For all the new bells and whistles packed into the new iPhone 3G S, we had no idea it featured an integrated high-frequency hearing test! No, we’re not kidding. Our iPhone 3G S has been testing our hearing acuity every time it plays a sound file, and yours probably is as well. Okay, we’re kind of kidding.
It would be great if the high-frequency tones being emitted after most system sounds (lock, unlock, new mail, etc.) were intended. But, as Phone Arena notes, it’s more likely a software problem that is “plaguing” many an iPhone 3G S out there. For the moment, there’s no fix, but that doesn’t mean Apple isn’t cooking up an update/patch post-haste!
If you’re interested in testing your iPhone 3G S for the high-frequency tone bug, just go to a quiet room and turn the phone off, or swipe to unlock (just make it play a system sound). If you hear a 15kHz tone buzzing immediately following the system sound, your iPhone 3G S is affected. If not, your iPhone 3GS is bug-free. That, or you’ve lost the ability to hear frequencies at and above 15kHz – which is unfortunately much more likely.
Sure, the iPhone 3G S sports a few hardware upgrades compared to the iPhone 3G. But, for the most part, iPhone OS 3.0 enables a lot of new features on the iPhone 3G. From cut-and-paste support to MMS, the iPhone 3.0 OS offers iPhone 3G users a good alternative to shelling out a handful of Benjies for an iPhone 3G S. Unless, that is, you’re looking for “Accessibility” features on the iPhone. There’s a lesser-known gem hiding inside the iPhone OS 3.0 that only works on the iPhone 3G S, as you can see from the video and photos below.
The iPhone 3G S allows you to customize the iPhone OS to better serve your needs. Through the “Accessibility” options available in the iPhone 3G S’s “Settings” pane, you can invert the colors on the screen (White on Black) to take contrast to a whole new level. You can zoom into any area of the screen with a simple three-finger double-tap. You can even have your iPhone 3G S speak some text to you, in case the “White on Black” color inversion option doesn’t do the trick.
Take a gander at the vid and photo gallery to see the iPhone 3G S Accessibility options.
