Apple Stiff Arms the competition with iPhone 3.0
Posted by melting on Jun 15, 2009
With the latest HW set to launch, Apple is also gearing up for it’s latest firmware update for its iPhone and iPod touch users. This update is just what Apple needs to keep the competition at bay. There are many new features that are great for usability, should have been in the original software, and help developers make even better apps.
First, the features that should have been there from the start: cut, copy, and paste. Since people are thinking the iPhone is the start of truly mobile computing vs. a smartphone, there is no excuse from not having this capability from the beginning.
There are so many features that will truly make this device even more usable and powerful. The first is the landscape built in apps. Even though the biggest complaint about the iPhone is the lack of a physical keyboard, it is actually pretty easy to type on in landscape mode. Apple has realized this and improved all of their apps to take advantage of this ease. Apple has also added MMS. While their are many features that make the iPhone a multimedia device, “syncing is so nineties”. This is at least one more way to share some of that media without syncing.
Apps will only get better from here with all of the new api’s available to them. The feature with a likely big impact is the push notifications. Apps that talk to services can now leave you logged in to their service and push messages to you. AIM, google talk, yahoo messenger etc., will now be able to let have continuous conversations. Another feature to have a big impact will be the ability for Apps to talk with custom hardware accessories.
On a slightly gloomy note there are a few things that won’t be coming for US users. The coolest feature that won’t be supported by AT&T is tethering. Tethering was created to allow users to connect to the web on their laptops via their iPhone when out in the wilderness of the world.
The upgrade will be free for current iPhone users and $9.95 for iPod touch users.
Read about the iPhone 3Gs
