aside, I’m assuming the app is there because I downloaded the unofficial 2.0 OS update yesterday. Why it would be part of the official iPhone 2.0 OS is beyond me. I have a feeling when the official 2.0 OS update is released later today (presumably) that my iPhone will want to update itself.

  UPDATE: I re-installed the “official” 2.0 upgrade, and the Contacts App is still there. So now it lives in the back corner of the 3rd screen, next to its new friend Stocks.

  UPDATE 2: Nate Bird points out that with the dedicated Contacts app you can now add or edit a contact while talking on the phone. It’s true.

• iPhone can now take a screenshot by pressing (not holding) the home and lock buttons simultaneously. The screen fades to white, fades back in, and the screenshot is now in your camera roll.
• Apple’s Remote App is brilliant, and I can only imagine how much more I would enjoy it if I had an Apple TV setup. I noticed is that when selecting an artist or album to play in iTunes via Remote, a new playlist appears in iTunes titled “Remote” and it has the album you’re listening to in it. When switching to listen to a Podcast or watching a movie the playlist is deleted.
• Fortunately Mobile iCal (or whatever it’s called) now supports multiple calendars. Using the same colors as your Desktop iCal and MobileMe Calendar. Unfortuntely, no matter what the color is for an event, the text is white – making light-colored calendar events nearly impossible to read.
• When typing in a password you now see the last character you entered. Just before saving it, an 8-character password which ended with the letter “w”, would look like this: •••••••w.