Highlights of Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 Preview: Copy and Paste, A2DP, MMS, Much More

[MasterNile]

but they do. He's talking about keeping lean code (his justification for not having MMS on the original iPhone) and yet Apple has a number of redundancies (unnecessary, I might add) built right into iPhone OS right now.

I don't have to justify not having MMS, it doesn't matter either way if it is justified or not, it's what is going to happen, all you can do is complain which more than likely will not change anything or weigh your available choices and follow through.

EDIT: I'm all for more options when it comes to Apple hardware, but iPhone 1st gen users have had the ability to use MMS for a while just not through Apple, one company will never give you everything you want, that's why there's competition, that's why we have jailbreaks and hackintoshs, perhaps if Apple's software/hardware was perfect we wouldn't need them but since it is not we have them, use them.

 

[NT1440]

but they do. He's talking about keeping lean code (his justification for not having MMS on the original iPhone) and yet Apple has a number of redundancies (unnecessary, I might add) built right into iPhone OS right now.

Ah, well in that context it works

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I don't have to justify not having MMS

!!!!!WTF! You just did. If you're going to make a statement at least be able to have an argument to back it up.

 

[jcde7ago]

You have to hand it to Apple...

They sure know the definitions of the words BUSINESS and PROFIT.

As much as I would love to be amazed and awed at the added functionalities involved with the impending 3.0 "upgrade," I am just sick of Apple holding out on features it should have already had on the iPhone to begin with, just so they can suck people in later on and play the hero. Almost none of the features going to be added are at all revolutionary, and almost all of them can be found in some phones that have been out on the market for years. Yet all of a sudden MMS and copy and paste FINALLY appears and HALLELUJAH! Apple is GOD and is really working hard to please its customers! Please. It's just lame hyping up this OS as "even more advanced" when it's introducing very few things that are unique and integrating many that should already have been present at the first iteration of the phone. And don't make the claim that "well, they'll sell more now that people see what they're putting into it" as this argument is pointless, Apple would ALREADY have sold more if they had most of these things implemented in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I love my 3G, I think it's an incredible piece of technology and I couldn't imagine switching to anything else at this point because for the most part, i've been highly satisfied. I just find it kind of funny how much Apple is being glorified all over again for releasing features that, and I can't stress this enough, should have already been there since the first iPhone was released and hyping these features as being advanced, cause they're not. Apple is the only company that can be praised for injecting "brand new and advanced features" into a particular product when similar products with comparable/exact same features exist. This says a lot about Apple fanboys...

 

[NT1440]

<snippity>

Not to rain on your parade there champ, but who (besides maybe Apple PR), is praising any of this as "new and revolutionary"?

I think you are mistaking the thank god its finally here for something else....

 

[MacVixen]

Not to rain on your parade there champ, but who (besides maybe Apple PR), is praising any of this as "new and revolutionary"?

I think you are mistaking the thank god its finally here for something else....

Same as I was thinking. I've been reading this thread all day and the large majority have just been happy that these features are coming to the iPhone, since as it has been said about a million and one times "Every phone in the world has these features but the iPhone." Well now the features are here and people are saying Finally!

 

[MasterNile]

!!!!!WTF! You just did. If you're going to make a statement at least be able to have an argument to back it up.

and if I didn't justify it would all the iPhone 1st gen users have MMS then? No, I'm simply stating my opinion on a possible reason that MMS is not included on the 1st gen iPhone, it doesn't affect anything. What would you prefer I get upset and yell and scream about it? It wouldn't affect anything either. This seems to be the same argument with Snow Leopard dropping PPC support, in the end we can argue about it for pages and pages on here but what Apple is going to do they're going to do. And if there was a hack to enable Snow Leopard on PPCs would as many people be complaining? cause there's a hack to enable MMS on the 1st gen iPhone.

 

[ccrandall77]

So close...

...but still not enough to make me ditch my Blackberry just yet. I know a few people mentioned it, but what about voice dialing?? Maybe it's coming and we'll see it at WWDC. But if you need to make a call in the car, voice dialing (over bluetooth) is absolutely necessary... esp on a phone without physical buttons.

I'm also wondering when the heck are they going to provide functionality for the Apple Mail To-Do folder in the mail app??? It syncs everything except the one thing I really need to sync.

Good update overall, but I still feel like until the iPhone can do what the el cheap-o phones do, it's just not going to cut it for me. But it's really close. They just need to add:

* Voice dialing (speaker independent like the Voice Dialer app on Sprint phones)
* To-Do Syncing
* Video recording

As a Touch owner, though, this update is pretty awesome... really looking forward to using my Jabra BT620s headset w/o the big adapter.

 

[NT1440]

What would you prefer I get upset and yell and scream about it?

"You've got to get mad God damnit! You have to take a stand and say IM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!"


I fully intend on seeing that movie someday.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

and if I didn't justify it would all the iPhone 1st gen users have MMS then? No, I'm simply stating my opinion on a possible reason that MMS is not included on the 1st gen iPhone, it doesn't affect anything. What would you prefer I get upset and yell and scream about it? It wouldn't affect anything either. This seems to be the same argument with Snow Leopard dropping PPC support, in the end we can argue about it for pages and pages on here but what Apple is going to do they're going to do. And if there was a hack to enable Snow Leopard on PPCs would as many people be complaining? cause there's a hack to enable MMS on the 1st gen iPhone.

Supporting MMS with one radio and not another (the code is already done for both radios, Apple didn't develop any special way of sending data with each radio) is nothing like supporting two CPU architectures for an entire operating systems. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[beanoboy7]

Okay I understand that but it just kills me that they're doing that.With devices getting more memory it doesn't seem like that extra bit of code would make that big of an impact

So what happens to those iPhone 3G owners who send an MMS in a coverage area without 3G?

It's a load of BS on Apples part. If your going to give us OS 3.0, give it to us right. Don't force us to upgrade! MMS can be sent over GPRS/EDGE/3G

 

[jcde7ago]

Not to rain on your parade there champ, but who (besides maybe Apple PR), is praising any of this as "new and revolutionary"?

I think you are mistaking the thank god its finally here for something else....

There is no parade to be rained on there, sport, and i am not necessarily just strictly talking about the people on MacRumors' opinions on 3.0. One need only to watch the event video and watch/listen to the reactions of the crowd to some of the previewed features...you could have sworn they just witnessed Jesus himself walking on water, which I definitely did not mistake for a sigh of relief or a "thanks God it's here...whew." But say what you will, cause this is about all i've got to say with regard to 3.0 until June/July/August/sometime in late 2009.

 

[NT1440]

There is no parade to be rained on there, sport, and i am not necessarily just strictly talking about the people on MacRumors' opinions on 3.0. One need only to watch the event video and watch/listen to the reactions of the crowd to some of the previewed features...you could have sworn they just witnessed Jesus himself walking on water, which I definitely did not mistake for a sigh of relief or a "thanks God it's here...whew." But say what you will, cause this is about all i've got to say with regard to 3.0 until June/July/August/sometime in late 2009.

How does one distinguish cheers of praise from cheers of happiness? Id imagine they sound remarkably similar, mate

 

[MasterNile]

Supporting MMS with one radio and not another (the code is already done for both radios, Apple didn't develop any special way of sending data with each radio) is nothing like supporting two CPU architectures for an entire operating systems. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

You're right, I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm going by information that was put out there earlier in the thread by someone who said he had worked on developing code for MMS over both EDGE and 3G for multiple companies. That is what I'm basing my opinion on, if it is incorrect then I'm wrong, but it changes nothing.

 

[Enuratique]

OK, to the people who own a 1st gen iPhone, I understand your disappointment in lack of MMS but I think the post by MrCubes below is the closest/most realistic explanation as to why you've been left out.

To summarize, he says that the MMS spec for EDGE was a mess and it was substantially tightened up for 3G. Apple purchased a complete 3G stack from a third party who specializes in cell phone hardware - so it likely has had the ability to send and receive MMS messages for a while but they had no user interface / lower layer code to support it. What I think MasterNile is getting at is that technically YES - Apple could have supported MMS for 1st gen iPhones but it simply did not make business sense. With the 3G spec, they have to write one module for it and it should work worldwide. With EDGE, the spec was not defined as well and so there are a number of different implementations out in the wild - so they'd have to reinvent the wheel 3, 4, or more different times. That costs real money. No doubt Apple has the talent to do it, it just doesn't make sense (hence why there is a solution in the jailbroken world). On top of that, there's always the chance that one of their implementations isn't perfect and the end-user gets a bad experience from it - which can negatively impact Apple. From a beancounter's perspective, not only did it not cost them money to support it but it provides a handy excuse to get early adopters to upgrade: the proverbial win-win. I think if it was truly as easy as these arm-chair computer engineers on this forum think it is, Apple would have done it.

The lesson to take away from this is if you're an early adopter, be prepared for buyer's remorse. It may not be immediate but eventually you will be left out one way or another. I've never bought anything that has been a first gen - and I absolutely lusted for the iPhone when it was first announced in January 2007. I finally broke down January of this year when my RAZR finally bit the big one and got a 3G and have never looked back.

My advice is to wait for the iPhone Dev Team to jailbreak the 3.0 OS and use one of the many MMS apps out there.

I haven't read the whole thread as there are already around 400 comments now, but I did see quite a few people say, "MMS is not part of 3G".

Well, you're both right.
Kind of.

MMS predates 3G, for sure. I was working on MMS implementations for GSM and GPRS devices back in the early naughties. I even worked for a start-up who's business model was built around MMS-based apps - all before 3G was launched.

The trouble was it sucked. One of the things we spent a lot of time working on at the start-up was equalising all the differences between different implementations of MMS.

Also, after working at three different companies where I was involved with MMS implementations, I still struggled to actually send the damn things myself! I think I have successfully sent a total of two MMS outside of lab conditions in my life (I'm sure hard core MMS users will laugh at this, but it's true).

And when you did send them they were quirky, limited, awkward things that you realised you never wanted to use if you could help it. Why can't we use email instead? Oh yeah, phones don't support email (well, some did through tricky to use proxies and such)....

The 3G spec incorporated MMS and extended it a little. My involvement there was limited, so I can't go into too much detail but I believe some of the limitations were removed, and possibly the standard was tightened to remove too many implementation differences.

So my guess is that what Apple mean is that they have a complete 3G stack (which I believe was bought in) which includes 3G's MMS standard. They have just added the UI for this release so we can actually use it. But to support it on the 1st gen phone, which is theoretically possible, would require them to implement a whole parallel version of the MMS protocol (probably in-house), to a looser, and more problematic, spec.

So saying that it's a "different radio" is not strictly accurate, but not entirely out either. After all, it just summarises what I have spent a screenful of text explaining in two words

 

[macfan881]

according to the Dev Team on there blog 3.0 is Jailbreakable so it wont be to long of a wait for a update anyway im a ipod touch user first gen i still would be happy to pay 10 bucks for this push notification Spotlitght and landscape mode were sellers for me

 

[NT1440]

according to the Dev Team on there blog 3.0 is Jailbreakable so it wont be to long of a wait for a update anyway im a ipod touch user first gen i still would be happy to pay 10 bucks for this push notification Spotlitght and landscape mode were sellers for me

Yea, the dev team said their current exploit would be VERY tough for apple to close up in new versions (wouldnt disclose further for obvious reasons). Jailbreaking is going to be fine.

 

[MasterNile]

<snip>

TY that was the post I was referring to but didn't feel like looking through multiple pages to find the quote while trying to feed a baby.

 

[asdavis10]

according to the Dev Team on there blog 3.0 is Jailbreakable so it wont be to long of a wait for a update anyway im a ipod touch user first gen i still would be happy to pay 10 bucks for this push notification Spotlitght and landscape mode were sellers for me

Yea, the dev team said their current exploit would be VERY tough for apple to close up in new versions (wouldnt disclose further for obvious reasons). Jailbreaking is going to be fine.

I could care less about Jailbreaking. Apple doesn't even care about it. Jailbreaking doesn't hurt Apple in the slightest. The people that Jailbreak their iPhones are tech savvy consumers who know what to do in the event that something goes wrong. Users with Jailbroken iPhones can't even receive tech support at Apple stores. Jailbreaking hurts the carriers. Now there are devices that are running unsupported and untested apps on their network. It's simple business. Apple knows they don't have to address the Jailbreaking community because the carriers need Apple more than Apple needs them. I believe Jailbreaking helps to keep Apple and developers making the iPhone better.

 

[SactoGuy18]

While all the new iPhone 3.0 features are great (especially cut-and-paste and you can type in messages in landscape mode), I hope when the third-generation iPhone appears it will include a true haptic-response touchscreen like that pioneered by the Blackberry Storm, but with better reliability and the haptic response works even on fingers with long fingernails. Include this and Apple will take a huge marketshare away from Blackberry users, in my humble opinion!

 

[MasterNile]

Yea, the dev team said their current exploit would be VERY tough for apple to close up in new versions (wouldnt disclose further for obvious reasons). Jailbreaking is going to be fine.

Actually (at least regarding the 2nd Gen iPod Touch) they said that the bootrom has a fatal flaw that allows any firmware for 2nd Gen iPod Touch to be easily jailbroken, the only way to prevent it is an actual hardware modification, and I would assume the same is true for the 1st gen iPod Touch, iPhone 3G and iPhone 2G, the next gen iPhone no one knows about yet but I'd be willing to be they do something to prevent jailbreaks on it since unfortunately the Dev Team had to release the 2nd Gen iPod Touch jailbreak earlier than they planned giving Apple time to modify the new iPhone.

 

[MasterNile]

I could care less about Jailbreaking. Apple doesn't even care about it. Jailbreaking doesn't hurt Apple in the slightest. The people that Jailbreak their iPhones are tech savvy consumers who know what to do in the event that something goes wrong. Users with Jailbroken iPhones can't even receive tech support at Apple stores. Jailbreaking hurts the carriers. Now there are devices that are running unsupported and untested apps on their network. It's simple business. Apple knows they don't have to address the Jailbreaking community because the carriers need Apple more than Apple needs them. I believe Jailbreaking helps to keep Apple and developers making the iPhone better.

You forget that Apple makes no money from apps installed through jailbreaking, while they get a percent of paid apps from the AppStore.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I could care less about Jailbreaking. Apple doesn't even care about it. Jailbreaking doesn't hurt Apple in the slightest.

Right after these statements your entire argument is moot. Apple does feel threatened by jailbreakers, that's why they've started to go after them.

The people that Jailbreak their iPhones are tech savvy consumers who know what to do in the event that something goes wrong.

Not true, I know quite a few nontechy people who jailbroke. Remember jailbreakme.com? That was one easy step (go to this site, now your phone is jailbroken)

Jailbreaking hurts the carriers. Now there are devices that are running unsupported and untested apps on their network. It's simple business.

How so? Other than tethering, there's not much that hurts a carrier. Unless you're thinking of unlocking, which is completely different from jailbreaking.

Apple knows they don't have to address the Jailbreaking community because the carriers need Apple more than Apple needs them.

=\ How in the world do you come to the conclusion that Apple doesn't need the carriers?

 

[jackjason]

IN June 2009,
If no camera hardwear upgrade,
then I am going to buy a Palm Pre..

 

[MasterNile]

=\ How in the world do you come to the conclusion that Apple doesn't need the carriers?

I think what he meant by this is that there are other options that Apple could go with than AT&T. But they can't go with anyone else until the contract is up.