Undocumented Features of iPhone Firmware 2.2

July 2009

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Apple released the much awaited iPhone firmware 2.2 update on Thursday night which includes improvements such as such as Google Street View, Podcast over-the-air download and includes fix for the Safari crashes and the iPhone Safari exploit that was reported earlier in the week.

However, there were some features that did not make it to iPhone firmware 2.2's release notes.

Here is an exhaustive list of some undocumented features of iPhone firmware 2.2 compiled by Mac Rumors Forums user justinomg just like he had published for iPhone firmware 2.1.

Minor Tweak in iPhone Safari's UI:

As reported earlier, iPhone Safari's UI has got a minor tweak. It features a new search-friendly user interface; the address bar and search bar both expand over each other for convenience. It ain't pleasing to look at but it is more functional.

Google (or Yahoo) gets its own search bar (instead of popping up when you hit the regular URL bar) and the reload button has been moved to the address bar.

App Store Modifications:

Apple has also made some modifications in the App Store application. The "Categories" page gets a minor tweak, you have an icon next to the text of an application category rather than just the text.

You can now also view applications by "Top Paid" (most popular paid applications), "Top Free" (most popular free applications) and "Release Date" (applications are listed from their release date, with the most recent application appearing at the top of the list).

You can now update all the available version updates for iPhone apps from the App Store like you can do in iTunes rather than one at a time. This feature was strangely dropped in iPhone firmware 2.1.

iPhone Apps Rating

Whenever you delete an iPhone app from the iPhone, you will now be prompted to rate it. You will have the option to rate the iPhone app using the 5 star method in the App Store or to opt out by tapping the "No thanks" button. We had reported this earlier as well.

Screenshots of iPhone locked screen

You can now take a screenshot of your iPhone locked screen as seen below. All you need to do is Hold the "home" button, then hit the "power/sleep" button when the screen is locked, the screen will momentarily flash, and the iPhone’s locked screen contents will be saved to the Camera Roll as seen below.

Emoji icons:

Japanese customers can now create and view messages with Emoji icons as reported earlier.

However, it seems like this feature is exclusively for SoftBank customers in Japan. There have been reports that though Apple's iPhone 3G has been a runaway success in the US and other parts of the world which is evident from the record breaking 6.9 million iPhones sold last quarter, its not doing too well in Japan.

This has been attributed to lack of features that are familiar with Japanese customers such as Emoji icons (Japanese name for the picture characters or emoticons used in messages), ability to watch live TV etc.

You can check out the rest of the undocumented features by following this thread by justinomg.

Let us know if you have found anything else that has not been listed.

Thanks justinomg!

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