Apple released the iPhone OS 3.0 software to developers Tuesday. I’ve had a chance to play around with it the last couple days and have been pretty happy with the results. It does offer some nice feature upgrades, but it does it without changing the user experience a whole lot.

When I install beta software on any device, I realize that there could be bugs.  I take a look at the software and see if it will prevent me from doing my daily tasks and are the features worth trying out in testing mode.  With the iPhone I figured if I could still make and receive calls, get my text messages, and use my daily applications like Brightkite and Facebook, then it would be worth installing and seeing what’s new.

I logged into the developer site on Tuesday which was getting hit pretty hard, but after a few attempts I was able to download and install the software successfully on my iPhone 3G.  After initial install it seemed kind of slow, but I think it could have been indexing the content in the phone for searching.  Apple claims there are over 100 new features, but I don’t know all 100 and I think only the ones that really stand out are important to discuss.

The first feature worth noting is the one I just mentioned, search.  If you are on the first page of home screen, sliding to the left or pressing the home button will bring up the search page.  It’s a system wide search and it’s overall pretty quick.  It lists search results categorized by application.

Cut and paste is a big feature people have been waiting for and it works well.  There’s only been a couple of times where I’ve needed to cut and paste things.  For example when someone sends me a text message of an address, it was just a pain in the past having to swap between the Text app and Maps.  Also I noticed the phone being a little smarter with linking by adding more linkable text to items that were previously untappable.

The Text application is now referred to as Messages.  It now supports MMS integrated into the standard text message interface we’re used to seeing and also landscape mode.  It adds a camera icon to the left of the input field and in the settings application you can set the message to have a subject.  I didn’t get to test this feature since most of the people I would send MMS to have iPhones with the existing software or would really not want to pay an MMS fee for something stupid I send them.  I’m not sure if the feature is active on AT&T or even what kind of charges are associated with it.  On my old phones I don’t think I even used the feature and I’m not sure if that will really change on the iPhone.

The Stock application got a minor update.  The bottom pane now has three scrollable sections to show stock information, charts, and news.  The application also supports landscape mode which show stock charts at fullscreen.

Voice Memos is a new app and seems like it would be a cool feature that I don’t ever see myself using.  The app did seem to work though and might be cool for students to record lectures or conduct interviews as long as it doesn’t kill battery life substantially.  I didn’t use it long enough to find out.

I use Evernote on my iPhone and computer for note taking, but it’s worth noting that the Notes application syncs with the computer now.

Mail now works in landscape mode.  I noticed a bug in the UI for my email addresses spanning off the side of the screen.  I think it used to truncate so I’m not sure if thats how it’s supposed to be.  It also adds search which is a huge addition for me.  I get a ton of emails on a daily basis and if I wasn’t looking for something within the last day I’d never find it on the iPhone.

The UI of the Phone app has been slightly  updated.  The recent calls now show phone number type under the name for people in your address book and location information for numbers that aren’t.  The contact screen now has a share contact button where you can email the contact or send via MMS.  I’ve been previously using Easycontact for this task.  The voicemail screen has also been updated to show phone number type.  It’s a small but nice touch.

There were some new features I didn’t test.  I couldn’t test Bluetooth sharing because I don’t have two phones or know anyone else running the 3.0 software yet.  I don’t have stereo Bluetooth headsets so I couldn’t test the stereo audio.  Push notifications are supposed to be in place, but I don’t know any apps that currently support it.  If anyone does, please let me know and I’d be interested in trying that out.  Supposedly the calendar supports subscriptions, but I’ve yet to figure out if it syncs via MobileMe or how I go about adding those calendars in.  The phone has a find me function, but I have no idea what that does.

I did notice a couple of UI bugs and sometimes tapping on the screen gave no response.  It slows the experience, but doesn’t kill it.  All my applications seem to work as they did in the previous OS.  I’m sure this is a work in progress and by the time the final release hits the public it will be much more polished.  I’m also interested in checking out some of the new applications using the iPhone 3.0 SDK.  Overall I’m pretty happy with the update and I think it’s something for iPhone users to look forward to using.