iEverything

Trash Taking Forever in Snow Leopard?

2009-09-01T21:03:00.002-04:00

Snow Leopard has been out to the public for a whole 5 days already and it seems that not everything is a peachy as some would expect. Me included.

I was tired of having to empty the trash overnight so that it would be empty by morning since it took forever to delete the 47,000+ items on some occasions. This issue, glitch, problem, what ever you want to categorize it as, seems to only be happening to upgrade installs. A clean install of Snow Leopard will not do this.

What is happening is SL is securely empty the trash by writing zero's over the data, 7 times! This is a mid-tier srm deletion that finder implements. There are 3 different levels of secure erase, only 1 is automatically done by finder, the other tw

o require terminal to implement. OSX uses srm to secure delete and it can be 1 pass, 7 passes, or 35 passes. 'srm -m' is the 7 pass.

Unless you have sensitive documents you wish to ensure proper deletion i would recommend to turn this feature off or suffer the hours it can take to empty your trash. To do this go to finder preferences and uncheck "Empty Trash Securely"

Windows 7 RTM

2009-07-29T17:19:00.001-04:00

Installing the official RTM version of Windows 7, after the install is done i will post back with the details.

UPS iPhone 3G S Deliveries on Hold!

2009-06-17T03:11:00.001-04:00

Reports are piling in that UPS is placing a hold on iPhone 3G S deliveries until friday. The original tracking information indicated that these phones were originally scheduled to be delivered on Thursday, one day before the iPhone 3G S officially goes on sale.

Still Waiting

2009-06-17T03:04:00.000-04:00

Its now 3:00am EST meaning mid-night on the west coast and iTunes is still giving us the same old song when clicking on the "Update" button.

Oh Apple, why do you toy with us, just release it already please, we would like to jailbreak and unlock already!

Playing Apples Wait Game?

2009-06-17T02:54:00.002-04:00

Yeah, we are too. There is no clear time that Apple plans on releasing OS 3.0 but many are speculating. According to a few threads on some of the forums, some Genius Bar workers are claiming as late as 10am EST.

So for now all we can do is sit back and click the "Check for Update" button within iTunes.
*click*

Apple iPhone OS 3.0

2009-06-17T02:35:00.003-04:00

Apple's first-generation iPhone OS was revolutionary. Its second-generation version introduced iPhone and iPod touch users to the App Store, which unquestionably was a much bigger hit than even Apple expected, as well as adding Microsoft Exchange support for enterprise users. By comparison, the brand new iPhone OS 3.0 doesn't initially seem to have a single home run feature -- many users will remember it as a consistent base hitter, or "the version that should have shipped with the first iPhone" -- but it actually packs extremely significant under-the-hood improvements, some of which won't be fully appreciated for weeks or months to come.

We’re highlighting many of iPhone OS 3.0’s new features in depth through two extensive iLounge articles—the Complete Guide to iPhone OS 3.0, and Instant Expert: Secrets & Features of iPhone 3.0 (coming shortly)—so we’re not going to rehash their content all here. Instead, this review looks at the 10 key changes iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod touch users can expect from iPhone OS 3.0, as well as issuing a recommendation to iPod touch owners regarding its current value for Apple’s $10 asking price; iPhone and iPhone 3G users will get the new OS for free and thus have little reason to skip it. We also note iPhone 3G S-only features at the bottom of this review; though they’re implemented in software, they will be discussed in our separate iPhone 3G S hardware review since they’re specific to that device.

Please note that the list below is not in rank order; it is merely designed to highlight features of special interest to our editors and readership.

1. Spotlight and Search

Though the iPhone’s Home screen remains virtually untouched from earlier versions of the OS, a tiny magnifying glass option at the bottom of the screen clues you in to a new screen that sits off to the left of the main page: swipe over to it and you activate Spotlight, a feature that can search your iPhone’s database—everything from e-mail headers to apps to iPod media—for words you enter into a search field. Spotlight works quickly to show you multiple types of content that are all available to you from a single touch of any of the listing buttons; you can limit the parts of the device it searches using Settings.

In addition to this Spotlight feature, some of the integrated apps—and third-party apps—now have search fields hidden at the tops of their listings. Flicking downwards on the iPod list of songs, or your list of Notes, or your e-mail accounts, for example, will bring up this search field. You can even search e-mail header content that’s sitting remotely on your e-mail server, a nice touch. All of the searching features work well, but this main Spotlight window is the key shortcut for finding anything on your iPhone or iPod touch, and especially impressive.

2. Landscape Keyboard

The second major feature addition to iPhone OS 3.0 is widespread landscape keyboard support, which now enables e-mails, text messages, notes, and app-created text to be composed using Apple’s larger, wider keyboard—triggered by turning the device on its side. For the many users who have struggled with the iPhone’s standard vertical keyboard, this larger one may well prove more accurate and easier to use on a daily basis.

At least, somewhat. In our testing, we occasionally encountered accidental accelerometer-based flips of the keyboard from one position to the other, and wished we could lock the iPhone into a widescreen mode for text entry. Additionally, it was obvious that Apple hasn’t figured out quite yet how to deal with reformatting the content that goes above the keyboard to make the most of the wide screen. Text messages, for instance, are too sharply divided on the left and right hand sides of the screen, and require scrolling to be read in full rather than occupying most of the white space there. There’s still a lot of real estate occupied by the status bar, and possibly too much by the keyboard itself, in part due to Apple’s continued use of a 480x320 display rather than something higher-resolution with the ability to fix more text above the keyboard. Landscape mode is a big addition, but some user interface tweaks could make it even better.

3. Cut, Copy, and Paste

One of the most requested additions to the iPhone OS was cut, copy, and paste—effectively, a clipboard system to let users transfer text and images from one application to another, or between two different places in the same application. Apple has implemented this feature with an attractive set of black and blue buttons that pop up when you hold your finger down briefly on the screen in certain applications: the black buttons let you “Cut, Copy, Paste” when the clipboard is empty, or “Select, Select All, Paste” when there’s something stored there, with changes to the button options as appropriate to given apps.

Once text has been highlighted, little blue pins appear on the left and right of the selection area, waiting to be dragged to the appropriate left and right positions; a zoomed-in view appears under your finger to help fine-tune the their placement. On web pages, the text selection box has top and bottom points as well, enabling you to resize the selection area in some cases to grab more or less formatted text. Pictures and web links can be selected individually for copying without any blue resizing pins.

While this feature adds considerable additional power to the iPhone and iPod touch as tools for email and MMS composition, it also creates small interface issues that have come up during our use of iPhone apps. For instance, the black buttons sometimes appear—with a brief delay—when trying to do nothing more than move the cursor. Selection of web page content isn’t as straightforward as one might imagine due to the varied types of content that may be on a page; if you touch a link, for instance, you’re not given the option to copy more of the page’s HTML than that. Apple has made choices here that address the average user’s most common needs, but some additional polish in speed, manner of appearance, and versatility of selection could help cut, copy, and paste feel a little smoother.

4. Voice Memos

Added to the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, and iPod touch 2G, the attractive new Voice Memos application allows users to record voice samples from either a built-in or connected microphone, then trim it, e-mail it, or synchronize it back to a computer with iTunes. It presents an image of an old-fashioned microphone with two buttons, one for recording, the other switching between a stop button and a menu button. The menu button calls up a list of prior recordings, allowing you to select any recording to trim it or e-mail it directly on the iPhone. Trimming is the major feature that’s missing from many earlier voice recording applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, and Apple makes it as simple as can be here.

Those interested in technical details of this App should note that it records in two modes without user adjustment. When used with the iPhone’s integrated or cabled included monaural microphones, files are recorded at 44.1kHz as Apple Lossless files in monaural rather than stereo mode, with roughly 325kb/second bit rates. By comparison, bottom-connecting stereo microphones such as Blue Microphones’ Mikey enable stereo recording, with a roughly 460-490kb/second bit rate. These rates will vary based on the complexity of what’s being recorded. Files have both date and time stamped generically, and are automatically synchronized to iTunes when you connect your iPhone or iPod touch to the computer via USB. Competing applications offered wireless voice memo synchronization, but Apple’s e-mail feature achieves much the same effect.

5. Multimedia Messaging (MMS)

Available only to iPhone 3G users—and for now, those outside the United States—Multimedia Messaging (MMS) enables an iPhone to send and receive instant messages containing text, photos, audio, and/or video. Because this feature is not currently supported by AT&T, we haven’t been able to properly test it in the United States, but we’ve seen how it works on non-U.S. networks.

Apple’s old application, Text, has been replaced by Messages, which still presents all users with a half-screen keyboard, a bubble to type text in, and a Send button. On MMS-capable networks, Messages also displays a camera button that enables users to choose images to include along with the text. Video from the iPhone 3G S will reportedly be able to be sent over networks as well, subject to strict limitations on the size of the files. Audio files can be shared directly from Voice Notes, and are encoded in a format called .AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate so that they’re capable of being played on the iPhone as well as other cell phones.

Of equal importance is the iPhone OS 3.0’s ability to actually receive multimedia messages, a capability that has been conspicuously lacking from the iPhone family since 2007. Incoming picture messages and audio messages from two phones on two different networks worked without problems. After receiving an image and displaying a thumbnail, the iPhone offers an arrow that lets you see and save a full-sized version of the image.

The jury is still out on whether the MMS feature will work as well in the United States as it does outside, and how well it will work with video. We’ll let you know what happens when AT&T activates the feature later this year.

6. Multi-Photo E-mailing and Deletion

It may seem like a minor addition to the iPhone OS, but in practice, it’s huge: it’s now possible for users to select up to five photographs to share via a single e-mail, or a larger number to simultaneously copy or delete. For those who have been using the iPhone’s camera to aggressively send photos to services such as Flickr, or just to share them with friends, this feature addition will make life a lot more convenient.

7. iTunes Video Downloading

iPhone OS 3.0 expands the capabilities of the mobile iTunes Store application by adding a new Videos tab, complete with sections for Movies, TV Shows, and Music Videos. The limited real estate on the iPhone and iPod touch screens restricts the number of titles spotlighted by the Store, making the Search button considerably more important if you want to find something that isn’t currently being featured. You’ll also need enough storage space to hold the file in its entirety, as well as a sense of how big the video is: if it’s over 10 Megabytes in size, you’ll only be able to download over a Wi-Fi network; if it’s less than that, you can grab the video over 3G.

In concept, the ability of an iPhone or iPod touch to download videos directly from iTunes without the need for a computer should be huge. Practically, however, it has its limitations. Video transfers take a long time: we’ve read reports of full-length movies requiring 45 minutes to download, but in our first 802.11g Wi-Fi test, an iPhone 3G said that it would take 9 hours to download a 1.7GB video before actually requiring 3 hours to complete the task. Another video took a little longer to download than it would have taken to watch live from beginning to end.

These speeds will vary dramatically based on the network you’re using and other conditions, but unless you have a really long layover, don’t expect to hop onto airport Wi-Fi and have a movie ready to watch on your phone before your flight begins. It may or may not happen. By comparison, music videos and TV shows are almost always shorter, and therefore require less time to transfer.

8. Stereo Bluetooth Streaming

Stereo Bluetooth streaming enables the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S and iPod touch 2G to send their app and iPod audio—from music, podcasts, and videos—over the air to a wide range of wireless stereo earphones and speaker systems. Notably, their integrated track-changing controls do not appear to be supported by iPhone OS 3.0; Apple’s devices merely send very good-sounding audio directly to the headsets and speakers, and allow that audio to be interrupted for lower-fidelity phone calls or play/pause commands, nothing more.

We’ve discussed this feature at great length in a separate article, noting that it has considerable benefits under most usage scenarios, as well as a few hiccups that range from minor to fairly serious. It remains to be seen whether Apple will be able to fix these issues in future iPhone OS 3.x software releases, or whether it will leave them in “best we can do” conditions due to limitations of older iPhone and iPod touch hardware.

9. Snappier General Performance, with Offsets

Though it’s hard to quantify, iPhone OS 3.0 feels a little more responsive than its predecessors when it comes to certain tasks: snapping pictures, opening Safari pages, and loading certain apps all seemed to be a little faster, though the specific improvements were sometimes difficult to quantify. Some of the web pages we loaded over Wi-Fi on a 2.2.1 iPhone loaded just as quickly as on a 3.0 iPhone 3G; others loaded faster on the new iPhone. iPhone OS 3.0 is a little quicker at taking still images than before, and appears to be a little better at producing sharpened, higher-contrast snaps of black text on white paper. Lens differences or software, we’re not 100% certain, but we think it’s the software.

These improvements are offset by some odd performance slowdowns that we noticed on our iPhone. Safari’s thumbnail page-changing screen, for instance, seemed to take longer to open than before; hiccups after content had been Cut or Copied were obvious, and the occasional unwanted presence of the Select, Select All, Paste pop-up also slows down text entry on occasion. Based on our testing, the average user will find that iPhone OS 3.0 is more responsive in some respects than was its predecessor on the same device, but that it also has its own new performance issues to work through.

10. Restrictions (aka Parental Controls)

Though increased Restrictions mightn’t initially seem like a positive feature of the iPhone OS 3.0, this feature—also known as Parental Controls—enables parents to hand off iPhones and iPod touches to kids with less fear that they’ll be misused in some way. In iPhone OS 2.0, Restrictions was limited to six items: on and off switches for Safari, YouTube, iTunes, Camera, installing apps, and viewing Explicit-labeled iPod content. Now the feature has been expanded.

In addition to those switches, the iPhone now lets the owner turn off the device’s location awareness across all apps, as well as specifically disallowing in-app purchases, plus movies, TV shows, and apps with specific ratings. The part of this that matters is the app ratings restriction, which may enable Apple to finally segregate yet ultimately offer App Store content—currently rated “17+”—that may have previously been objectionable to some users, and rejected from the Store for that reason. Apple has only hinted at this in discussions of the new Restrictions feature, but it appears to be likely.

What Else: Push Notifications, Tethering, Find My iPhone, Safari AutoFill & More

One exciting feature of the iPhone OS 3.0 that users have not really seen in full swing quite yet is Apple’s new Push Notifications system, which lets users avoid running multiple apps at the same time, eating battery life in the process. Rather than keeping a news reader or instant messaging application open, waiting for new content to appear, this feature lets you close the application and have a message of some sort—text, a small badge, or a sound—appear on your iPod or iPhone whenever something new comes through. In text form, whatever you’re doing on the iPhone will be interrupted by a notification, just like receiving a text message in prior versions of the iPhone OS.

It’s completely unclear at this point whether Apple’s servers will be up to the task of delivering notifications reliably to millions of iPhone and iPod touch users, as well as whether these notifications will become overwhelming as multiple applications simultaneously seek to send updates to the same small iPhone or iPod screen at the same time. Users will have the ability to turn off notifications on an app-by-app basis, as well as on a type-of-notification basis, both potential ways of mitigating the flow of pop-up-windows. For whatever reason, this notification feature was promised in iPhone OS 2.0 and pulled before release; hopefully it will be reliable and manageable from day one.

Additional iPhone OS 3.0 features, such as Tethering, Find My iPhone and the new AutoFill functionality of Safari, will affect users under specific usage scenarios: for an additional monthly fee, Tethering will enable iPhone users to use their devices as modems for their computers via either USB or Bluetooth; AT&T will apparently support this feature later in 2009. Users who lose their iPhones or iPod touches may be able to locate, recover or wipe their devices from afar if they subscribe to Apple’s MobileMe service ($100 annually), and activate the feature on the device. AutoFill lets frequent Safari web users store passwords and other form-based information that can be automatically filled in when visiting similar web pages in the future. As with Push Notifications, these and other features will impact many iPhone and iPod touch users, and almost certainly positively.

Penultimately, there are also a number of features that fully require implementation by third-party iPhone developers, including In-App Purchasing, in-app playback of iPod music, and many, many more. These iPhone OS 3.0-specific additions are noted in our Complete Guide to iPhone OS 3.0, and their impact won’t be fully appreciated until applications begin to appear with the features in place.

iPhone 3G S Features

Without going into great detail, iPhone OS 3.0 also includes software features that are—for the time being—only accessible to iPhone 3G S users. They include:

Accessibility. New accessibility features are supposed to enable the iPhone 3G S to magnify the screen with up to five times normal zoom, flip the display to white on black for higher readability, and activate spoken VoiceOver reading of on-screen content, plus new gestures to control the iPhone in VoiceOver mode. It’s unclear why these features are not offered on prior iPhones and iPod touch devices.

Voice Control. This feature enables phone dialing and iPod music playback to be controlled through voice commands, apparently requiring additional processing power found in the iPhone 3G S. A special Voice Control application is used to power this feature.

Digital Compass Support. A magnetometer is built into the iPhone 3G S to permit the device to know its own orientation at any time, complete with a piece of software to show you its findings. It also aids Maps in spinning the Google maps to the current orientation, should you prefer to see it.

Video Recording and Still Image Autofocus. iPhone 3G S’s Camera application now toggles between still and video recording modes, supporting an autofocus 3-Megapixel still camera and a 640x480 video camera, both major enhancements to the existing iPhone and iPhone 3G camera hardware.

Nike+ Support. iPhone 3G S gains the Nike+ functionality that was added to the iPod touch 2G but omitted from the iPhone 3G and original iPod touch.

Conclusions

For iPhone users, the iPhone OS 3.0 update is all but mandatory and essentially non-controversial: though it doesn’t give both devices precisely the same features, it adds considerable new functionality to the iPhone and iPhone 3G—in most cases, without imposing serious penalties. A notable apparent exception comes from AT&T, which claims that it will not offer pay-as-you-go service due to iPhone OS 3.0 users because of an unspecified change to the 3.0 software. The only other users who might hold off on applying it are those with jailbroken iPhones, and then, only until a similar hack is available for OS 3.0.

iPod touch users are faced with a $10 upgrade fee to download iPhone OS 3.0, as they were with iPhone OS 2.0. While we don’t believe that an upgrade for iPod touch users is mandatory at this time, especially given how many of the features noted above are iPhone-centric or of greater value to iPhone users than iPod touch users, a lot will depend on your personal use of the iPod touch and which model you own. The addition of Voice Memos will be of less interest to first-generation touch users, improvements to Messages will be of no interest to any touch user, and the changes to features such as mass Photo mailing aren’t as big a deal for users without integrated cameras. That said, those who use their iPod touches frequently for e-mailing, web browsing, or various types of content creation will find many of the new features appealing, and as new third-party iPhone OS 3.0 apps begin to appear, there may be greater incentives to update, as well.

Overall, iPhone OS 3.0 is—like iPhone OS 2.0—the sort of update that will fully shine only with the passage of time, both due to the many features that require developer implementation, and to the learning curve that may be required of users to work around its occasional glitches. Like Apple’s upcoming Mac OS X release of Snow Leopard, it strikes us as an impressive piece of software both under the hood and above it: even if many of its features are ones that people have been waiting for two years to enjoy, that enjoyment finally has an opportunity to begin in earnest.

Source: Jeremy Horwitz EIC iLounge.com

iRealSMS Update

2009-03-05T00:07:00.001-05:00

Just moments ago on Cydia iRealSMS was updated to 2.0.8! Anyone who reads my threads on the discussion forums or stumbles upon this blog knows my love for iRealSMS, well this update makes it my favorite and most used application, and that includes any app available either via Cydia or iTunes. iRealSMS actually makes texting exciting, fun, and 100% flawlessly integrated in the easiest and most unobtrusive way.

New Features

QuickSMS - send a new sms or search contacts and place a call from within any app or the lockscreen with a simple popup (press "volume up" key for popup, press it again to actually raise the volume)
QuickReply improved and extremely stable
Simple Blacklist to filter senders you dont want to receive messages from
iBlacklist compatibility (requires iBlacklist update)
MCleaner compatibility (requires MCleaner update)
iAcces compatibility
now plays selected ringtone
pressing return in addressField changes focus to textfield
Chinese translation
Italian translation

As of 11:49PM EST 3/4/09 they havnt updated the website to refelct the new version and updates (yes, im that fast) but the new version is on Cydia for anyone interested

If you havnt tried iRealSMS yet, you have no use for your iPhone. It is seriously that good. Sure people complain about the lack of features the iPhone may have, but this SMS application is easily the best SMS experience i have ever had on any phone in terms of simplicity of use and integration

iRealSMS

Appulo.us Down

2009-03-04T19:55:00.000-05:00

At about 7:50pm EST Appulo.us starting giving me a 500 internal server error message. Will post updates.

UPDATE: 7:55pm EST, it seems to back for me, they must be experiencing a high traffic rate.

-- Post From My iPhone

Kindle 2 Review

2009-02-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of hype and excitement around what Amazon would do to it's second version of the Kindle, and now that it has finally come out I think all those expectations have been met. There were in fact a few trade offs with the new features though. Most notably would be the absence of removable memory and the included protective carrying case. Those few losses are easily shadowed by the Kindle's new sleek design, 2Gb of internal memory, faster performance, built-in speakers and the one sparking controversy, built -in Text-To-Speech audio reading.

Design
The new Kindle is thinner, coming in at 0.36" at the thickest point, although it does not make it the Macbook Air of eReaders, that distinction goes to Sony's PRS-505, which is 0.30" thick respectively. The Kindle 2 also comes in on the scales at a nice 10.2 ounces which is not heavy at all when toting around, but enough heft to make to feel like you are holding a nice paper back in your hand.

The dimensions are just about similar to the original Kindle, with this iteration being only slightly longer than the original 8" long Kindle.

The page-turn buttons on the original Kindle were long and often caused users to accidentally turn the page when picking up the device. Amazon successfully remedied the issue by making the buttons smaller and not so easily clicked like the first version.

This version also has a non-removable battery, just like Apples move to this direction as well. Amazon now charges $60 for a replacement but users may rest knowing that this battery is 25% larger, claiming a few days with wireless on and 2 weeks with the wireless off. Only time will tell.

Amazon also switched from a AC adapter port to a USB charging system. This isn't as good as it sounds since it's the smaller Micro-USB version that shows up on some cell phones and Bluetooth headsets. The Micro-USB cable detaches from the socket adapter and allows you to charge and sync via re USB connector on your Windows or Mac computer.

Keyboard
The new kindle is slightly longer than the old and a good amount longer than the Sony eReader due to it's keyboard. This version allocates a little bit more room to the keyboard. With this version the keyboard keys are circular rather than bar shaped and the space bar is longer, all of this adding up to an easier time using the keyboard.

Some people question the need for a keyboard, but with the Kindle being able to purchase ebooks on the move, having a keyboard to browse Amazons store is essential.

Screen
Kindle 2's screen is defined as a electrophoretic display, which is a type of display that forms visible images by rearranging charged pigment particles using an applied electric field. This technology is also know as "e-ink" paper. This tech makes the letters and words seem like they would as if they were on paper, including easy on the eyes viewing, something a LCD cannot provide due to its harsh back lighting.

Kindle's new screen is a 6-inch diagonal e-paper display, with a 600x800 pixel resolution with a 167 ppi density. It also has 16 shades of gray instead of 4 with does nothing for text but helps images greatly, they will no longer look like old high contrast xerox copies.

The screen also refreshes about 20% faster, which may seem like a moot point, but it actually is noticeable

EVDO Cellular Service (Whispernet)
Just like it's predecessor, the Kindle 2 has a free built in wireless connection which allows users to browse and purchase from Amazons online kindle store. Here in New York the coverage is great and a single download took no more than 15 seconds.

There is also a web browser, albeit slow due to the connection, but it allows you to browse the web, as long as it is a site without Flash or videos.

This web browser allows you to read RSS feeds, newspapers, and magazines

Conclusion
All in all, the Kindle 2 is what they were aiming for, better than its previous self, minus the non expandable memory (maybe Amazon is going to go all iPod'ish on us and offer different models based on size), and sealed battery.

People will still balk at the $400 price tag, and that can be a bit much for an eBook reader. It would be nice if the price came down to $299, but with such a long waiting list at the current price, i doubt Amazon will lower the price anytime soon.

-- Post From My iPhone

iRealSMS Review

2009-02-25T16:42:00.000-05:00

I downloaded iRealSMS from Cydia on my Jailbroken iPhone 3G about two weeks ago and used it instead of the SMS on the iPhone. I instantly feel in love with it. It has everything you could want and or need for SMS'ing, and this is really how Apple should have done it from the get go. For starters, a big plus with this app is the ability to text in full landscape mode, which is the main reason why i even downloaded it, and as an extra, the 5-row qwerty keyboard hack from Cydia works with this too, without a hiccup.

Other key features include

Being able to reply to a message from ANY app without having to close it!
Has ZERO load time since it runs in the background, even without the backgrounder app!
SMS's get organized into folders (sent, received, drafts, etc)
Has conversation mode as well as stand alone texts
forwarding
Delete all messages at once
reply and forward via mail
PASSWORD LOCK SMS APP
sent to multiple people at the same time
exit app while sending
insert contact information
mark all as read
recieve read confirmations via notification code

The list just goes on and on, it really is my favorite app, since i text a ton

Keyboard
Using the app is also flawless, i have mine set so that it always opens in landscape, but it can be set to open in either automatically depending on orientation, and that is 360˚ of rotation, you can flip the phone upside down and it will orientate correctly. The keyboard in portrait or landscape flows like butter, no hanging or lag.

Replying from Any App
This is really cool, there are many times i am reading RSS feeds, or on Cydia or just doing something on my iPhone where i would be upset if i had to exit it to reply and then wait for it to open, etc. Well over at SpiritOfLogic© they made it so that you did not have to do that. When using any app on the phone, if you receive a SMS, it automatically pauses what you are doing, and a box pops up with the text and a entry box for a quick reply, then you just hit send and your done, you also have the option to just close it, or open the full SMS app.

You can also set a password upon hitting the icon prior to opening it. It can be any combination you wish since it uses the actual keyboard for password input instead of a 4-digit numerical code.

Now every app has it problems, and while i would like to say this one is perfect, it does have a few annoyances, although i can say no problems that inhibit it from doing its job.

opening the app takes you the last screen when closed instead of main screen, this includes SMS you already read
if password is set, when you open the app, problem #1 causes the password entry box to appear over the last screen seen, this could be a SMS you might not want anyone to see, diminishing the passwords protective ability, having the password entry on a black screen would be nice
No way to add templates in the template folder, you must write a SMS and then hit "cancel" and choose the option to save as a template

Other then those few things, i truly believe this app is worth the $12 for full activation, i do believe updates should be free though. Anyone on the look for a SMS replacement look no further than iRealSMS! You get a free full 10 day trial to see if it is for you.

BONUS!
My Experience With Their Customer Support
Here was the issue, i had the iPhone 2G, downloaded this app, purchased it, then 2 days later bought 3G (brand new $90), jailbroke, installed this app, and went to use my activation number, sadly it did not work. I emailed customer support explaining my ordeal and within 2 hours i got a response asking for the new phones serial number since the activation code works only for one serial number. After replying with the info, i got a prompt reply with a new activation code! Some developers would just have you purchase another copy, but they worked with me and kept me rollin!

Here are a few screenies via www.irealsms.com