iPhone 3.0 Software Announced 619
Apple unveiled the iPhone 3.0 software just now in Cupertino. Here's MacWorld's live-action blow-by-blow coverage. The announcement included new features for developers and users. For developers, the big items were in-app purchasing (for example for game upgrades, map content, and subscriptions) for paid apps only; peer-to-peer connectivity via Bluetooth; giving apps access to hardware via the dock connector or Bluetooth; maps embeddable in apps; and push notifications. For users, there's finally cut-copy-paste available in all apps; search across everything in the iPhone; landscape keyboard; MMS messaging; and voice memos. Developer beta starts today and 3.0 will be available in the summer — free for all 3G phones, $10 for iPod Touch.
Bluetooth Keyboard (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm wondering if this means we get that bluetooth keyboard with core apps or do we need to use 3rd party apps?
what's STILL missing (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll start the list:
* printing ...
* spam filtering on email
Re:what's STILL missing (Score:5, Interesting)
Filtering is best done server side. For me the to-do list is:
Flash
Java
Printing
Record video from the camera
DLC Hell (Score:5, Interesting)
I, for one, am not looking forward to being spammed in my apps to pay "Only $.99 for this new widget! Click Now!". I expect everything from EA to be even worse on this platform than it has been to date.
Did you see that FPS demo where the guy had to pay extra to get the rocket launcher? That does **not** make me want to play that game.
Camera card reader -- please (Score:4, Interesting)
The new SDK will allow developers to control accessories attached to the dock adapter. I'm really hopeful someone will make a card reader...it would so nice to bring a 32GB iPod touch on trips instead of a MacBook Pro.
Slowly but surely iPhone OSX will replace Mac OSX (Score:2, Interesting)
After today's announcement (huzzah cut and paste and Bluetooth connectivity!) I am increasingly convinced that Apple is heading toward pushing the Macintosh off to the side and allowing iPhone OS to become the driver of much of its development efforts.
A lot of the Star Trek-ish utility of the new APIs really becomes laptop-killing functionality when you run this OS on, say, a 10-inch iPad or whatever the thing will be called. The larger form factor **should** negate **some** of the small-battery-killing radio and system activity by providing more space for a larger battery. Then again, Jon Ive does like his devices thin!
And this leaves the Mac OS X ... ? Secure in its role as a desktop OS that runs apps like Photoshop and drives complex devices like scanners, printers, etc (for now). But surely Apple is heading back toward the original conception of the Macintosh way back in the 80's - a ubiquitous information appliance. In this case, it's an uber-device that interacts seamlessly with location-aware, contextual user inputs and communication of any sort.
Apple is carefully repositioning our expectations of what we do with our "computers" - and Microsoft doesn't even seem to care.
Tethering (Score:5, Interesting)
This only came up in the Q&A afterwards, but tethering is a new feature supported by OS 3.0, but Apple are not making a big thing of it yet because it's going to need to be negotiated with the phone carriers before it can be rolled out.
I don't think you are going to be happy (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the answer might be neither. In a Q&A at the end of the demo, someone asked a cryptic question with an equally cryptic answer:
From the Gizmodo [q] live blog:
Q: Bluetooth human input device profile for external keyboards.
A: We have nothing to announce.
Considering how they went to great pains to announce individual features of bluetooth that they were using, and avoided talking about bluetooth filesharing, I think they are hinting that bluetooth keyboards are not in the cards at the moment.
Re:what's STILL missing (Score:4, Interesting)
So you really want a Blackberry Storm with an Apple logo on it?
How about a blackberry storm with a proper touch interface? That's what I want.
(And no I actually don't mind the click screen at all; i actually quite like it even.)
I just can't stand the fact that there is no velocity/momentum support. Want to scroll the screen? On either device just move finger. Works great. Want to scroll up faster?
On an iphone move finger faster - screen scrolls faster. Flick it and the screen scrolls really fast and gradually slows down.
On a storm. move finger faster, screen scrolls at the same speed. Flick it and the storm scrolls at the same speed and then stops immediately after your finger leaves it.
On an iphone when you reach the bottom it sort of 'overshoots' its a bit and stops to show you there is no more. On a storm... you hit the bottom and it stops. But it doesn't give you that visual cue that you are at the bottom.
It goes on... the storm has a comparatively putzy touch support. I hear its because finger movements are just mapped to the old simple trackball/wheel commands (up, down, left, right, click) instead of providing a proper touch api to handle all the additional information.
What is really really missing... (Score:3, Interesting)
is a good phone firewall app that allows you to block calls from phone numbers by using simple globs (e.g. 909 ***-**** would drop all calls from area code 909).
I don't know if any phone has this (I know there is a $20 app for jail broken iPhone 3G), but it should be provided as part of the iPhone OS in the first place.
The user should be in control of their phone and who is allowed to get through to them. As it is now tele marketers can ruin you life :D.
Re:For crying out loud... (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether you agree with them or not, that's their position (presumably that of their highly-paid lawyers, too).
Well I, for one, don't agree with them. And I see nothing wrong what-so-ever in raising a public stink about it everytime they do it. Its complete bullshit, and they deserve the backlash for being money grubbing assholes.
My motherboards over the years have been routinely released with new firmware that adds new functionality. As have been my routers. As has my Nintendo Wii. Even my HDTV was firmware updated with new features.
Only apple tries to charge me for firmware upgrades while trying to claim that they have to. I've downloaded all the previous firmwares via p2p and this will be no exception.
I'd actually be inclined to pay for it though, if Apple simply charged for it, and said hey its an upgrade, we feel its worth a few bucks. But instead they've tried to raise some bullshit rationalization that they are legally obligated to charge for it.
Its total bullshit. And I'm calling them on it. Again.
Re:what's STILL missing (Score:3, Interesting)
Flash
Javascript
Adblock (the smallest pipe of any of my computers, this should be #1 priority)
Finer control over volume of alerts
Time based silent mode for some alerts
Better icon management
Hierarchical icon paradigm (over 15,000 apps and I can only have 148 of them currently)
The list is huge
Sheldon
How about s/mime support? (Score:4, Interesting)
Our management have been chomping at the bit to get iphones.
Unfortunately they've also mandated we s/mime encrypt all intra-company email, which doesn't work on the thing as you can't install a certificate.
Does anyone with access to the new SDK know if certs have been added to the thing?
Game controllers (Score:2, Interesting)
With dock accessibility available now...an AB + 4 way control joystick can be built now!
Gaming potential is unbelievable!
Flash (Score:5, Interesting)
The really interesting thing in the announcement I thought was a hint that there might possibly be some low level of bacground apps. They were not clear on what they meant but this is a big deal.
People have complained there is no flash. At first I assumed, like most folks, this was because apple was stiffing adobe. Then after I started programming for iphone I got a glimpse of why I think there is no flash.
Basically there can only be one app runnning and resident at a time. When you switch between apps and then come back to say safari, it comes back to where you left it so from your point of view it looks like safari was resident and running while your attention was elsewhere. But this is not the case.
It's a clever illusion. Apps have to manage their own persistence. So to make it seem like that safari or any app has to save and restore it's complete state. And the apple iphone rules require this all has to happen in under 5 seconds or you get a kill -9 applied to your slow ass.
Now imagine safari is also running flash under the hood. It does not have the flash internal sate that it can save and restore so how can safari persist a flash system across sessions? It could try a desperation move and try sweeping out the memory as an image. But that won't work since it won't have permission from the OS to do that. Even if it did have permission, then what if flash is storing things on disk, how is safari supposed to keep all the file handles open across sessions?
You could probably come up with some workaround kludges but it would not be pretty.
And then there's that 5 second problem. If safari has to load and resotre it's state almost instantly, you don't want it having to speculatively reload flash every session start just because at some point in your browsing history you opened a flash web site. You'd have a really annoying end result of delaying the application swap for everyone by a second or two every time.
So you can see it's not as simple as it sounds due to the one-app resident at a time rule.
since the iphone has no Virtual memory, you can't just let it be resident and not running either.
thus you can see allowing background apps is not something to do lightly or get yourself locked into (like for example, windows CE) and have to have a task and memory management the user must control.
Re:My God! Since when does Cut-n-paste merit bulle (Score:2, Interesting)
If they did cut and paste right for 1.0/2.0 then something else would have been dropped. You can't simply add more people to software development and expect a linear (or even positive) gain.
Re:Flash (Score:1, Interesting)
Not entirely true. Most of Apple's apps do run in the background. Safari is one example of this. As long as nothing else needs memory that Safari is taking up, it will keep running. Running as in being in memory - It doesn't run scripts and stuff.
Re:My God! Since when does Cut-n-paste merit bulle (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude are you serious? Nokias have been able to cut and paste for years. My Ericsson W910i can cut and paste any piece of text I want, anywhere. It even does it with a decent UI, I merely open up my options menu, tell it I want to mark some text, click the start and the end of my desired text, and it copies it. then I can paste it wherever. Its a $100 phone with no keyboard! Its not 'smart' but I tell you what, it has HDMI, a web browser, a better camera than the iPhone that can take video, and its a decent mp3 player, and it can cut and paste with extreme ease, it even has a very similar predictive text system to the iPhone.
But its not an iPhone, its just a cheap ass middle of the road free on a basic plan thing that everybody has. So why, why does it have equal to or better features than the iPhone, a damn expensive premium product?
Mass storage device? (Score:2, Interesting)
Video Camera ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:For crying out loud... (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps most important...
*EVERY* time after the release, it's a simple 'strings' search on the itunes binary to find the URL used to snag all touch firmware.
Re:Slowly but surely iPhone OSX will replace Mac O (Score:2, Interesting)
The iPhone has been dominating Apple's software development strategy for quite a while now. After all, Apple did delay the release of Leopard for several months because they had shifted resources to the iPhone, and both Leopard and Snow Leopard are bringing APIs to the desktop from the iPhone OS. When you consider that Snow Leopard is going further than any other Mac OS X release to kill Carbon (esp. the Finder), it becomes clear that Apple really wants a homogeneous developer environment across all their devices.
Re:So push notification but no background apps? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
Things still inexplicably missing:
Video recording (Cycorder on Jailbroken phones does it just fine)
Voice Dialing
"Try before you Buy" App Store sales model
Flash support for the Safari Browser
Re:My God! Since when does Cut-n-paste merit bulle (Score:2, Interesting)
Frankly, what do you people have to compensate here?
I own an iPhone and I'm very happy with it. But if it's not for you then, hey, fine with me. We don't need any "one product only" markets, no matter what Bill thinks. It's called choice and the most stupid thing you can do with it is argue.
Re:Let the complaints begin . . . (Score:1, Interesting)
2001:
Apple: Introducting the iPod: 1000 songs in your pocket.
Naysayers:"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." Seriously who's going to buy this? It is Mac only, uses Firewire, and costs $400!!
Fanbois: "Who wants wireless and the Nomad is Fugly. PC lusers will turn to the Mac in droves, and Apple just doesn't do low-end"
2002:
Apple: iPod 2.0: Touch sensitive scroll wheel. Now compatible with Windows. Up to 20GB
Naysayers: Okay, more space than a Nomad, but no wireless. Firewire only. Still expensive. Easily scratched
Fanbois: Who needs wireless? Firewire is the superior technology, Apple will never turn to USB. You have to take care of your exclusive, high-end Apple device.
2003:
Apple: iPod 3.0: UI Redesign. Now USB compatible. Up to 40GB
Naysayers:Still waiting for wireless. Still expensive. No video or photo capability. Really I need something smaller, maybe flash based. Easily scratched. Still expensive
Fanbois: Wireless has been around and will never take off. It is a large capacity, high end MUSIC player. Apple DO NOT make low end devices and WILL NOT make a cheap iPod. Flash is not appropriate for a portable music player, look at all those cheap screen-less devices out on the market.
2004:
Apple: iPod mini: Smaller version of iPod. 4 or 6 GB disk based. iPod 4.0. UI Redesign. Clickwheel. Up to 40GB. iPod 4.1: now with color and photo capability. Up to 60GB
Naysayers:Still no wireless. Still expensive. No video. Maybe a phone/iPod combination would work. Easily scratched. Still expensive
Fanbois: Wireless is a dead end. Video will just render then thing useless, music and photos are what the iPod does. It is designed for a specific purpose. Nobody want to have their phone run out of power on them by doubling for a music player.
2005:
Apple:iPod Shuffle: Ultra-portable iPod. Up to 1GB. iPod mini v2: New colors. iPod nano: Flash based. Color. Replacing mini. Up to 4GB. iPod 5.0: Now with video. Up to 80GB
Naysayers:No screen on the shuffle. Small video screen on the iPod. And it's not a touch screen. Replace the profitable mini, are they insane? The nano scraches too easily! Still no wireless. When is Apple going to make an iPhone? Still expensive
Fanbois: Apple is about well designed products and convergence devices like phone-music players just don't work. Apple only want to release a flash based player that has a screen, see they can do it and haven't need to cut out the screen and compromise quality.
2006:
Apple:iPod Shuffle: Even smaller. Metallic shell. Up to 2GB. iPod nano: New scratch-resistant metallic shell. More battery life. Up to 8GB.
Naysayers:I can't use the new shuffle as a USB stick! Still no wireless or widescreen or touchscreen. No iPhone. Easily scratched. Still expensive
Fanbois: No device convergence. Never. It is an ugly hash and Apple is driven by simple design. The click wheel is all you need, and touchscreens are unusable. Why put wireless on there? Nobody needs it.
January 2007:
Apple:iPhone: multi-touch, widescreen iPod + mobile phone + internet browser + wireless
Naysayers:I wanted the phone part to be separate. It's only on AT&T. It's not 3G. I can't buy music wirelessly. It's frickin' expensive.
Fanbois: 3G is not all it is cracked up to be, EDGE is enough for anybody. 3G is another needless battery drain. Apple made the right decision and you can buy music on your computer. Nobody needs to by music wirelessly.
June 2008:
Apple:iPhone 2.0: 3G. Slimmer, faster,
Re:Flash (Score:5, Interesting)
The "modern web" uses Flash for three things:
1) as a kluge to present video due to the fact that browsers haven't managed to support any common web standards for embedding video in html
2) as a way to animate ads and very rarely, as a way to present actual data (as Google's Analytics does)
3) as a replacement to HTML by retarded web hosts who think that's a good idea. It's not.
If the iPhone can destroy Flash, it will be Apple's greatest contribution since WebKit and Mac OS X. And the iPhone.
Yaping about Flash as a legitimate and modern part of the web is ridiculous. It's a proprietary old turd that needs to get flushed as soon as possible.