New Features in iPhone and iPod touch Software 3.0

Good News for iPhone and iPod touch owners. Apple has announced about 100 new updates for the iPhone that will address some of the most requested features such as copy and paste and GPS. When the new software is released, it will be free for iPhone users, and $9.95 for iPod Touch users. You can also check out some Photos of the new features at Apple.

The OS 3.0 was announced officially on June 8th, 2009 during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with availability June 17th 2009 along with the iPhone 3G S.

Here is a list of the best new features included in iPhone Software update 3.0

• GPS Turn-by-turn GPS is coming to iPhone 3.0. According to Apple, many developers requested this feature and we know that many of you have been waiting for this as well. The official capability is now in place, all you need now are the apps.
• Cut Copy and paste Blocks of text will be able to be copied from an e-mail or document, like on a computer, and pasted elsewhere. That’s something iPhone users have been requesting for some time.
• Mulitmedia Messaging Service (MMS) Take your text messaging to the next level by sending photos, contacts, audio and even locations with the MMS app.
• Voice Memos A new voice memo feature which lets you record memos—or even do interviews—on the iPhone and save them as audio files.
• Video Streaming iPhone 3.0 features an ability to view live streaming video, as was demonstrated with an ESPN app.
• Notes sync Sync your notes from Notes app on the iPhone to your PC or MAC for example in and out of MS Outlook.
• Landscape for all key apps Landscape for all key apps: Now there’s landscape view and landscape keyboard for Notes, Mail and SMS. Flip your device on its side and take in those wide-open spaces.
• Spotlight Search The Spotlight search tool, a feature of Apple computers, is coming to the iPhone home screen to search within the phone.
• Home screen iPhone OS 3.0 adds a major enhancement to the iPhone’s Home screen: a page from which you can search across most, if not all, of the content of an iPhone. For example, you can search for an app by its name. When it shows up in the results, you can apparently tap it to open it. This can help locate and launch a specific app, especially when you have a hundred or so apps spread out over multiple screens.
• Push Push notification. Forstall says Apple has spent the last six months rewriting its server system to enable instant “push” notifications to iPhone users. Push technology proactively sends information to users. For example, TV sports powerhouse ESPN showed how customers could sign up and get instant sports game results sent directly to their iPhone.

  You will be able to get instant messages from your AIM app that runs in the background. But will iPhone 3.0 let me run more than one application at a time? I want to keep my IM open and still do other stuff, for crying out loud. Sorry, you’re out of luck.

  Push, which mimics background processing, has the iPhone pinging Apple’s servers to see if there are, for example, new messages waiting for your instant message client. Push consumes some of your precious battery power, but much less dramatically than true multiple application processing, claimed Forstall.

• Tethering Lets you share your iPhone 3G S connection with your laptop when you are on the road.
• Calendar Formats With iPhone 2.0 Apple added Microsoft Exchange support, and now they’re opening up the iPhone’s calendar to support CalDav and ICS formats. CalDav is the format for calendars used by Yahoo, Google, Oracle and Mac OSX Server and others. ICS is a subscription-based calendar that you can use to follow the schedules for your favorite teams and any other calendar that has a subscription option.
• Wireless keyboard While we saw a slew of cool accessories today (I’m not even a doctor and I want the blood pressure cuff), there was no official keyboard from Apple. While hackers have paired a Bluetooth keyboard to a jailbroken phone, blogger Steve saw his wish for the real deal fall flat. Sorry, Steve.
• Springboard changes This could use some work. Not because it’s bad, but because five screens of apps quickly become disorganized and cluttered. Plus, jumping from a collection of games to a collection of utilities is a real swipe-tastic pain in the butt.
• Peer to peer The technology will allow iPhone apps to connect to one another wirelessly. A game app might search for people nearby area playing the same game. Or, two professionals could point their iPhones together and share contacts.

  One application came from a company called Smule, the brainchild of Stanford University professor Ge Wang, who uses the iPhone as a musical instrument hybrid. Wang and a colleague used the peer to peer feature to play a slide trombone duet from Phantom of the Opera. Over a backing track, the duo hummed into the iPhone microphone, recreating the sound of a harmonic duet.

• In App Purchase Allow users to purchase content or services from your application using the Store Kit framework. This new framework handles the financial aspects of the transaction, processes payment with the iTunes Store, and provides your application with information about the purchase.
• iPod Library Access Access music, podcasts, or audio books in a user’s iPod library directly from your application using the updated Media Player framework. You can play, repeat and shuffle songs or whole playlists, or create sequences of songs using custom searches
• Accessories iPhone 3.0 offers the option for hardware accessories to communicate directly with a matching app on the iPhone. As one example, a developer could provide an equalizer app that controls its external speakers. This is definitely a great new feature, which I expect to see popping up in many places.

  However, what this feature does not do is allow hardware accessories to communicate with the iPhone OS itself. In particular, a long-time item on my iPhone wish list has been a method to connect external keyboards, bypassing the iPhone’s touchscreen when convenient. As far as I can tell (and I hope I am wrong here), this is still off-limits in iPhone OS 3.0.

What is still Missing in 3.0 software update?

• Adobe Flash support is not to be had
• Apps Running in the background
• Video Recording This is a feature included in most competing phones.
• Lock screen Customization Options for users to have customizable lock screens. For example show the weather, number of waiting emails, calendar appointments for the day and so on.