Ben Parr of Mashable cranked out this beautiful Step-by-Step guide to get you ready for the update.

As an ex-mac tech I remember the horrors last year when people did not cover all their preverbal bases before they though to install a new OS on what most of us normal people call our lifeline. Duh!

While we won’t go into the hundreds of new features that will be available in the iPhone 3.0 OS update, we do want to highlight the ones that are making headlines. These are the features that will make your phone feel like it’s brand new. We’ve picked out our favorite thirteen:

1. Cut, copy, and paste: The feature that’s been sorely lacking, cut/copy/paste functionality can move words, paragraphs, and links.

2. Copy/paste photos: Multiple photos can be moved into emails.

3. Spotlight: iPhone 3.0’s new search feature for music, contacts, email, and more. We’ve been dying for a search feature, for mail, and now we have it.

4. MMS: Multimedia messages can be sent over the iPhone…if your carrier supports it. AKA us AT&T subscribers have to wait until the end of summer to use MMS, although it should come with your standard text messaging plan.

5. Tethering: The iPhone 3.0 supports tethering with laptops and other devices, so that you can get Internet on-the-go. It won’t come cheap, however, so we’re not sure how many of us will be using this (without a jailbreak).

6. Downloadable Movies and TV Shows: As we reported last week, the iPhone’s iTunes store will now have movies and TV shows you can buy and/or rent. There will also be audiobooks and educational content to download.

7. CalDAV Support: There will be better Calendar syncing as the iPhone 3.0 moves beyond the iCal/ics format and supports CalDAV, which is used by Google, Yahoo, and others. Syncing with your Google Calendar should now be possible.

8. Landscape for Mail and Notes: That tiny virtual keyboard can be a pain, so iPhone 3.0 allows you to go to landscape mode in the Mail and Notes apps. This makes typing out an email both faster and less mistake-riddled.

9. Voice Memos: There is a new application joining the iPhone line-up, and it allows you to record your thoughts or try to capture that class lecture. There are other uses for this, of course, but we’ll leave the imagining up to you.

10. YouTube Login: It annoyed me to no end that I couldn’t pull my favorite videos from myYouTube account into my iPhone, but now that problem is solved by logging in with a username and password.

11. Push Notifications: Finally, you’ll know when your get a new IM message. Apps can send you messages even when not running.

12. Find my iPhone: Announced at WWDC, this feature allows you to ping your phone viaMobileMe, even if it’s in silent mode. You can also lock and wipe your iPhone from afar to protect the data.

13. Shake to Shuffle: Yep, if you get sick of a song, shake your iPhone like mad and something new will come up. Three cheers for accelerometer-based commands! [Source: Mashable.com Ben Parr]

For the reading impaired, lazy or male constitutes the Mashable Pimps scooped up this nice video walkthrough of the OS somebody else Moammar Kadafi’ed  off the Apple site.

posted to youtube.com by gearlive

demo and review by therevivedone

Big Props to Ben Parr and Mashable for saving me from spending my whole month on the celly fielding crazy questions.

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