[/caption]Apple announced last weekend that they were getting close to releasing their new firmware 3.0 for the iPhone. This new 3.0 firmware is due to come out this summer. For 3G (2nd gen iPhone users), this firmware update will be free, for iPod Touch users, firmware 3.0 will be $9.95.
Today (March 17th, 2009) Apple had shared with everybody what the 3.0 firmware will include; so far what has been announced:
- 3rd party push notification system
- New API for streaming audio and video
- New API for allowing in-game voice chat
- New API to allow developers to slipstream in new content to their software
- For example: you buy a game, it comes with 10 levels, the developer can down the line add a few new levels to the game, you now could have the option of purchasing those additional levels for a minor cost, have them added to the application.
- This can also be done within the application itself. For example, you're playing a game (like the Sims) on your phone, within the game itself, you can actually purchase additional content from within the game. (like how this works in Second Life)
- Improved Media Player that automatically adjusts the bitrate of the audio/video you're streaming depending on the signal strength of the network
- Ability to transfer signals (via Bluetooth) from a device to the iPhone. They showed off a glucose testing (finger pricking) meter that sent the information directly to the iPhone
- Copy & Paste... (jesus christ about fucking time)
- Double tap on the text, and the phone will select it, then grab the end-to-end points, and a bubble will come up with a cut/copy/paste option. (supposedly will work across any application, so you can copy a URL from your email and paste it into your "To do list" or whatever application.)
- If you want to clear the clipboard of whatever it was you cut/copied, just shake the phone and it'll undo it
- This will also allow you to copy paste photos, so you can essentially copy multiple photos and paste them into an email (compared to having to select one photo at a time)
- Landcape keyboard capability on all applications
- Apple's Text Message application now supports MMS (a feature that every other phone has supported for years)
- Support for Subscriptions (the .ics format)
- New Voice Memos application
- Improved the stocks application: now shows news stories at the bottom, also supported the application to readjust if you hold your phone sideways
- Changed the search so that it works with all their key applications, like Mail, Calendar (essentially this like the Universal Search feature that the Palm Pre is going to have)
After the announcements on the new 3.0 features, Apple had a Q&A panel
Q: Why did copy/paste take so long?
A: It's not that easy, they were "security" issues.
Q: Flash, what is going to be done about this?
A: No announcements on this topic today. But there are alot of video streams that we can handle. H.264 works great. We're adding HTDV streaming for audio & video. We think there's a lot of great video solutions for a single chip.
Q: Will peer to peer work with other devices?
A: It's limited to Bonjour peer to peer devices
Q: Where do you stand on tethering?
A: We're supporting tethering on the client side. We're working with our carriers around the world to include it
Q: Push notification, will you make uptime promises?
A: No
Q: Are you addressing any of the lagginess with the new O/S? We saw some of that when you loaded SMS up.
A: We're definitely addressing those issues. The units you saw today are demo units
Q: (Asking about the approval process for submitted applications)
A: 96% are approved, but there are things we have to watch out for. There have been issues, issues about content that's available to children for instance. But at the end of the day, we have a great solution that's working, and we're constantly making it better. We're tracking these numbers, and speaking to developers, and we're constantly doing that.
That's pretty much it.
