As mentioned, Apple announced a major revision to the iPhone/iPod touch OS platform today and detailed many of the new features headed our way this Summer. Remember all the complaints people had about copy and paste? Gone. MMS? Done. How about push notifications? No longer. Engadget of course blew out their coverage of the event today (I pounded refresh over my lunch hour too...it's OK), but an overview of new features is below:
- Peer-to-peer connectivity over Bluetooth
- New fee based system for in game purchases and add ons
- Google Maps API opened for apps...AND YES: TURN BY TURN NAVIGATION.
- The dock interface has been opened up and can now be utilized by apps (QWERTY keyboard undoubtedly forthcoming)
- Sweet, sweet push notifications...but no background processing
- In game voice, streaming video and audio implemented
- Cut, copy and paste
- MMS - Allows sending of location, contacts, etc.
- Stereo Bluetooth
- Spotlight search from a new home screen
- TETHERING. Sweet lord above we get tethering
- New app - Voice Memos will allow you to record reminders
- The Stocks app is updated for news and a landscape view
- New calendar features - CalDAV and .ics subscriptions
Based on this release and last year's events...I think it's a pretty safe bet that we will see a hardware revision coincide with the official release of 3.0 this Summer. As Nilay Patel has mentioned, Apple's made it fairly clear that they want a consistent platform for developers...so it could simply be a spec bump and slightly different form factor. The weather has just turned warm here...but suddenly I'm ready for June.
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