With all the Apple frenzy dying down after the launch of the new iPhone 3G, I’m finding it’s the new iPhone 2.0 software upgrade that is the most impressive — allowing users to connect seamlessly to business e-mail and run hundreds of new games and programs.

Don’t get me wrong: The new iPhone 3G is fast — broadband fast, running on AT&T’s 3G (third generation) wireless network. For the customers who stood in line from predawn to the 8 a.m. opening of Apple and AT&T stores July 13 to get one of the new phones, and thereupon waded through distant delays in activation, I’m certain by now they are impressed with those new phones. The phones work great and the activation difficulties are but a faded memory.

But now that I’ve had some instance to check mine out, I’m convinced that even bigger than the upgraded phone is the new iPhone 2.0 software upgrade from Apple

that works with the older iPhone models, too.

Let’s start with Microsoft Exchange. That’s what most corporations use to manage e-mail, calendars and contact info, but it did not work with the first iPhone operating system. The upgrade changes that.

When you go to set up a new e-mail history on the iPhone (either the 3G model or the older model) you’ll find, under settings, a new icon, labeled Microsoft Exchange. Enter in the corporate business user ID, the mail server and login details and, in seconds, your iPhone is getting push e-mail, meaning instantaneous connectivity to your company’s e-mail.

As e-mail arrives, you get it on the iPhone. As you schedule a meeting or add a contact, those changes are made on your desktop and laptop computers, too, as faraway as they’re accessing your business Exchange server, through the Microsoft Outlook or Entourage programs.

It took me all…

Orginal post by Mike

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