The new 3.0 Firmware introduced a lot of new features that the community has been demanding since the iPhone first went on sale.

You can see most of the new features here:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/

The one thing that stuck out to me as ‘missing’ when I was looking through the phone was the Tethering functionality. Tethering lets you use an external device such as a MacBook to use your phones data connection to access the internet. Previously, that page did not say AT&T was not supporting tethering, and you cannot find this option anywhere on the iPhone right now. Of course, with a jailbroken iPhone, you can access anything. That voids warranty though, so we don’t want to do that. But, there is a way to enable iPhone Tethering without jailbreaking the phone!

**Disclaimer: It is against AT&T TOS to use data tethering, so use at your own risk!**

On a Mac:

First, you need to have iTunes 8.2, an iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, and 10.5.x Leopard Operating System for iPhone Tethering to work.

1. Download the AT&T carrier settings file (thanks Gizmodo)
2. Connect your iPhone to your Mac via dock or USB cable
3. Copy the following text: defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE
4. Open the Terminal app, and paste the text you just copied in Step 3
5. Sync your iPhone in iTunes, when it says Ok to Disconnect, hold the Option key and click Restore in iTunes
6. It will ask what file to restore. Select the ATT_US.ipcc file you downloaded in Step 1 and click Restore

Now you can go into your Settings on the iPhone and see that Internet Tethering is a new option!

If you are using Windows, the steps are slightly different. You can view the steps over at krillr.com.

Be careful! AT&T does not want people using iPhone Internet Tethering right now because they do not have a data plan for that, so if you go online don’t transfer a lot of data and garner attention.

Their new site has everything they have been wanting and more. Dogfish Head Brewery can now easily manage their 800 page (and growing!) website, all its users, media, newsletters, news articles, events, RSS feeds, and comments. They can add/remove ‘locations’ of where their product is sold, served, or distributed. This allows customers to log in and see where they can find Dogfish on the ‘Fish Finder‘. Try it out!

With that, the new site features a fully functioning community section and social network. Users can register on the website for an account, after which they can create a basic profile. From there, they have access to submit a map location to their Fish Finder, add or comment on threads in the Forum, submit questions to Dogfish staff in Ask Dogfish, comment on Dogfish staff blogs (Blogfish), and connect with other Dogfish loving fans. All applicable content is able to be sent instantly through Twitter/Digg/MySpace/Facebook/etc in a single click of the ‘Share’ button. We really went all out to flesh out the community side and give users stuff to do in between staff blogs and answering questions.

Our new system that was used on Dogfish Head Brewery has no official name yet, or I’d tell you what it is ha. We hope to have that nailed down soon. What I can tell you is that its the most feature complete, stable and scalable CMS you are going to find on the east coast. I would put it up against anything the competition has to offer from Maine to Florida with confidence ours is as on par or better than what else is available. Since the code is modular, its not coded for 1 strict specific project (as we used to) but rather, any client who comes in the door can have the same power, accessibility, UI and functionality of big time folk like Dogfish. In other words, it makes our platform highly scalable and consistent.

All ya gotta do is ask us.

As for the rest of the week, Pete, Trey and Kevin are representing Inclind at DrupalCon in Washington DC. They will be talking to fellow developers and programmers and sharing / showing off work. You can follow what we’re up to on our Twitter (either by going to the Twitter site, or the side of our page on this site, or adding us inclindinc).

Thankfully, there is a solution. The good folks at Ten One Design came up with a stylus unique for the iPhone / iPod Touch glass surface- a felt tipped stylus. Not only can this be used to make you a more efficient typer, but it can double as a drawing tool as well for drawing or sketching applications. Games that require sliding (such as Tetris, or Aurora Feint) can be better fit with the stylus as well, saving the screen from oil and smudges from dirty fingers.

http://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php

For those who don’t know, the iPhone and iPod Touch are identical (the iPod has no phone capability, obviously). As long as iPhone is on AT&T, I’ll never have one. I don’t think I would want my phone and iPod as one anyway for various reasons, but I digress.

The AppStore boasts a few hundred applications with more on the way. Apple is encouraging developers around the world to develop for the iPhone, and even make a little money too (some apps are free, others cost anywhere from 1.99 to 99.99).  The SDK has been available for some time now, and there are tons of unique apps on AppStore. Ironically, its the free ones that seem to be the best (the paid ones are poorly to mediocrely scored). Users weigh in on AppStore apps with reviews, for usability, performance, purpose, stability. It’s like a condensed version of an Amazon product page.

I browse the AppStore daily for new apps or updates. My only complaint with it so far, if not the only one, is that there isn’t a section to see ‘New’ apps.  I can’t tell if these are mixed in with the listings, but they are not easy to spot unless you have a pretty good memory. Perhaps a future update will make this easier to view.

I am an avid music lover, so I was quite thrilled to find the following apps on AppStore. Incidentally, they are what I consider the best current apps on AppStore so far, basically because they saved me from having to invest in Sirius or XM Radio (I have a huge disdain for FM radio- its disgusting crap that never changes because the industry is so messed up, but thats a whole other topic). Now with these I have immensely supplemented my playlist of ~3000 mp3s with free streaming music:

1. AOL Radio – Besides AOL Instant Messenger, this has to be hands down the best thing AOL has ever put out, period. With tons of stations at your fingertips, there is always something brand new just a tap away. So long as you have a data connection, you have music, and its all totally free. On top of that, you can mark favorites, or tap to purchase the track from an online store, and see a list of recently listened to songs for purchasing. This alone is worth the investment for an iPod Touch / iPhone. But wait, theres more.
2. Last.fm – Last.fm was another internet service that I was a heavy user of. It works based on delivering songs to you from picking genres you like. The userbase tags songs and artists so the results that stream to you are fine tuned. I used this a lot last year to discover new music and now its on the iPod Touch / iPhone too. It also keeps complete logs of what you’ve listened to on your account page. Can’t get any better than that.
3. Pandora – I remember when Pandora was an technical demo of sorts back in my first year of college (2000). I was quite impressed at the level of accuracy and the algorithm behind Pandora that makes it such a great / unique service. It’s very simple: Pandora lets you input your favorite bands, and based on what you put in, it creates playlists for you of music it believes you will enjoy. There are so many factors and ways it indexes music its insane- and for me, it’s rarely off the mark. Over 400 different musical attributes (see List of Music Genome Project attributes) are considered when selecting the next song. These 400 attributes are combined into larger groups called focus traits. There are 2,000 focus traits. Examples of these are rhythm syncopation, key tonality, vocal harmonies and displayed instrumental proficiency. It’s almost like Pandora can read your mind.
4. Tuner – Tuner is very similar to AOL Radio, but with full listings of Internet radio stations, or ShoutCast radio stations. These are indie stations created by users and their own playlists. There is just so much music here its insane. Comedy and talk as well. I heard this app was pulled from AppStore though, but I cannot confirm.
5. WeatherBug – Normally I wouldn’t dare ever suggest to anyone to put WeatherBug on their computer, due to its bugginess and spyware/adware it throws on your PC. But for a portable device like the iPod Touch / iPhone, it’s indispensable. If only the device’s Weather program was more robust I wouldn’t need this. But when you live at the beach, this is a must have- especially for the Google Map Weather Radar mashup.

This is just the start for what AppStore will have. It will only get better as time goes on. The top 5 apps above are free, with the exception of Tuner ($5.99).

The games are great too. One game, Super Monkey Ball (first released as a GameCube title, unbelievable) uses the accelerometers to guide the ball through the mazes. Just a glimpse of what is possible with the future of handhelds in general. It’s been said that the iPod Touch alone is as powerful as the Sega Dreamcast, a console from 2000/2001 which saw its demise when the Playstation 2 was released. That is pretty damn powerful, as most fans (including me) still have/use the Dreamcast from time to time. Mine is loaded with 800 classic Nintendo games. Child of the 80’s.

Get one of these. You’ll be glad you did.