Apple previewed the third major revision to the iPhone software and development platform this morning, some highlights:
• In-app purchases and subscriptions—Developers will now be able to sell subscriptions (I can think of a newspaper or two who might be interested in this) from within an iPhone app. Game developers can also sell additional levels, etc. This will also get incredibly annoying, as demonstrated by this purchase opportunity from the example games LiveFire from ngmoco: “Would you like to purchase one rocket launcher for $0.99?” Let’s see. No.
• Push Notifications—something Apple promised in October, never delivered, and completely stopped talking about, the Push Notification service is supposedly real now. Apps still can’t run in the background, but they can get alerts from a server, triggering sounds, alerts, or little badges on their icon. This will make IM and other “always-on” apps work on the iPhone without the need to actually have them running all the time.
• Peer-to-Peer—iPhones will be able to find other iPhones running the same app and automatically connect to each other. You’ll be able to play a game with another iPhone user, send them a contact, or whatever else people come up with.
• Accessory hardware—Apple is allowing third-party accessories to talk to iPhone apps over the dock connector. This means radio tuners, blood pressure cuffs (really, they demoed this), and who knows what else. Sex toys!
• Streaming audio and video—Apps will be able to stream audio and video from the Internet, and automatically adjust for bandwidth.
• Maps API—this means there will be GPS apps with turn-by-turn directions, maps embedded into other apps, and so on
• Cut, Copy and Paste—That’s right. The basic text manipulation features that should have been there at the beginning are now on the iPhone. Leave it to Apple to stoke a mad frenzy (and garner huge applause) for finally including a basic feature. That said, their implementation of this basic feature looks characteristically slick and well thought-out.
• MMS—And one more every-other-phone-in-the-world-does-this feature: Muli-media messaging. Hurrah. Oddly, they say that due to hardware differences, this feature will not be available on the first-generation iPhone. Late adopters rejoice.
• Global Search—Spotlight utility for searching across your Calendar, Contacts, Mail, and Notes. Fancy.
The developer beta is available today, and the update will be available to the public in June.
Here’s Engadget’s minute-by-minute coverage, if you want to see all the pretty pictures.
You forgot Stereo Bluetooth.
Where the fuck is voice dialing though?! Really, iPhone. Some of us like not touching our phones.
Can you still use it to, you know… call people?
wow…. it’s almost caught up to Android
@2 You know, that is actually a profound question. I have an iPhone and talking on it is the smaller percentage of what I do, however that is because I hate talking on the phone.
Technology I changing the way we communicate. Sometimes I feel the trend does reduce the quality of our communication over devices but enriches and encourages person to person communication.
We may be moving towards a phone that does not call.
Annoying that Apple can package all the things that SHOULD have been in the iPhone from the start with someone playing their iPhone as a slide trombone or whatever, and pass it off as a “major” release.
Boring. My BlackBerry already does all of that.
@4,
If we eventually have phones that don’t call, maybe we’ll have to start putting phones inside cameras? Although that might lead to cameras that don’t take pictures.
I feel kinda stoned.
Bah. If you think this is exciting, you should have seen the hoopla when Ma Bell introduced the Princess Phone in 1959. OH MY GOD that was amazing. The slogan was “it’s little, it’s lovely, it lights”. FUCK, those were the days. You kids have no idea.
@2 – it’s funny, for all they do well, the one thing I think those are least suited for is talking to people. Mostly due to the fact that you (well, not YOU, per se) look absolutely stupid talking into on.
#8 – I’m probably on the good side of wippersnapper still, but we still had a Princess – leased from Bell, of course – when I was a kid. It was pink, and it didn’t match our green/orange/white gold threaded wallpaper.
They forgot to mention when it’ll be jailbroken and unlockable.
Dougsf, it sounds to me like it DID match, very beautifully indeed. You’ve almost got the cover of “Never Mind The Bollocks” there, from the sound of it.
@10, I think you mean “avocado/harvest/ivory” 🙂
I think we need Catalina to chime in on the atomic-age color schemes.
@12/13 – it was the wrong pink (and considerably muted compared to NMtB). The red shag carpet (and yes, we had a rake for it) didn’t help either. I’m still drawn to those colors though – as an adult, I keep painting my apartments earth tones.
But thinking about those times when you didn’t buy a phone, it was part of your phone bill (the non-subsidized iPhone being one of the exceptions) – a bizarre business model that suddenly doesn’t seem so bizarre anymore… again.
Which smartphones don’t already have this entire feature set?
Why does everyone squee in their pants because the overlords of a closed ecosystem device decided to let their minions have some features everyone else already uses everyday?
What do you have against squeeing in one’s pants, StC?
@16, et al – This line of argument is so irritating. It’s true (and not contended) that other phones have had these features. It is also true that the iPhone has significantly changed the mobile phone industry, like it or not, and it’s the most conspicuous “next-generation” phone out there. I have nothing against Android, or Palm, or Blackberry, but this isn’t a game of line-by-line feature comparisons, obviously. If it were, the iPhone wouldn’t be as popular as it is. You can attribute the popularity to some kind of mass delusion if you want, but it’s just silly. This is news in the tech industry, and to deny it is to not pay attention, regardless of your opinion of Apple in general. Move along.
I’m actually not aware of *any* smartphone that replicates the iPhone’s feature set, StC. That’s why I’m still using an iPhone, despite the disadvantages. Generally when people say, “Oh, yeah–my phone does all that!” they’re overlooking key differences, like multitouch, or browser usability, or GSM. And seriously, hacking it to make it a bit more open takes some time (especially when new firmware rolls around), but it’s completely do-able by most tech-oriented people. Just because Apple says it’s closed, doesn’t mean it’s really closed.
…oops, Anthony Hecht said it first! Should have refreshed the page before commenting. 😛
I have a Storm. Ive had an iPhone. Ill keep the Storm.
I haven’t read all the comments, but there already is an app for the iPhone that turns it into a vibrator. I have no idea how it works…but it does. 🙂
@19
Really, you can’t think of any other phones with multitouch and functional browsers? GSM is a big duh, any phone worth having is GSM because the rest of the world gets phones first, and the rest of the world doesn’t care about America’s CDMA networks.
I’ve got the HTC Touch Pro, it has multi-touch. It also has Skype, which Apple won’t allow on the app store. It also has a front-facing camera for video calling. I get better battery life than my SO gets on the iPhone, and I have a dock that can charge multiple batteries – because my battery is replaceable.
I don’t know any “feature” that iPhone has that this doesn’t other than the Apple logo. The Pre should have all these as well, before iPhone 3.0.
What’s really important though isn’t features, it is the lack of vendor lock-in. I want no part in my device manufacturer or my telco telling me what I can run or where I can get my applications. The stories that come from developers about jumping through Apple’s hoops to get apps approved make me cringe.
@23 – Your phone also has a flavor of Windows Mobile, thus negating any benefits.