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iPhone 3.0 Software Announced

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.

8 of 619 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bluetooth Keyboard by Andy_R · · Score: 1, Troll

    Well, now that the phone has cut & paste, it should be trivial to write such a third party app if it is needed.

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  2. Now about that 32GB issue... by ThatDamnMurphyGuy · · Score: 0, Troll

    I have a metric crap tonne of music. That 32GB iPod Touch just isn't cutting it at all and I loathe that classic iPod. Hurry up with the 64GB upgrade already.

  3. Re:Touch users have to pay??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    WHy does apple do this kind of crap?

    They know that their sheep-like customers will bend over and take it up their wooly asses.

  4. Re:Touch users have to pay??? by Sandbags · · Score: 1, Troll

    It;s not Apple's fault, it's a federal law. They've been over this EVERY TIME with the iPod Touch (and with the Macs that post-release added Wireless N support).

    You see, since revenue is collected by AT&T and Apple monthly, adding new features can be subsidized across calendar years. With point-of-sale purchases, enabling unadvertised features in a future calendar year offsets the depreciation of the cost of development, so in order to legally offset that cost into a new calenday year, there must be a transaction in that calendar year.

    This is a simple explanation of this tax phenomenon, but it is in fact something Apple can not work around. It's not a new piece of software, it's the enabling of previously unaccessible hardware features now enabled. It;s like upgrading without buying parts. They MUST legally collect taxes on that transaction and their accounting people need to offset costs into current and previous calendar years.

    Since the iPhone is a subscription service, they have a revenue stream to tap and aovid the issue.

    Also remember, the iPhone is subsidized, the iPod is not. AT&T is footing the bill of the software upgrade to make the devices more attractive...

    --
    There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
  5. Re:Let the complaints begin . . . by speedtux · · Score: 0, Troll

    The "naysayers" aren't saying "where is...", they are saying "other phones already have..."

    I bought into the hype. I bought an iPod Touch, and it's a p.o.s. You end up paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars more to Apple and app vendors to get around the limitations of the thing.

    I'm glad I didn't go for the iPhone and get stuck with a contract. Now that all my iTunes tracks are MP3, I'm not going to buy another iPod, ever.

  6. Re:Flash by goombah99 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Most deployed web browsers can't run full html5, yet the iphone 3.0 can. Are you saying all the other browsers are not real and should not claim to be full featured?

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  7. Re:My God! Since when does Cut-n-paste merit bulle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Dude, you should have gone Windows Mobile. Its had cut and paste since it was WinCE.... Now its a stable (crashes less than my iPhone did) platform with mature APIs that are friendly for developers with free tools and no lock-in as far as distribution. Wow. Microsoft beats apple... Who'da thunk it.

  8. Same old song and dance by FxChiP · · Score: 0, Troll

    Apple's doing that same old thing with their iPhone software that they do with Mac OS X -- it's getting ridiculous by this point.

    What same old thing? Artificial limitation. The reason XPostFacto exists. It's not that the old hardware (in this case, iPhone 2G; in Mac's case, things like the iBook G3) isn't capable of running the OS; it's that Apple doesn't want it to, because that cuts into their hardware sales. So they force upgrades via their software, which is presumably the only software that will run on that machine (except of course for Linux, which still runs perfectly well on old PowerPC's, just with no Flash or proprietary codecs).

    iPhone OS 3.0 adds MMS and A2DP Bluetooth -- but only for that new iPhone 3G gadget! Get this straight: there were a grand total of two hardware changes between the iPhone 3G and the original iPhone, the GPS chip and the 3G chip. There is absolutely no way in hell any hardware difference would have prevented new Bluetooth accessories from being used nor is there any way you couldn't do MMS over EDGE. Hell, there's a jailbroken app -- SwirlyMMS -- written specifically for the purpose! Was that developer just made of magic for being able to do that on an original iPhone?

    Take this recommendation and don't be stupid like me: get a better phone. For me, that's the T-Mobile G1 or any other Android phone. For you, it might be Windows Mobile. I'm still aggravated about this artificial limitation bullcrap Apple pulls with everything, and figured it'd be different with the iPhone. How foolish I was.

    *wears the flame-retardant suit*