iPhone firmware 2.0 hands-on

We know there have been a couple of crappy videos here and there on the web, but we finally got our own grubby paws on the yet-to-be released iPhone 2.0 beta, which isn’t officially due until this June. It isn’t exactly awash with changes, but here’s what you need to know:

• Exchange is so on! Changes are pushed over the network, but over WiFi it does check-ins, so it’s not as instantaneous.
• There’s no contact search that we can see, so far. Maybe that only gets turned on if you have thousands of contacts (which we definitely do not).
• There’s a new button in the calendar, but we don’t know what it is and can’t make it do anything.
• The App Store is there, of course, but doesn’t do anything yet (except error out that it can’t connect).
• Wondering when Apple will make good on its agreement to license Cisco technology? Well, the branded Cisco VPN screen has definitely been added to the VPN settings. We couldn’t really test this one, but assume it works as advertised. We don’t yet know if it supports SecurID or other hardware token authenticators.
• Parental controls most certainly work. Marvel as we turn off YouTube!
• You can now order your preferred WiFi networks.
• In addition to having a new sideways scientific mode(!), the basic calculator now does commas and has new, useful functions for the math nerds; both the calc and the iTunes icons have changed.
• By far our favorite new feature is multi-select in mail, though. Now when you hit edit you can select as many messages as you want and delete or move them as a group. Friggin’ finally. Now where’s that two-pane client?

Definitely encouraging stuff in here. We’ll have some video up of this thing a little later; in the mean time, there anything you want to know? Big ups to our source(s) for hooking us up with this!