iPhone 3.0 Beta Galleries Illustrate New Features

[MacRumors]

Over the past couple of days, users have been digging through the latest iPhone OS 3.0 beta for signs of new features, and World of Apple and AppleInsider have put together some nice screenshot galleries illustrating a number of the findings.

World of Apple's gallery shows a number of features primarily related to music and podcast functionality, including several notable ones:

- Variable scrubbing speed during iPod playback. Provides users with four options to allow them to fine tune navigation within a track.
- Variable playback speed for podcasts. Options include 1/2x, 1x, and 2x speeds.
- Single-tap jump back for podcasts. Tap a single icon to rewind podcast playback by 30 seconds.
- Additional data for podcasts saved on iPhone. Saved podcasts now display run time, time left, and publication date.




Screenshot demonstrating variable scrubbing speed (World of Apple)

AppleInsider highlights several other changes observed in the iPhone 3.0 beta:

- Ability to close all open Safari windows. Previously there was no ability to close the last remaining Safari window, but a red "x" is now functional in the page navigation, allowing users to close the final window, replacing it with a blank page.
- Battery percentage indicators. Allows users to view their remaining battery life as a percentage rather than just as an icon.
- Push notifications preferences. Allows users to toggle whether they want to allow push notifications as sounds, alerts, and/or badges.
- Expanded Data Detectors. Increased ability to automatically detect text such as e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and addresses and activate appropriate actions such as initiating a phone call or adding info to the Address Book when the items are touched.




Screenshots demonstrating Data Detectors in Notes application (AppleInsider)

Article Link: iPhone 3.0 Beta Galleries Illustrate New Features

[pismodude2]

A lot of these things were there last time. Scrubbing and the 30 sec jump back were definitely there for audiobooks.

[Lesser Evets]

Binks' Sake.... you people rock.

[10th Wonder]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Binks' Sake.... you people rock.

Yohohohohoho Indeed they do! Brook has to be the funniest character in One Piece

[Lesser Evets]

Thank god for scrubbing coming along. It's a pain to navigate songs at the moment.

Originally Posted by 10th Wonder

Yohohohohoho Indeed they do! Brook has to be the funniest character in One Piece

I love him. It's great to see OP infiltrates MacRumors.

[BRLawyer]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

Binks' Sake.... you people rock.

And there are still people comparing the iPhone with the rest...even without any hardware updates, Apple is so much above its competitors that it's just embarassing to talk about them... GO APPLE!

[Doju]

And Apple's poor competition continues to be slaughtered. I mean, the iPhone already beats any other phone in practically every single way. Poor companies are just being further kicked into the hole at this point.

There's no way this monopoly phone will ever descend from its eternal throne GO APPLE! Best phone ever, just keeps getting better, and Blackberries and other (now) junk just keep getting OWNED.

[Goona]

Originally Posted by BRLawyer

And there are still people comparing the iPhone with the rest...even without any hardware updates, Apple is so much above its competitors that it's just embarassing to talk about them... GO APPLE!

You mean even the Palm Pre which is coming to save the mobile phone industry?

[BRLawyer]

Originally Posted by Goona

You mean even the Palm Pre which is coming to save the mobile phone industry?

You mean "trying to save Palm"? Because they were pretty close to bankruptcy before this vaporphone came (came?) out. The Pre is a living joke, just as the Zune...all of them deemed Apple "killers", by the way.

[W1LLk]

Originally Posted by Goona

You mean even the Palm Pre which is coming to save the mobile phone industry?

Or that God aweful Storm they admitted to an Epic Fail on the first go 'round?

[Penguinwrangler]

3.0 looks like it's adding a lot of polish to the existing feature-set as well, this is a very good sign.

[newwavedave]

Yeah, all the ipod features were in the last version of the beta update. Nothing new there.

[acfusion29]

I like the close all windows in Safari...

[veeco3110]

im such a nerd that im excited for a software update...haha this all looks really promising

[joemama]

Does anyone know if there is any code in reference to the Nike+ sensor being built into the next iPhone (a-la the Touch)?

Is there a way someone can check?

[basesloaded190]

Originally Posted by acfusion29

I like the close all windows in Safari...

Me too, for some reason that bothers my that i can't close all of them right now, but it makes me happy to see that they are changing that option.

I am also pleased to see the info about the Push notification options. It will be nice to customize the apps with specific notification option

[dongmin]

Originally Posted by acfusion29

I like the close all windows in Safari...

I'd love to see Apple implement some sort of scripting to the iPhone, as in multi-touch gesture-based scripting.

I imagine how cool it would be if you could just draw an A on your screen and the phone automatically dials Andy (or whomever you designate). Or you draw an R and the iphone automatically launches Yelp and calls up the 25 nearest restaurants.

[dernhelm]

Good for the percentage on the battery icon indicator. Maybe then they can remove the annoying 10% remaining popup that interrupts me while I am trying to work...

[DocNYz]

This is awesome, I seriously sent them feedback like the first week after the first iPhone 2G came out saying that in notes you should be able to click on the numbers and email addresses since that's where you write them most of the time when someone gives them to you!

[Unspoken Demise]

This makes me so happy that my lunch hour is in 3 minutes and im going to get my 3g.

That battery percentage is pretty cool and handy.

[ipoppy]

If they haven't dug out iChat av in their findings yet then that is not good sign for me. Unless iChat av was totally taken out from OS 3.0 Beta, but then is it possible to not leave any tracks of it?
Let see that in June

[ivladster]

Originally Posted by ipoppy

If they haven't dug out iChat av in their findings yet then that is not good sign for me. Unless iChat av was totally taken out from OS 3.0 Beta, but then is it possible to not leave any tracks of it?
Let see that in June

Any crazy changes will be shown on WWDC and then last beta will have all of them. After that iPhone will be ready to be released.

[Lepton]

Originally Posted by ipoppy

If they haven't dug out iChat av in their findings yet then that is not good sign for me. Unless iChat av was totally taken out from OS 3.0 Beta, but then is it possible to not leave any tracks of it?
Let see that in June

The thing is, all the underpinnings for iChat AV are in there. Video record ability, a new video streaming mechanism, push notification for chat invites... All you need is an app to take advantage of it, which they could drop in at the last moment or anytime, and hopefully a new phone with a camera set up for it.

1) About the camera, I expect on a future phone or tablet not two cameras front and back, but one camera on a pivot that can face front or back. Why? Because Apple has a PATENT for exactly this. It was news back then, people figured it would be used on the lid of a laptop for the built in iSights, but it would work here just as well.

2) On data detectors - Yup.

I blogged both of these things way back when. My article predicting what I call the Apple NetPad mentions the camera, and one on why Cut and Paste isn't needed oh so very badly emphasized data detectors are a better way to do many othe the things we typically do by cut and paste.

myallo.com/blog

[StuBeck]

Originally Posted by Ross123

I really like the idea of the battery life being given in a %, much more useful than looking at a battery icon.

Originally Posted by dernhelm

Good for the percentage on the battery icon indicator. Maybe then they can remove the annoying 10% remaining popup that interrupts me while I am trying to work...

Percentage has been included since at least 2.2.1, I use it all the time since the bar is so useless. Just press the battery bar and it comes up.

[Paix247]

Originally Posted by StuBeck

Percentage has been included since at least 2.2.1, I use it all the time since the bar is so useless. Just press the battery bar and it comes up.

What?