As every iPhone and Mac owner should know by now, Apple previewed iPhone 3.0 in Cupertino yesterday and it dominated the tech RSS feeds. The next version of the OS looks like it’s going to make the iPhone damn near perfect. Not only has it fixed nearly everything iPhone owners were crying for (copy/cut/paste, MMS, push notifications), but it added a slew of new features I didn’t even think were possible in a phone. Granted, there are a few haters that were completely underwhelmed by the event — I, myself, was already head over heels in love with my iPhone, and these updates only make it a better device. I honestly don’t see myself switching to another device for a very long time.
(On a side note, I did briefly switch to an HTC Fuze when Papi and I went to upgrade, because the hardware looked more promising, but my stint with WinMo didn’t last longer than a night. After using the iPhone, the WinMo software seemed to me counterintuitive, and the touchscreen was lightyears behind that of the iPhone’s. I exchanged for the iPhone the very next morning.)
Gizmodo has a great guide on everything you need to know about iPhone 3.0. I am most looking forward to:
- CalDAV and Subscribed Calendars support! This was unveiled with pretty much no fanfare, and I honestly think I’m one of maybe six people who are excited about this, but no lie, I was just bitching about this last week. Papi and I couldn’t get our schedules straight with work, daycare, and various doctor’s appointments. I found a really long (but free) way around to get subscribed calendars to dump into a local calendar that would sync via MobileMe using Automator actions and iCal alarms, but it was so convoluted that I couldn’t get Papi to start implementing it yet. After seeing the preview, I’m willing to nag him into submission for a few more months until we see 3.0!
- Turn by turn direction apps! Granted, I’m sure these apps won’t come without a price, but I’m willing to pay up to a certain amount to have maps on a device that will always be on me, rather than spending 200 large on a separate device I’ll have to lug around, or pay AT&T an extra monthly subscription fee for something I might not need to use every month. (But I guess I’ll know how pricing works out once the apps are released.)
- Notes sync and voice memos. I already use Evernote’s free service for storing notes, and I’ve been pretty happy with it — especially since I can access my account from pretty much anywhere. But since the free service only goes up to 40MB, it’ll be nice to have another service built into the iPhone to ease up on the space in Evernote. Plus, there are many notes I won’t always need to have handy at all times.
- P2P connection. I imagine I’ll make the most use of this zapping shopping and to-do lists to Papi. He’ll probably find it most useful playing games online and ignoring my constant eye-rolling at Tap Tap Revenge or whatever.
- Spotlight and Search. It’l be nice to be able to find an obscure contact in less taps and time.
Some of the other basic functionality was stuff I honestly didn’t miss at all — copy/paste, 3G tethering, and MMS included (the lack of MMS was actually kind of nice — less messages from my cousins with pictures of the dump they left in the toilet that morning). Push functionality in place of background running might be kind of cool, but in terms of instant messaging, I never liked making myself that available anyway.
I think the worry about in-app transactions is kind of alarmist and premature. Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t think Apple would allow any shady nickle-and-diming tactics (at least not ones shadier than their own), even if stopping them is at the expense of quicker app store approval. I think the long delay of push notification and copy/paste is a testament to the fact that they’d rather prolong the process of releasing a particular function than let it run wild with poor implementation. And even if it were the case that an app were to slip by and charge you an exorbitant amount more than the original purchase price for certain features, it’d show up in the reviews pretty quickly and I think the market would correct itself. It would suck for the first few people who bought the app, but I don’t see it becoming a problem so huge as to cancel out the value of the entire app store and the device itself.
Video recording functionality would’ve been nice, since there are jailbreak apps that prove this is possible. As of yet I have never jailbroken my iPhone, and after 3.0 I might only consider it for that single feature, but I’ve had the iPhone since its launch and I’ve fallen in love with it despite not having this capability (plus the video recording and camera capabilities I’ve seen in every other phone is booty… I’d rather get a Flip HD and call it a day).
All in all, I’m super excited for this summer! Also, rumble could make the iPhone the BEST MULTIFUNCTIONING SMARTPHONE EVAR.
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