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iPhone 3.0

Apple announced today the new iPhone 3.0 software update scheduled to be unleashed into the wild in summer 2009. I’ve had an iPhone for over a year now, and I love it. It’s the best phone I’ve ever had. There have been several things lacking, though, in the past from the phone. Some of these things are shockingly simple and, according to most people, should have been in the phone since 1.0, but alas Apple in its “infinite wisdom” has decided to hold off on them until now. I suppose Steve knows best, right?

Anyway, there are several new features that will be released with 3.0. And so I give you a quick overview of what to expect and then a bit more in-depth of certain ones I am particularly excited about.

1. In-app purchases and upgrades will be available. Examples would be games and such where you can purchase additional levels or upgrades or additional content.
2. P2P connectivity whereby you’ll be able to connect to other iPhones and iPod Touches for gaming or collaboration depending on what the app allows.
3. New dockable accessories that will allow you to expand the usefulness of the iPhone with 3rd-party (literal) plugins. I saw one example of a blood pressure measurer that plugs in and records the readings. Very cool.
4. Super Google Maps are now embedable across all applications and able to be used for a variety of uses. Also, turn-by-turn directions are coming.
5. Cut/copy/paste. Enough said. Finally.
6. Landscape keyboarding in all applications.
7. MMS
8. Voice Memos
9. New calendar functionality including CalDAV and ICS subscription.
10. Spotlight across the entire iPhone.
11. YouTube account support
12. Stereo bluetooth
13. And a hundred more…

And now, let’s look a little closer at a few things.

Cut/Copy/Paste
Finally! Finally! Finally! It’s kind of sad that we get so excited for a technology decades old and already supported by every other major competitor’s phone. Apple says that they waited to release it until they could get it just right and working they way they want it to be. I don’t know exactly what that means… this seems like it would be such a simple thing to do. In any case, copy/paste is finally here and it looks (albeit from the pictures) that it’s going to work quite nicely. It works across all apps on the phone, as it should.

MMS
MMS, for those who are unaware, is the technology to send pictures/video/sound through text messaging. Until now the iPhone hasn’t supported MMS which, at least in my opinion, has been completely insane. Even the worst phones can do MMS. In the past, when receiving a MMS message on the iPhone, you would be redirected to an AT&T website that never, ever, EVER worked. (Argh!!) The Apple workaround was to use email which does work to send, but doesn’t really help that much when non-iPhone users send you messages. So finally you can take advantage of a technology on your iPhone that has been available for years on even the simplest communication device. One warning: MMS will not be available, for some reason, on the original iPhone. You must have an iPhone 3G. This disappoints me a little as I have the original iPhone and this is one feature that I wanted, but in any case, at least it’s here.

YouTube Account Integration
This isn’t a feature they made a big deal about. Rather, it was flashed on the screen in a list of dozens of other “additional features.” However, I am kind of excited about this one. The YouTube app on iPhone has always felt crippled to me. So crippled, in fact, that I keep it stored in “the ghetto”… the last page on my iPhone homescreens where my least used apps go. I would only use it on rare occasion to show a friend the glories of Garbage Day or something similar. The reason: I could never access my personal YouTube account from it. I could do searches for videos and bookmark a few, but I wanted quick access to my videos, my favorites, and my subscriptions. Maybe I’ll actually start to use iPhone YouTube.

Push Notification
Wait, you say. Didn’t they announce this last year? Well, yeah, the Push Notification thing was originally supposed to come with iPhone 2.0, but for some reason it never happened. Well, it’s back! Push Notification is promised for iPhone 3.0. Here’s what the big deal is all about: Apple doesn’t want to allow background processes on iPhone because 1.) it will bring battery life down to practically nothing and 2.) background processes make the OS really, really unstable and crashy. So, they came up with this concept of Push Notification. Basically, even when you close the app down on iPhone, it still talks to Apple’s servers via a magic Apple cloud. The Apple servers also maintain relations with the 3rd-party app servers who will send signal when something new happens to Apple. In turn Apple will send notifications to iPhone and you’ll get a little notification. And here’s how it will work in the real world: Say you are a Twitter user but you don’t want to use Twitter SMS. Rather you want to take advantage of one of the great Twitter apps for iPhone such as TwitterFon or Tweetie. Instead of having to constantly open the app to check for new tweets, you’ll get a little bubble a la the SMS notification bubble telling you there’s something new to see. It’s the same concept for an Instant Messaging application, and I’m sure there will be many more coming. Side note: There is a Meebo app coming for iPhone which I am extremely excited about.

There’s a ton of other new features that are slated to come out when 3.0 is released. I’m actually really excited for it. It addresses just about all the issues that iPhone users have been up-in-arms about for months. The 3.0 software will work completely with iPhone 3G and the latest iPod Touch (for a $10 upgrade fee). Most services will work with the original iPhone with the exception of MMS and A2DP and maybe a few others.

There’s no official date for release, but I’d assume it would be some time around June. And I would also assume, though there’s no official news, that there would be some new iPhone hardware coming out around the same time.

You can see the entire transcript of the 3.0 announcement over at gdgt.com.

For more “official” news about iPhone 3.0 from apple, visit the 3.0 preview site.

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