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

[vvebsta]

You realize this was to release a BETA of the SDK 3.0 for developers, features can still be added to the SDK (and I'd be willing to bet the SDK will stay in beta till june when the new iPhone is released) and knowing how Apple doesn't like to give away info on hardware updates they probably kept the new features specific to the next gen iPhone a secret and left them out of the SDK until later.

I completely empathize with you.

 

[richard.mac]

ok i just came home from uni and watched the stream and ive gotta say this is a sweet update! even though i dont own an iPhone it has added all the stuff i have wanted in the OS like the obvious copy & paste and push but also stuff ive been hanging out for like landscape, searching, notes sync, A2DP and turn by turn. Apple has nailed this i reckon.

this update will make the iPhone experience even more fun and productive than it already is .

 

[iCantwait]

to the aged iPUsers, who actually uses landscape keyboards in safari?

i think they should have an option to get rid of non essential apps, like stocks and contacts and the voice notes

 

[teme]

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...

I agree. This has been Apple's style with other products too. They can't make their products too perfect because there has to be something to improve next year, so that people will buy it again and don't stay with the old model too long.

 

[MacAddict1978]

Ironically the original iPhone owners are paying Apple more money than the 3G owners(overtime), yet we get called cheap because we are getting (potentially) locked out of a feature that should work just fine.[/QUOTE]


If you are still on the 1st iPhone plan, don't you actually have cheaper data plans and the like?

You also can upgrade you phone for next to nothing.

 

[vvebsta]

4G maybe?

did anyone spot the one icon that wasn't mentioned on the icon globe in the presentation? its in the lower left hand corner of the globe. its blue and looks like an uppercase 'G' which I'm thinking might be 4G! it doesn't seem like Apple to put a 3G icon when the rest are all new features. anyone else think this might be an apple hint?

 

[teme]

did anyone spot the one icon that wasn't mentioned on the icon globe in the presentation? its in the lower left hand corner of the globe. its blue and looks like an uppercase 'G' which I'm thinking might be 4G! it doesn't seem like Apple to put a 3G icon when the rest are all new features. anyone else think this might be an apple hint?

Not yet. According to Wikipedia, The international telecommunications regulatory and standardization bodies are working for commercial deployment of 4G networks roughly in the 2012-2015 time scale.

 

[valypan]

Video Recording

Regarding video recording, I know that it is currently available as a third party app for jailbroken iPhones, so why would Apple not implement it now, instead of waiting for an iPhone hardware update as you all suggest?

A lot of less-capable phones have this feature, so why not iPhone 3G?

 

[snowleopard48]

you're joking. no ipod touch update??

why couldn't apple just give ipod touches cut/copy and paste, shake to shuffle, and a landscape keyboard???

 

[Turner]

I don't think this is so. Any software company can sell a release version of the software on a product and provide ongoing updates and bug fixes free of charge without impacting revenue recognition.

I think this deserves clearing up, it's not a Legal issue as mentioned previously but an Accounting issue...

Apple recognises revenue on iPod Touch upon delivery, as it does for most products (notable exceptions are iPhone & Apple TV). In order to recognise revenue, one criteria is that all elements of the transaction must be delivered. If significant enhancements (such as the 3.0 update) were provided subsequently free of charge, these would be considered elements of the original transaction and Apple would be in breach of US GAAP revenue recognition requirements (it recognised revenue when it hadn't delivered everything to the customer).

The only way Apple can provide the updates to Touch users is by charging for them. The other option would be to not provide them at all...

Prior to releasing the iPhone, Apple executives made a strategic decision to defer iPhone revenue and amortise over 24 months in order to provide subsequent software enhancements to users free of charge...

 

[Jayomat]

ok i just came home from uni and watched the stream and ive gotta say this is a sweet update! even though i own have an iPhone it has added all the stuff i have wanted in the OS like the obvious copy & paste and push but also stuff ive been hanging out for like landscape, searching, notes sync, A2DP and turn by turn. Apple has nailed this i reckon.

this update will make the iPhone experiance even more fun and productive than it already is .

yap!

I agree. This has been Apple's style with other products too. They can't make their products too perfect because there has to be something to improve next year, so that people will buy it again and don't stay with the old model too long.

that's what economy is all about

did anyone spot the one icon that wasn't mentioned on the icon globe in the presentation? its in the lower left hand corner of the globe. its blue and looks like an uppercase 'G' which I'm thinking might be 4G! it doesn't seem like Apple to put a 3G icon when the rest are all new features. anyone else think this might be an apple hint?

keep ya eyes open

BEST FEATURE:

safari auto complete (or however it was called)

 

[teme]

I don't think this is so. Any software company can sell a release version of the software on a product and provide ongoing updates and bug fixes free of charge without impacting revenue recognition.

I don't believe that explanation either. For example, Sony has released lots of free firmware updates to PSP, and those updates have included some brand new features (Skype, PSP Store, Internet Radio, Messenger, RSS Channel etc).

I don't understand how Sony can deliver free updates to PSP, while accounting issues force Apple to charge for the updates. Wouldn't the same accounting issues also force Sony to charge for the PSP updates?

 

[Ivan P]

you're joking. no ipod touch update??

why couldn't apple just give ipod touches cut/copy and paste, shake to shuffle, and a landscape keyboard???

Take a breath, calm down, and re-read the MacRumors home page.

The iPod touch IS getting this update. It's getting everything that doesn't require something that only the iPhone is capable of (so no MMS, obviously). In fact, the iPod touch is getting a 'bonus' as well; the 2nd gen (the one with the volume controls) has an integrated Wi Fi/Bluetooth chip, and Apple has decided to enable bluetooth for us to use.

 

[swagi]

How come I should tell you something when you've refused to follow my request, placed first? Seems unfair. I mean, once we verify that the radio hardware is the same (or highly similar in performance expectations), we can slam Apple for how lazy and greedy they are for not implementing not only MMS (but A2D2 as well) on the iPhone 2G.

For instance, here are some details for iPhone 2G chipset:
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/3890579/

I believe this might be a close cousin of
the iPhone 3G chipset spec sheet (PDF):
http://www.infineon.com/dgdl/PMB887...90004&fileId=db3a304412b407950112b40d37c80d0c

The curious thing I found, was a rumor that the 3G's MMS support would apparently not even be available on the unless you can get a 3G cellular connection. It's as if Apple didn't want to expend much energy getting multimedia data to transmit reliably over a connection that has been widely lauded as slow, last generation, and problematic at best (even Pogue slammed it).

Almost like they're acknowledging that MMS over EDGE would consume much of their valuable time for very minimal appreciation (as bad as their AppleTV requiring a digital connection in my opinion... Sony let the Playstation work over composite analog video... why's Apple such a pre-madonna?) --As if most 2G users would be highly unsatisfied with the features performance, despite the extra manpower Apple would have put into implementing, testing, and maintaining it. I mean, sure GPS data is tied to 3G service, but MMS over EDGE or 3G has the same name, so I'd suspect that there's very little difference between implementing it on one type of network versus another... if nothing else, I'm sure anyone with an EDGE and 3G device would say that they've noticed no end-user problems on EDGE that seemed non-existent on 3G.

Anyway... as I said, I'm hopping mad that Apple would prioritize anything else over MMS support for so long. I would gladly have given up Exchange support or something dumber like Google Streetview... or all the on-the-dl core location enhancements. Like legions of others, MMS is my LIFE's BLOOD, and doing MMS over EDGE would be a little slice of heaven for my iPhone 2G.

~ CB

You are still either being pretty unfair in making up excuses for something that cannot be excused or are uninformed.

The user usually gives a crap about data throughput on MMS. And there is a simple reason for that. The user doesn't experience MMS-data throughput at all. I'm taking my experience based on 5 different MMS-using handsets (Siemens S55, S65, Nokia E65, LG Chocolate, Nokia N95) and the experience was all the same.

Sending a MMS resulted in a little icon being displayed in the upper right corner of the screen, while the transmission was on. Usually it was an arrow showing up or right. The phone was still usable (as GPRS or even UMTS both wouldn't harm the GSM-signal).

Receiving a MMS always was perceived as a passive process by me. I never experienced any lag, as I had the impression, that the MMS was loaded in the background and my phone released the notification as soon as the whole MMS was on my phone.

So basically on 5 different handsets there was no perceivable 'lag' and the phone was not rendered unusable during data transmission (though uploading an MMS could effectively be about a minute).

I personally think the argument would rather be: "We like that coll geo-tagged MMS, which can't be used with iPhone 2G, because it has no GPS chip." That's all. And gimme a break: Contact data via MMS - hooray Apple, welcome to the 90s!

 

[honglong1976]

I have a 1st Gen iPhone and I love it. I followed the firmware 3.0 preview yesterday and was so happy to see Bluetooth Stereo and MMS. Only to be let down a few moments later with "due to hardware limitations..blah blah".

MMS will work on phones far less powerful than the iPhone, but looking through the thread it would appear Apple have designed it to work over the 3G network as opposed to Edge (which you rarely get in the UK) and GPRS (which is slow).

But, no A2DP on the original iPhone. It uses the Bluecore4 bluetooth chip and according to their specifications supports Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.

http://www.csr.com/products/bc4range.htm

In fact EVERY Bluecore4 chip they do, supports that, so A2DP should be possible.

So, I think it's (again!) Apple wanting those with 1st Gen iPhone to upgrade (Which I will anyway..hehe, but for the meantime, I would like MMS and A2DP with my old iPhone). I am guessing the jailbreak community will most likely hack the firmware to make MMS and A2DP available for the old iPhone.

 

[ipoppy]

Regarding video recording, I know that it is currently available as a third party app for jailbroken iPhones, so why would Apple not implement it now, instead of waiting for an iPhone hardware update as you all suggest?

A lot of less-capable phones have this feature, so why not iPhone 3G?

Video recording needs hardware improvement to work smoothly. On jailbroken iphones its just works but not smooth enough unfortunately. Now, don't think that its end of features presented yesterday. They have showed what they could. If they would present video recording that means===>possible iChat AV which leads to===>video conference===>front camera===>bah...new iphone then. So...here you go...not such announcements yet.
For me its obvious new iPhone its coming. Don't you think they prepared killer apps with it as well? Anyway there is obvious link now which is youtube personalized account. What do you need that for? OMG of course...record and put straight your videos on youtube. So be patient and get your money ready for new iPhone.

 

[iGarth]

Why is it that Microsoft and Samsung can offer firmware updates that provide increased functionality for their respective media players? The same goes for Xbox Live (not everyone is a paying subscriber) and PSN, which both experience often updates that increase functionality. AppleTV had a 2.0 update last year, why was it able to be provided for free? Vudu, Roku, and various blu-ray players and other set-top boxes also do this.

Generally speaking it depends how they account for the revenue on the respective products, they may simply be deferring & amortising over a period of time... As I said in my previous post, Apple TV is also deferred and hence significant updates to that device can be provided free to the user.

For the online subscription services like Xbox Live & PSN, any revenue charged for those services would have to be deferred by the very nature of the service. Xbox Live annual fee would be recognised by MS over a 12 month period. As they are already deferring revenue over the life of the product, pushing out significant updates to those services wouldn't pose a revenue recognition issue.

If Xbox Live didn't exist but MS wanted to provide the Xbox 360 Firmware update to its users it would have the following options:

- charger users for the update; or
- prior to releasing the Xbox 360 decide to defer revenue recognition over the life of the product (like Apple did with the iPhone)

Note that you can't get the Xbox Dashboard update without an Xbox Live account. This is not a coincidence.

 

[teme]

Generally speaking it depends how they account for the revenue on the respective products, they may simply be deferring & amortising over a period of time... As I said in my previous post, Apple TV is also deferred and hence significant updates to that device can be provided free to the user.

For the online subscription services like Xbox Live & PSN, any revenue charged for those services would have to be deferred by the very nature of the service. Xbox Live annual fee would be recognised by MS over a 12 month period. As they are already deferring revenue over the life of the product, pushing out significant updates to those services wouldn't pose a revenue recognition issue.

If Xbox Live didn't exist but MS wanted to provide the Xbox 360 Firmware update to its users it would have the following options:

- charger users for the update; or
- prior to releasing the Xbox 360 decide to defer revenue recognition over the life of the product (like Apple did with the iPhone)

Note that you can't get the Xbox Dashboard update without an Xbox Live account. This is not a coincidence.

I have never paid anything for Xbox Live account, and I got that Xbox Dashboard update. You don't need to pay for Xbox gold account to get console updates, you get the same updates with the free silver account.

 

[iGarth]

I don't think this is so. Any software company can sell a release version of the software on a product and provide ongoing updates and bug fixes free of charge without impacting revenue recognition.

Updates that only address existing functionality at point of delivery, such as bug fixes & tweaks are ok, which is what the point releases do...

It's if you provide additional functionality to the device, which would be considered a deliverable, that you run into problems.

 

[iGarth]

I have never paid anything for Xbox Live account, and I got that Xbox Dashboard update. You don't need to pay for Xbox gold account to get console updates, you get the same updates with the free silver account.

Yes but you have an account, you don't pay for it, but you have an account. They would link provision of the update to your Live account and not to your hardware.

 

[teme]

Yes but you have an account, you don't pay for it, but you have an account. They would link provision of the update to your Live account and not to your hardware.

I have a iTunes account too which I need to get updates to iPod touch, isn't that the same thing?

 

[iGarth]

I have a iTunes account too which I need to get updates to iPod touch, isn't that the same thing?

Nice try, unfortunately it's different

Your iTunes account just delivers the update to your device, it's ultimately just a Retail outlet, like picking up a copy of Leopard from an Apple store.

Xbox Live is an actual service that is provided via the Xbox Dashboard. You can't experience Xbox Live without the Dashboard, the service & the software are linked.

 

[clyd3robert]

I would buy a new iPhone to be able to multi-task. I think tons of others would too. Unfortunatly, I think Apple know that too. I doubt we'll see multi-tasking in a software revision. It's too much of a major departure from the original product.
I'm guessing you'll see multi-tasking in the next hardware revision. I'm hoping that will be in June. I also expect them to include the new battery technology (the same tech that's in the new MacBook Pro's) in the next iPhone. This battery boost will allow multi-tasking applications while continuing to get a days worth of usage out of a single charge.

 

[super chimp]

With this rumoured price cut in the UK to clear stock before the new iphone and with this new OS on the way it sounds about time to finally get an iphone 3G.

I always wait for this stage in the sales cycle as most of the rest of the time I regard the iphone as over priced in the UK. Not sure what the price is like in the US.

 

[headfuzz]

Why bother commenting if you havent paid attention?

Yes, you can forward a text or multiple texts.

Because it was nearly 1am here in the UK (yes, a place that exists outside of the USA) when I posted that and nothing in the page 1 summary appealed to me enough to stay up and watch the entire keynote, which having scanned through was boring as Hell.

So I thought I'd simply ask a question regarding one often requested feature which I thought would be included in any summary, and as it turned out it was worth me asking.

Unfortunately I forgot there's always somebody online prepared to answer with a smartarse comment.