Sept 9th: iTunes 8, iPhone Firmware 2.1... with Hidden Features?

[JitteryJimmy]

"Built-in navigational GPS" is a real possibility.

GPS is slow to get data from satellites

That's simply not true. GPS gets data from satellites in milliseconds. In fact, that's how GPS works: data is received from the satellites. Nanosecond timing differences are used to triangulate the position of the receiver. If GPS were "slow", it simply wouldn't be GPS.

This is how all GPS receivers work - from the sub-$100 handheld units to the stupidly expensive receivers built into high-end cars.

(GPS) requires local maps on the device because it's only going to give you coordinates. They could WiFi for A-GPS, which means you have internet access. This is okay for some city usage but you are still very limited in usability.

Fortunately, both the Touch and the iPhone have several GB of available storage on-board. It would be simple to use this for mapping data. Note that many automotive GPS units have built-in map data that is far under 1 GB in total storage.

 

[Trip.Tucker]

depends when you're backing up and how much ***** is on your iphone.

Is that an Arabic reference? It's spelled Shi'ite not the way you mispelled it. What technological restriction would that impose on the iPhone?

 

[bushido]

Is that an Arabic reference? It's spelled Shi'ite not the way you mispelled it. What technological restriction would that impose on the iPhone?

lol i guess he wrote just ***** bc it would be censored otherwise

 

[Trip.Tucker]

lol i guess he wrote just ***** bc it would be censored otherwise

Shi'ite is censored? Since when?

 

[Eminemdrdre00]

Everything but computers. Month after month...

Thats why they dropped "Computer" from their name! Its Apple, Inc. now!

 

[kennycheng93]

A2dp

A2DP, please!!!

 

[linducker]

Tsnn

TSNN is analyzing the picture live! Follow them at http://www.twitter.com/tsnn

 

[nlivo]

Now I'm finally excited for this event.

What I'd love to see added:
-Turn-by-turn
-Copy and paste
-Bluetooth exchange
-Character counter in SMS (makes sense now that the iPhone is available all round the world)
-Tethering
-And MMS purely to shut up all the people that complain about it. I don't care in the slightest.


What I think will be added:
-Turn-by-turn
-Copy and paste (not as certain)

 

[projectle]

Pasting has existed since Day One... Copying is one of those things that they are gonna need a new hardware revision for.

Now I'm finally excited for this event.

What I'd love to see added:
-Turn-by-turn
-Copy and paste
-Bluetooth exchange
-Character counter in SMS (makes sense now that the iPhone is available all round the world)
-Tethering
-And MMS purely to shut up all the people that complain about it. I don't care in the slightest.


What I think will be added:
-Turn-by-turn
-Copy and paste (not as certain)

 

[bushido]

Pasting has existed since Day One... Copying is one of those things that they are gonna need a new hardware revision for.

not really there's already a app in the appstore that can do it (at least inside the app)

i really need a counter for sms now that i send messages to canada a few times per week and i have no clue how many messages it ends up with. i mean c'mon every 30 $ phone can do it

 

[projectle]

not really there's already a app in the appstore that can do it (at least inside the app)

And I think that you have just proven that you lack a complete sense of humor.

 

[aljawad]

Hidden OS 2.1 features might include support for non-Latin languages with right-to-left characters. This way the iPhone will support Arabic, which is crucial if the device is to make its debut in countries like Jordan, Egypt and Qatar before the end of the year.

If this is the case, then expect Steve to announce the availability of the iPhone in even more countries before the end of this year.

 

[blybug]

Has no one mentioned The Beatles?

While on hold waiting for repair status on my MacBook today, several Beatles songs were played. Even some obscure ones like "Mr. Moonlight"...I immediately thought maybe this was foreshadowing for Tuesday.

Or just a coincidence. Annoyingly for the company most associated with the digital music revolution, Apple's hold music is very tinny and harsh to listen to.

Posted from my iPhone while at Chuck E Cheese. Kill me now.

 

[born2win413]

anything on MacBook Air or the iPhone update where the apps won't crash, then i'm cool..


as for the iPod update.. blahh

 

[gibbz]

depends when you're backing up and how much ***** is on your iphone.

Is that an Arabic reference? It's spelled Shi'ite not the way you mispelled it. What technological restriction would that impose on the iPhone?

lol i guess he wrote just ***** bc it would be censored otherwise

Shi'ite is censored? Since when?

You have got to be kidding (if so, kudos on the straight faced humor)? The guy was saying it depended on how much crap is on your phone. Get it? S*&t.

 

[simulacra]

I just hope they fix the typing lag while writing text messages, on my iphone it may take 4-5 seconds for the phone to react to the input...

 

[supertomtom]

My Dream iPhone 2.1 update

I know probably none of these will happen but my wishlist for the iPhone 2.1 update would be:

- Haptic feedback implementation with option to turn on/off (I can dream can't I?)
- Wifi sync with iTunes
- Push notification service
- Turn by Turn
- A2DP support (maybe even announce official stereo headphones to go with it?)
- Copy and paste
- Other minor features: MMS, allow more than 9 homescreens, iPod visualization on the phone (a la PSP)
- and of course improved stability so I don't have to keep doing full restores...


I guess I'm setting myself up for a huge disappointment come Tuesday

 

[mrgreen4242]

I'd say that is unlikely. GPS is slow to get data from satellites and requires local maps on the device because it's only going to give you coordinates. They could WiFi for A-GPS, which means you have internet access. This is okay for some city usage but you are still very limited in usability.

GPS is pretty quick to acquire signal these days (under 30 seconds) and maps of the entire US is less than 2gb. The touch would need real GPS, not aGPS, so it's more or less the same as a stand alone GPS unit which are pretty popular even with those limitations. So, what's your point?

iMovie mobile or Photo Booth mobile?

You actually have me an interesting thought - what if they added video recording to the iPhone but also set it up to stream to iChat over WiFi (and the still cam to Photo Booth) letting you have a roaming web cam, as well as a second web cam in addition to any built in one. Think "I Am Legend" where Will Smith had his little wireless video cam on his headset...

We can only hope...

I'm dying for Touch GPS.

Touch GPS would be a +1 neat-o for Apple, but BT in the touch will get me to sell mine and upgrade. I want to tether my touch to my Cetro w/ unlimited data*. Between that and a BT headset I could leave my phone in my pocket all the time, turning it into basically a fancy modem.

* I pay $33 WITH tax for 500min, unlimited N&W/mobile2mobile/data/text and photo messaging. I'm not paying $80 for the equivalent service on an iPhone thank you very much.

Huh? You're serious?

Um...Vista? The original release of XP? Windows 3.1? Windows 3.0 was never even any good to anyone (never mind Windows 1.0, Windows 286 and Windows 386).

Don't forget 95 and 98. Both were useless until the second or third major revision (95oer2 or whatever they called it and 98SE were both actually pretty good OS's, in fact 98SE is probably my favorite MS OS).

you know what? you have a serious point here,
the invitation said "Let's Rock."

this might very well be happening.

This quote was replying to a Beatles comment (just for reference). All I can say is so what? At this point there are so many Beatles collections/greatest hits/whatever that buying singles is a little stupid. It's not like they are releasing new albums where you really only want a track or two. Just go buy Beatles 1 for $12 (about 20 tracks) and <insert some other Beatles greatest hits collection here> for $10-15 and be done with it. If you are a "big fan" you'll want the discs anyways, so I just don't get the big deal about adding this large back catalogs to the iTMS. iTunes excels at new music releases where you can impulse buy a single from some otherwise crappy CD and be done with it.

 

[Sam Yikin]

great, another event with no mention of anything to do with computers. if someone only watched these past 2 events and probably this one, they would have NO CLUE that apple sold computers. except for the air, we have to go all the way back to aug 07 with any mention of their computers.

just irritated waiting for the new macbooks.

You realize that Apple has other products on their own schedules BESIDES computers? Just because iPhone and iPod have dominated the news recently doesn't mean anybody has forgotten about the computers.

 

[solipsism]

GPS is pretty quick to acquire signal these days (under 30 seconds) and maps of the entire US is less than 2gb. The touch would need real GPS, not aGPS, so it's more or less the same as a stand alone GPS unit which are pretty popular even with those limitations. So, what's your point?

What's your point? I stated what is holding the Touch back from getting GPS and you just repeated what I said but added some BS timeframe for signal lock and size for a single country's map. If you can't see that the HW would be pointless without the SW then I have no idea what you are doing in a tech-based forum. Again, FOR THIS TO HAPPEN THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE LOCAL MAPS AVAILABLE. Of course, your lack of comprehension probably reads that as I'm saying it's not going to happen. Which isn't, in any way, what I said.

 

[queshy]

checkout gizmodo for pics of the "let's rock" banner that Apple just posted in SF...

 

[chequepoint]

Much more likely, and exciting, would be the announcement of AC DC to the itunes store. AC/DC is about to release a new record, (Granted, with Wal-Mart owning exclusive physical distribution at least..), a world tour, and all the general publicity hoopla that exists around that. Adding their back catalogue to iTunes and making a musical appearance at this particular event would be something that I would push for if I were their publicist..

 

[akac]

GPS is pretty quick to acquire signal these days (under 30 seconds) and maps of the entire US is less than 2gb. The touch would need real GPS, not aGPS, so it's more or less the same as a stand alone GPS unit which are pretty popular even with those limitations. So, what's your point?

AGPS *is* real GPS. Its real GPS ASSISTED with towers so that it can find the satellites faster.

 

[queshy]

If you think about it, Apple hasn't recently had any events dealing exclusively with a single product. There is bound to be "something else" that no one of us thought of. Nobody saw time capsule coming on MacBook Air day.

On iPod touch day, nobody saw new shuffle colors and a "new iPod classic". It just wasn't really massively predicted.

Hopefully this event won't just be about the nano - I doubt it will be.

 

[k'five]

I hope when this happens, I'm not left as disappointed as I expect.

Hehehe.