I followed along on Macworld's, iPhone Software 3.0: Live Update. This looks like a great update. A developer beta of 3.0 is available today but users won't see it until the summer. It will be free to iPhone 3G owners (yah) but iPod Touch owners have to pay $9.95 for most of the features (it's an accounting requirement, the difference is that phone owners pay a subscription, otherwise apple would be giving past iPod customers new features for free).
For end users:
Cut, Copy, and Paste. Double tap to select text and get a popup menu of commands. Shake to undo and redo. It works between applications and has been folded into existing developer APIs so it should be in most apps.
All applications get a landscape mode keyboard (certainly Mail, Notes and Messages). The SMS app has been renamed Messages and it now supports MMS and lets you send contacts, sounds files, pictures, locations, etc.
All applications get search support: Mail (can search all headers), Calendar, iPod, Notes (title and body). Also a new Spotlight app that searches everywhere and can be used like a launcher. It's located to the left of the home screen.
A new Voice Memos apps with editing and sharing features
Calendar app now supports CalDAV (used by Google, Yahoo, etc.), .ics subscriptions, and search (local then remote).
The Stocks app got an update too but can it compete with Bloomberg?
Also: Notes Sync, Shake to shuffle, audio/video tags, live streaming, Wi-Fi auto login, Stereo Bluetooth, LDAP, iTunes account creation, YouTube ratings, Anti-Philshing, Call Log, Parental Controls, Media Scrubber, OTA profiles, VPN on demand, Languages, YouTube subscriptions, YouTube accounts and Encrypted profiles. Also, auto-fills.
For developers:
The iTunes App Store will now let applications sell additional content. So games can sell new levels, book readers can sell new books, newspapers can sell subscriptions.
Push notifications are finally here and apparently really scalable. Of course that will be tested. There are three types of notifications: badges, audio alerts, and text alerts. They looked into providing support for applications running in the background, but it ate up battery life by 80%. Push notifications just cost 23%.
There's a new API providing peer-to-peer connectivity for apps. So two close iPhones can play the same game or share a whiteboard, etc. It uses bluetooth (not wifi), bonjour, and requires no pairing. It also doesn't require you be around a wifi network, but the iPod Touch doesn't do bluetooth.
Applications will be able to interact with hardware accessories connected to the device (e.g., speakers using an equalizer app or a blood pressure monitor recording measurements).
The Map API using Google Maps has been extended making it easier to embed full function maps in applications. It can also do turn-by-turn directions, but there's a separate license needed if the app embeds these maps.
Also, in-app e-mail, proximity sensor is available, the built-in iPod library is now accessible (background music for games), streaming audio and video (over HTTP), shake API, data detectors, and in-game voice (built-in voice chat for games, for example).
3 comments:
"(it's an accounting requirement, the difference is that phone owners pay a subscription, otherwise apple would be giving past iPod customers new features for free)."
It's actually not so much that phone owners are paying a subscription, but that Apple is recognizing the revenue of the original phone sale on a subscription basis (dividing the revenue from sales over 24 months).
Interesting detail. I wonder if they can do that because of the ongoing AT&T subscription or if that's how AT&T pays them?
I think it's just an accounting choice. I believe the Apple TV revenue is also recognized on a subscription basis (which is why they were able to release free updates for that as well), and there's clearly no subscription model for Apple TV.
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