Apple finally invents copy/paste and MMS; iPhone 3.0 gets official
We all know as soon as a feature comes to the iPhone, Apple invented it right? Perfect examples are the full touchscreen form factor, mobile apps, visual voicemail and the accelerometer — all brought to market by Cupertino. But none of those things are Apple inventions, you say? Pfff, clearly you’ve never met an Apple fanboy. So let’s take a look at a few of Apple’s latest mobile inventions fresh from today’s town hall:
- Push notifications for apps. Finally. As you well know, this will allow the iPhone/iPod Touch to be notified (via a badge, text pop up and/or audio alert) in near real-time of a new server-side event associated with a specific app. Think of it as a poor man’s answer to background processes. Background processes, by the way, are not an addition to version 3.0. Apple’s excuses: Battery performance and memory strain.
- Updated media player adjusts streaming video quality according to current bandwidth.
- Cut, copy and paste. That’s right folks, Apple’s polio vaccine. Double-tap to select text, drag start/end points and do your thang. You can even shake to undo/redo edits.
- Send multiple images at once. Joy.
- Wider landscape keyboard availability. Apple finally tossed the landscape keyboard into all native apps, including Mail. Thank you.
- MMS! Hooray for decade-old tech! SMS and MMS are now lumped into a Messages app. It won’t be available on 2G (1st gen) iPhones.
- New calendar features. CalDAV allows for sharing across a bunch of services such as Google and Yahoo and .ics subscription support.
- Flushed out Stocks app.
- Extended search. Users can now search in all key apps including Calendar, iPod, Notes and Mail.
- Spotlight for iPhone. A “search homescreen”. It’s like Spotlight for Mac and it only searches native Apple apps.
- Bluetooth A2DP support (stereo Bluetooth) — but it won’t be available on 2G (1st gen) iPhones.
- Tethering.
Beyond that, Apple recapped the iPhone’s current position of course, with a presence in over 80 countries, 13.7 million iPhones sold, over 16 million iPod Touches sold and the App Store now has over 25,000 apps and over 800 million downloads. The iPhone SDK has been downloaded over 800,000 times by over 50,000 different entities, though over 60% of them have submitted no apps to the App Store. Damn, the Dev Team is growing by leaps and bounds — wink, wink. Apple tried briefly to woo potential developers by showing off how easy it is to develop an iPhone app, also touting that Gameloft has over two million paid downloads to its credit. Bank.
With iPhone 3.0, Apple is introducing 1000 new APIs for developers. It is also allowing developers to submit apps that carry subscription models — one download that is periodically refreshed with new content. In other words, Apple is now facilitating a more continuous revenue model compared to the one-time purchase model. Sell new magazine editions in a magazine app, sell new levels in a game, etc. This model will apparently not apply to free apps, so devs can’t give an app away and then charge for content. Apple has also added APIs to support peer to peer connectivity for things like online gaming via Bluetooth without the need to pair devices. Woo! Beyond that, additions such as the ability to build apps that communicate directly with hardware accessories via Bluetooth or the dock connector, streaming audio and video APIs and the introduction of a Maps API to facilitate app integration (including the use of Maps for turn by turn directions) were covered. Some pretty cool stuff, though nothing earth-shattering.
A beta version of 3.0 is available today to developers and end users will get it some time this Summer; free for iPhones, $10 for iPod Touches. So there you have it folks — discuss.
@romeyp (about Spotlight): “I’m not an OSX user, but I do know it was not in the last version of the iPhone.”
Guess what, it isn’t in the last version of the Pre either — the Pre at this point is vaporware. Comparing the present iPhone to an unreleased product is silly. You can compare iPhone 3.0 to the Pre, but I have my own opinion on which one is more likely to deliver.
Guys you can flame me all you want but before you do step back and tell me what version you currently have on your iphone? Yep, none of us have a Pre, and surprise surprise none of us have 3.0 firmware.
Vaporware……..please!
Didnt see anything about voice dialing. Big miss. Today screen with calendar appointments? New unified mailbox? Anyone?
Not available until summer? Nice apple, your customers won’t be willing to wait until summer. Suck that, you greedy ass. I am going for pre. No background applications? WTF?
AND WHERE IS THE FLASH SUPPORT FOR SAFARI?
I for one am pretty excited about 3.0. It’s going to finally have a lot that we’ve been wanting. My only question is: since there won’t be background apps, is there a chance we can get apps like Pandora to run off of the push notifications? My guess is not. But it would be wishful thinking…
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Tempe United States
Sick!
Everything, but bbm (blackberry only) and video recording I got. The first will never happen and the second will probably be for the next iPhone.
but but i asked for FLASH SUPPORT !!!!
these posts always start so many e-beefs it’s so entertaining! if i say iphones ain’t all that, then someone calls me a hater cause i can’t afford an iphone, yet i’m typing my post from a $500 phone, or maybe a $1500 laptop. like i usually do. am i an iphone hater? no, but if i wanna grab my balls and scream eff cupertino and it’s hellspawn the iphone then that’s me. blackberry has a crappy browser, ms phones freeze up all the time, s60 phones have the fugliest os, iphones are not that revolutionary, android is an empty s60 rider. nothing’s perfect. now guess what type of phone i’m using
Nothing ground breaking, but I liked what I saw. Something tells me Apple’s iPhone sales will likely continue up its upward path.
No new stuff. Apple’s falling behind, google and Palm are taking over
Most of this Palm has had for years on the Treo.
What does the Pre do that the iPhone doesn’t? The only thing I remember is background apps, and push notifications nullify that problem.
dominate? youre such a fanthing that you can’t even see that this is bs…why couldnt this be on the 1st generation? get a nokia dude.
This is a list of like half the reasons I wouldn’t get an iPhone. They still have a ways to go in my opinion (2mp cam and no video recording? Really?) for a high end phone, but at least they’ve solved some of the really obvious complaints. So good for them.
On the other hand, it is really really sad that iPhone users are rejoicing over MMS and copy/paste. Wow.
Seems like version 3.0 could mean a 3rd iPhone will be out reletively the same time. Think about it. OS 1. Was the first iPhone. OS 2. Was the second iPhone. I see a trend here. Hmmmmm
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).
Ok so lets sum this up…
Apple Fanboy: Yeah, you finally got MMS and copy and paste, wow. Both are functions you should have had at launch so pull your nose down just a bit
. Oh…still no voice dialing? That’s weird, I had a Nokia that did that when i was still in high school.
WinMo Fanboy: Apple just “created” features that were standard on your OS since what seems like the dawn of smart phones. Despite that, you have to admit it’s still a pretty damn cool OS (flaws considered)and all said, it DRASTICALLY influenced the future of mobile OS’. Like it or not, this Apple has influenced the future of WinMo.
WebOS Fanboy: You don’t even know how webOS is going to perform yet so hold your horses. For all you know it could launch without MMS or copy and paste. As much as i want the Pre, I’m not talking about it like i already own it!
Android Fanboy: Open source rules!! now work on getting some damn phones out on different carriers so we can see what Android can actually do. Until then you are the minority.
Boy Genius Report: The spell check used when leaving a comment doesn’t recognize “Nokia” as a word ….. really??
why are Touch users paying for the upgrades? I’ve been getting them each and every time and never paying. would have thought the cat was out of the bag on how to score it for free by now…guess not. why are iPhone users labeled “apple fanboys”? just because one has an iPhone doesn’t make them a fanboy.
@ y3k-bug:
What does the Pre do that the iPhone doesn’t?
Just to name a few things it offers a physical keyboard, Combined messaging/Synergy, all your conversations with the same person are grouped together in one chat-style view. (Even if it started in IM, for example, and you want to reply with text.) Background apps/multitasking which sorry to say push notifications isn’t a substitute for. 3MP Camera with flash and extended depth of field, and USB Mass Storage support. Does that refresh your memory?
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Nothing earth shattering. So basically iPhone now has the functionality Blackberry had in 2006. Hurray. Yeah there are some cool things (It’s Apple afterall that’s their niche) but unless I missed something there is little to no new enterprise features.
No central way to manage iPhone
No additional EAS policy support
No ability to device level encrypt
No ability to save documents to the iPhone (or edit / create still)
No meeting invitee / free busy
Some well needed updates though (search, landscape keyboard, improved email delete)
Interesting that blackberry models were able to last days all while running apps in the background. Even the Storm/Bold when tweaked and running all the things a power user uses all day you get a good full day.
iPhone fans revoice – you have the features you deserve. Now watch as RIMM rolls out OS 5.0 and BES 5.0 and pushes their own bar further from anything iPhone can ever do in the enterprise space.
@ Michael you’re the one who needs to relax…obviously he’s referring to Apple Fanboys’ continousness obsession with everything AAPL and believing that whatever they come up with is revolutionary…as he mentioned so if you couldn’t get the joke then I’m not Jesus, I can’t save you.
The Pre really does look like the OS/Phone to beat these days and Apple fell short with this one. At least they caught up and charging ipod touch users for these features are about the dumbest thing i’ve ever heard…what’s worse is that people will purchase it…the copy and paste and MMS are really meant for phones…especially the latter and unless you’re in a wifi area you’re assed out.
And oh btw IFanboys you see why your precious phone performs so well, right? Apple finally admits to exactly what I’ve been saying since forever, you can’t run a lot of apps and processes on the shit cause it’ll get slow, lag, freeze and crash just like any other smartphone when it gets bogged down too much so the smooth transitions and performance you’re seeing is cause Apple wants to maintain that image and at the same time shortchange you on the abilities of a real smartphone. Have fun lol
This is great news ! Now when the new iPhone comes out, I can get it and it’ll be preloaded with the 3.0 update undoubtedly anddd I can get rid of my lame Sidekick LX which is falling apart hah.
Anyone thinking it is a lock Sprint and the Pre will fire up MMS out of the box need to chill out for a second. I am not sure if they even offer it yet…but their WinMo phones were not MMS enabled.
The Pre could very much wind up being just like the BB Storm (Which I got sucked into…and paid the ETF to get the Iphone)Every Blackberry dickhead on Crackberry said that the Storm was going to run circles around the IPhone. I was a WinMo user coming from a modded Xv6800 and wanted to see what life was like on the other side of the fence….I will never own another Blackberry based on that piece of shit. The IPhone (Which is the first thing Apple I have ever owned) is ten times better than it or Windows Mobile. Sadly my Work Exchange Mail runs smoother and is easier to use than it was with WinMo.
If you want to look at anyone as fanboy elite’s in the Smartphone game…look at some of the cocksuckers on Crackberry…completely intolerable…and completely ignorant to the piece of shit they locked themselves into for 2 years with VZW.
Well I see Like-To-Spin is still up to his OLD tricks bashing and bashing and full on nonsense! STILL spinning like a top, all pissed off the iPhone wiped the floor with his favorite toy! Still wasting your employers bandwidth and time! HAHA
Cut-Copy-Paste, MMS, Push Notifications and Stereo Bluetooth in a simple FREE software release as I told you months ago! Now there are over 27K in apps (Apple was conservative in their reporting).
With 1,000 new APIs and a real robust SDK, developers will continue to flock to iPhone for the ease of development, 30 million users, and business models. The Palm Pre will sell little on Sprint, even the Storm will beat them!
I am still waiting for RIM to have a successful App Store with any decent apps. WinMo latest release is garbage!
Like-To-Spin, you would NOT know a REAL smartphone if it came up and bit you on your smartass! HAHA
You are right Apple does NOT want to have a bunch of badly coded apps running in the background because they would cause battery drain, lag, freeze, and crashes – HEY wait I think I just described the BB Storm!!!! HaHa. So I guess you are too stupid to understand an innovation of push notifications OVER the cloud, a REAL smartphone on a REAL smart network!
Watch for the lines agin this summer, when the new hardware comes out! HAHAHA
IPhone gave me cancer.. =8^(
@ Frank Castle:
Only you have not realized your CASTLE has long been defeated!
Maybe some of you have not realized that since the Pre has NOT even shipped it does NOTHING yet. Being on ONLY Sprint will not exactly make it a big seller. On top of that the WebOS will not make for robust apps.