Hands on with iOS 4.3

11.03.2011

: The Chalkboard font face that briefly appeared inn iOS 4.2 as an option for Apple's built-in Notes app has been replaced in 4.3 with a new handwriting-esque face called Noteworthy. You can pick your preferred font from Settings -> Notes.

: Instead of just having an On/Off switch that lets you choose whether or not your phone will repeat text message alerts if you don't acknowledge them, you can now decide how many times it will repeat the alert: once, twice, three times, five times, or 10 times. No matter what you choose, the alarms repeat at 2 minute intervals. And some of the new text message tones have been shortened, making them friendlier for text messages.

: Apple's finally fixed one of the iOS inconsistencies that's been bugging me for a few versions. Previously, you could choose to enable an accessibility option by triple-clicking the Home button: the options, under Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Triple-click Home were to toggle the white-on-black interface, toggle VoiceOver, or to ask which feature to enable. In the last case, it would bring up a menu, which would let you pick from the first two options and a third: zoom. But you couldn't assign a triple-click directly to the zoom function until now.

Other things I've found in my poking around:

* New region formats for U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and America Samoa, so if you live in any of those places, rejoice.