THE NEWS ABOUT 3.0 SOFTWARE

What's going on?

Apple are giving us a sneak peek at the upcoming iPhone 3.0 Operating System, and a look at the future SDK for iPhone developing. The event was on Tuesday the 17th of March at 10am PST, at Apple's HQ in Cupertino (instead of San Fransisco where Apple normally hold big events.)

What's new in 3.0?

• The new OS has over 100 new features for customers.
• Copy and Paste is finally here! Huzzah!
  
  
  
  As spoiled on Diggnation, double tap, drag, tap copy, and then double tap, paste. Shake your device to undo. Works on all apps, for anything from text to HTML.
• You can now email more than one photo at once, in the same way you can mass delete/move mail. Just tap the action button, choose photo thumbnails and SHARE.
• Landscape mode has come to more apps than just Safari... you can now use them in key applications like... SMS, Notes and... MAIL!
• SMS is upgraded too. You can now delete and forward multiple messages.
• MMS is coming too. You can send pictures via text messages. Why wasn't this in iPhone 1.1.x?
• Voice Memos. Record yourself with the iPhone's mic, trim it on the iPhone itself, and then send it around.
  
  
• Support for two more calendar types. CalDAV (Google and Yahoo) and Subscriptions (using .ics files.)
• In Stocks, they’ve added support for news stories (headlines) in the bottom of the app. You can also get details like highs and lows and PEs. And landscape view.
• Added search functions in Mail, Calendar, Music - Searching support was on Remote (app) but not on the iPhone's actual music app... Hmm
• Mac users will be familiar with Spotlight, the search bar in the top right of all Macs. Well it's coming to the iPhone. Just flick left on your homescreen and it will open up - and you can search your whole device! VERY useful.
  
  
• Here's an image with a whole lot more additions that Apple never talked about. Notice the YouTube app looks like it's getting a major update. Also, live streaming. And ability to sync notes. AND shake to shuffle! Loads of new features coming in 3.0
  
  

What about the SDK?

• SDK 3.0 will bring 1000 new APIs.
  
  
  Quote:

  In game voice chat, iPod library access, proximity sensor, audio recorder, battery API, streaming audio and video, data detectors, text selection, UI alert view, shake API (for rumble) and GPS lingo.

• A new API will allow Peer-to-Peer connectivity between devices over Bonjour. This is amazing for games, as you can have multiplayer with no Wifi network around!
• Devs will be able to write code to be able to talk to hardware. For example, here is an FM radio - If you connect your iPod Touch to it, you can control the stations, volume, and more!
  
  
  
  
  The accessories will be able to talk over the dock connector - AND Bluetooth.
• Developers will be able to use the Google Maps interface inside their applications - Rather than the app having to open the Maps app itself.
• The devs can add turn-by-turn functionality into their apps! Allowing things like SatNav.
• Push notification is finally here. But - Apple says no to background processing: Battery life falls significantly (80% fall). But with Push notifications, battery decreases - But lasts longer (20% fall).

I heard there was App Store enhancements?

• "In-App Purchase" brings extra revenue to developers - who can now sell new things to go along with their applications! This will be for paid apps only though.
  
  

Anything else?

• Apple set themselves a goal before they shipped their first iPhone - To sell over 10 million. They smashed the record, by selling 17 million! (But with iPod Touches aswell - Over 30 million!)
• 62% of people who downloaded the old SDK, had never developed an Apple application before.
• In the 8 months, there have been 800 million application downloads in total.
• 15 more countries have been added to the App Store list - That makes 77.
  
  
  Future Application Releases.
• Meebo are making an IM app which connects with social networking sites too. It will use the new push notification. Could there finally be a decent, cheap IM app?
• The Sims 3 is coming to the App Store. EA have stuck a load of 3.0 features into the app: for example, you'll be able to buy items for the game (presumably furniture and clothing) for 99 cents each (59p)
  
  
  Quote:

  For example, playing music from the stereo in the game lets you play music back from YOUR music library (from the 3.0 SDK API)

• Ngmoco were over at the event - And announced LiveFire (a 3rd person multiplayer shooter game) and are showing off their TouchPets app (out soon - look on the ngmoco site.)
  
  TouchPets uses push notifications to tell you when a friend wants to make a play-date with you. It also uses in-app purchases so you can buy food and clothes for your dog. Personally, I'd let it starve!
  
  LiveFire is an FPS game. You control by touching the screen. Again, you can send notifications to friends, and buy weapons in-game to play with. It also looks like you'll be able to do in-game voice chats too - Just like on an Xbox or PS3!
  
  
• Smule (the makers of the legendary music app, Ocarina) demoed their new app: Leaf Trombone. Another music app. Using the iPhone's mic and finger-to-screen controls. A duet was played using the new peer-to-peer API.

Recap

To recap the big features in 3.0: In-App purchase to enable more app functionality, peer to peer connectivity, accessory connectivity, Google map controls, push notifications, cut and paste, landscape mode, Messages (MMS), voice memos, new Calendar support, enhancements to the Stock App and search (Spotlight). Plus, Bluetooth, if you’re really looking forward to that one.

The 3.0 Beta is available to all members of the iPhone Developer Program.

It will be coming out in June 2009 for us normal users! $9.95 for iPod Touches, free for iPhones. Not all features will work on the 1st gen iPhone.


Watch the Keynote here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/keynote/

Q&A with Apple.

Q: Josh Quittner, Time: Why did it take so long so get Cut and Paste into the iPhone?
A: There’s a user interface you need to design, security issues, and “there’s a lot of pieces you need to worry about instead of getting something that doesn’t work right.”

Q: Flash? What are you doing?
A: We have no announcements on that topic today. But there are a lot of video streams we can handle. h.264 works great. We're adding HDTV streaming for audio and video. We think there's a lot of great video solutions for a single clip.

Q: Could you qualify a bit more about the peer to peer. It looks like it’s available across the two iPhones, but it seems like you can do peer to peer with other Bluetooth devices.
A: It’s really a device to device Bluetooth connection. It’s 1 to 1, using Bluetooth and Bonjour to discover other devices and make an IP connection.

Q: Could you qualify a bit more about the peer to peer. It looks like it’s available across the two iPhones, but it seems like you can do peer to peer with other Bluetooth devices.
A: It’s really a device to device Bluetooth connection. It’s 1 to 1, using Bluetooth and Bonjour to discover other devices and make an IP connection.

Q: So you can control devices…?
A: Yes, now you can, with third-party applications, control and talk to accessories over Bluetooth.

Q: Are people able to trade files, say music files, through iPods with this?
A: We have the ability to stream music to music apps, and certainly a game, if a game has music in the game it would be possible to download game tracks, but if would be confusing for other music apps with downloadable music that isn’t through the app store.

Q: Where do you stand on tethering?
A: There’s two pieces needed to support that: client side and working with carriers. We’re absolutely supporting tethering in the client side in iPhone 3.0, but we’re working with carriers around the world to see when they can add tethering support on their networks. But we are building that support into iPhone 3.0.

Q: Can you say anything about hardware?
A: No.

Q: Netbooks?
A: Nothing to announce today.

Q: Will you make any promises about push notification in terms of uptime?
A: No. We want it to be as reliable as possible.

Q: On the voice memo, you mentioned external microphones. Could you use an off-the-shelf microphone?
A: Yes absolutely, if you have an adapter.

Q: Are you addressing some of the performance issues in the current OS? It’s slightly laggy, are you going to address that in 3.0.
A: We absolutely take performance very seriously. These units, because they’re tethered, are more laggy than you would see on standalone units. But we are addressing lagginess in our own ways.

Q: Is there a physical hardware problem on the first-gen iPhone that prevents it from doing MMS.
A: It’s a different radio, so it is a physical issue.

Q: With Peer to Peer, can you have access to other iTunes library?
A: You can see them but I don’t know if you can play them.

Q: Bluetooth on the iPod touch?
A: Bluetooth is a capability we can “unlock” on the latest-gen iPod touch.