• Touch the bottom right-hand corner button to pull up map display options
• Select “Drop Pin” to have the pin dropped on the map
• Touch the pin until the details box opens above it.
• If the circular icon on the left is grayed out, drag and move the pin to a nearby major street. If that icon lights up (as it is in my screenshot), then go ahead and touch it.
• The display will flip to horizontal mode and start your Google Street View

This is the original Google Street View as viewed from Google Maps of the same image captured on my iPhone. The load-time of street view is congruent to that of its maps. Both are heavily dependent on which type of connection you’re on. Wi-Fi was much faster than full-bars 3G. One thing to note in particular was the floaty feel of being able to look up and down in the iPhone’s Street View. I was surprised to see the halo of the sun in some spots as well as the rig, which the omni-camera was mounted, on the Google vehicle. Never a boring week for the iPhone between awesome apps and continued improvements in the device software itself.

I did run into some problems at first, and I was able to determine from this discussion that the wireless network at my job was blocking some communication with Google Voice Search queries. Once I disabled Wi-Fi, this app worked like a charm. It just makes sense. It translates to less typing while driving or on-the-go. Not to mention the fact that you don’t have to use the soft-keyboard, which is empowering in its own right. Go go gadget Google!

Actually, I fixed this. Xml-rpc was enabled in wp-admin, but it was looking for a new file wp-load.php file that I believe is a new addition to one of the latest Wordpress updates. Since I use symbolic links, that new addition was never updated. Now when I go to my xmlrpc.php page, I’m getting a “XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only.” instead of errors.

So current status is flickr and shozu iPhone app can post to my wordpress blog. Wordpress app v1.1 was having issues before that change was made. I had to delete the blog and then add it again. Sweet success (though I haven’t tried to post from it yet).

• Backups or syncing are definitely faster
• 3G coverage seems better (I’m getting more bars at this medical center where my wife has gone before and after the software update)

Apps are awesome and are the ever-defining feature of this device. There are so many apps out there that I feel like a Grandpa trying to catch up (though it really is because I have no time as a new father). I always have loved the photo-sharing type apps and have been using shozu for most of my needs (ever since my last phone, motorola razr v3xx). Photojojo researcher, Matt Nuzzaco, put together a great summary of a vast majority of photo apps with reviews of sharing apps, apps specifically for flickr and even tools to measure things like depth of field. Very helpful in a sea full of apps.

I purchased this iPhone because I passed up v1. Not believing that I should disable features such as 3G or Push, my only options are wait until a firmware update corrects the piss-poor battery life or buy an extra charger for work/vehicle. Just buying a new charger + usb dock connector would run me about $48.

Another issue is I am experiencing about 1-2 soft resets when I open a random app, which is occurring daily. The screen goes black and I get to glance back at a silver apple logo for a minute or two. I don’t know if this is the memory leak to match the well-known battery leak, but that would be just perfect. It’s been close to one week with this phone and I’m tired of having to bring my charger back and forth to work. I’m not using it extensively, but 12-hour shifts are not forgiving to this phone in its current 2.0 (5A347) firmware.

What made me decide to make the jump this time? The App Store. Endless potential extendability. The reason I say potential is that I do not know what it takes for an app to be approved for distribution at the store. Thus, some great app may not make it to those pages due to rules Apple and AT&T have made due to hardware or network constraints, respectively.

Here are some of my favorite free apps so far:

• Twitterific – ability to post photo links in twitter entries from the iPhone
• Shozu – ability to post photos taken by the phone to multiple sites (flickr, facebook, picasa, twitter, wordpress, etc)
• AP Mobile News / NYTimes – I guess this is what it feels like for Kindle users to have news RSS feeds at their fingertips
• BoxOffice – who wants to go see a movie? Here are the times for this theater
• Pandora – amazing customized streaming radio stations that is powered by the Music Genome Project (hello parties and streaming radio to make great use of that AUX port in your savvy ride) How is this even legal?
• Save Benjis – here’s a great tool for the intelligent shopper in us all