Apple today gave a detailed, if somewhat incomplete preview of their new Apple iPhone OS 3.0. Among the new features are a handful of options we had been calling for since the original Apple iPhone was announced more than 2 years ago.
New features for the users
The new iPhone OS 3.0 will support cut, copy and paste features. Using some digital gymnastics, users will be able to highlight words and blocks of text to paste in any application on the phone. Apple's popular landscape keyboard layout, which previously only worked in the Safari Web browser app, will now work in other apps. Apple only mentioned Mail, Notes and SMS messaging, which leads us to believe it won't be available everywhere text is entered.
In addition, the Apple iPhone will finally be able to send and receive MMS picture messages. The new copy and paste feature will also work with pictures, so users will be able to e-mail multiple pics in a single message. Apple iPhone 3G customers will see a Bluetooth upgrade that will finally enable A2DP stereo Bluetooth, but apparently hardware limitations on the original Apple iPhone will keep the feature off that device. In addition, the older iPhone won't get MMS support. At least the new iPhone OS 3.0 will be available to all iPhone owners for free, even if it is feature limited on older devices. iPod touch owners will have to pay a $10 upgrade fee.
Beyond those improvements, Apple has also ported their Spotlight search feature to the mobile version of OS X, just as we predicted. The Spotlight search feature can search device-wide through e-mails, notes, calendar entries and even media files in the iPod. Apple clearly thinks this will be an important feature, as they have given the search tool its own window on the device home screen. With competing features from Palm and other smartphone OS makers on the way, we would tend to agree here, and we're hoping that this search tool can reach deep into the phone and the Internet and organize found items in a useful and meaningful way.
Apple also finally caught up on its promise to deliver Push integration. Or, at least they made the promise again. Instead of running multiple apps in the background, applications can set up a push notification system to deliver notifications of Instant Message delivery or other such background noises. Additionally, Apple has announced that the new iPhone OS 3.0 will support tethered modem Internet access. So, its now simply up to the individual carriers to decide how to handle those plans.
New features for the economy . . . er, the developers
Some of the more controversial changes to the iPhone OS come in new options for developers selling software at the App store. Developers will be able to charge for in-app content. They could charge a subscription fee, or charge for additional functionality, say, for more levels in a maze game. These micro-purchases are becoming par for the course in the gaming world. All the major gaming consoles have begun to adopt micro-transactions for enhanced in game content, and we understand why this benefits the developer, but worry that customers might get ripped off.
Developers will also have the access to new Peer-to-Peer APIs in iPhone OS 3.0. This should enhance gaming and social networking applications by allowing more interactivity between devices. Hopefully we'll also see more media sharing capabilities between devices.
Maps got a serious push in this round of OS upgrades. First, developers will have access to the Maps data in any app. This means that apps could integrate more location data and customized Maps from the Google Maps app. Just as important, Apple has opened up access for turn-by-turn navigation apps. Finally, third-party developers like TeleNav will be able to sell their own navigation apps for the iPhone, though Apple says that turn-by-turn developers will have to bring their own maps to the party. That shouldn't be a problem for the big guns in this field.
Finally, accessory makers will now be able to create custom apps that work only with their own accessory. For example, a speaker-maker could incorporate a special band equalizer or touch controls in an app that works with their own speaker doc. Apple also presented a blood pressure reader that works with the iPhone dock connector and a specially created app.
What's missing?
We thought Apple would go more head-to-head with Palm, and there is still plenty of time before the June launch for Apple to introduce more groundbreaking features. But right now we're unimpressed. Many of these so-called new features, like cut-and-paste and MMS messaging, have been available on other devices from the start. Our biggest question is: where is the innovation? Palm is using an innovative card system to manage background applications that run simultaneously. Apple argued passionately against running background apps, and instead reissued a year-old promise about a push notification system. Palm's search feature scans the device, then jumps to various Web site and culls the information for you. Apple's search scans the device, but doesn't integrate Web services. And we've been less than impressed with the way search results are organized on our Macbook laptops, so let's hope Apple figures out a better organization method for the mobile OS.
Even further, Palm integrates with new social networking services to synchronize and organize contacts and messages. Google's Android will probably see innovative new features coming with the launch of Google Voice. Where is Apple's innovation? The sticking point in this announcement, for us, seems to be that developers will now be able to charge more and more for content on a device. That's the biggest innovation of iPhone OS 3.0, everything else is just catching up to what should have been included in version 1.0.
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