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Comment by jeroen | Hacker News Reader

Improvements for iPhone:

- AirPlay

- The Find My iPhone feature is now free to use without a MobileMe℠ subscription

- AirPrint ("a next-generation Wi-Fi print architecture that dramatically simplifies printing by completely eliminating printer drivers") (thanks, rufo)

The free Find feature is only for "iPhone 4, iPad or new iPod touch (4th generation)"

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I wonder why the free Find feature is only for the newest devices? Most of the time Apple is pretty good about only locking devices out if their hardware can't handle it. The 3GS should be able to handle it, right?

The 3G never got the percentage battery meter or iOS 4 folders. There may be times when it's a hardware limitation, but it often feels like an attempt to nudge you toward an upgrade.

Actually 3G got folders with iOS4.

If you jailbreak, the percentage batter meter is just a switch away with the free SBSettings app. If you're not interested in doing that, I believe it's just a simple .plist change and reboot (or respring). However, you can also enable multitasking/wallpaper if you jailbreak.

Read the fine print:

  * Create a free Find My iPhone account on any iPhone 4, iPad, or iPod touch
   (4th generation) running iOS 4.2. Once you create an account on a
   qualifying device, use your Apple ID and password to enable Find My iPhone
   on your other devices running iOS 4.2. Find My iPhone is not available in
   all countries.

So you can use iPhone 4 to activate the feature on 3GS, though I have not tried yet.

I activated Find My iPhone with iPad and it works on my 3GS.

I really don't understand why they are not letting 3GS and 3G iPhone use the free Find features for free ... it can handle it.

If you lose your iPhone 3G or 3GS, they don't want you to find it... They want you to buy a new iPhone 4!

And the iPod touch 3rd gen (32/64Gb from late 2009/early 2010) should be able to get it too. Really frustrated they only included the latest devices... Their call, though :)

Nice, that just saved me $70/year on MobileMe. I had been using it only for the phone locator feature, and using Google Sync for everything else.

Printing, also.

Thanks. I updated my comment.

I tried it last night on the iPad (4.2.1) but it seemingly required a .me login.

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