Apple today is holding a special event to offer a preview of iPhone OS 3.0, along with an updated Software Development Kit (SDK). We will be updating this story with new announcements as they happen.
11:39 – More Q&A. Next question: Will peer to peer work with other devices? The feature is limited to Bonjour, Peer to Peer devices. Another question: Where do you stand on tethering? Forstall explains that they are building tethering support into iPhone OS 3.0, and are working with carriers to get it implemented. Will Apple make uptime promises on the push notification feature? No. Neither will users be able to move files over Bluetooth.
11:34 – Q&A session with Joswiak, Forstall, and Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior VP of worldwide product marketing. First question: Why did copy & paste take so long. Forstall claims there were security issues. Second question: Flash, and what Apple is doing about it. Execs reply that there are no announcements on that topic today, but note there are a lot of video streams the iPhone can handle, such as h.264. They also reveal that Apple’s adding HDTV streaming for audio and video.
11:28 – Release info. iPhone OS 3.0 will be available this Summer. A free update for all iPhone customers. Due to hardware differences, features such as A2DP and MMS won’t be available on the original iPhone.
It will also be available for the iPod touch for $9.95.
11:25 – The developer beta of iPhone OS 3.0 is available as of today. Apple is also adding 15 more countries to the App Store list, bringing the total to 77.
11:22 – More features. Another large graphic shows a number of other new features, including Stereo Bluetooth, shake to shuffle, Notes sync, encrypted profiles, YouTube subscriptions, VPN on demand, Auto Fill, Wi-Fi auto login, and more.
11:18 – Search. Search will be available in all Apple applications in iPhone OS 3.0, including Mail, iPod, Notes and Calendar. In addition, a new home page called Spotlight will allow users to search all of these at once; it will have its own page alongside the normal app pages, to the far left, indicated by a small magnifying glass icon.
11:17 – Calendar. iPhone OS 3.0 will support CalDAV and .ics calendars, including subscriptions.
11:16 – Voice Memos. A new app to quickly and easily record short audio messages.
11:13 – MMS support. iPhone OS 3.0 will support MMS messaging, along with forwarding/deleting multiple messages.
11:12 – Landscape keyboard. Will be available in all “key apps” in iPhone OS 3.0, including Mail.
11:04 – Cut & Paste confirmed. Double-tapping on text automatically selects it, with grab points on either end and a cut/copy/paste bubble above. When sliding a grab point, a new magnifying glass appears. Long holds in Safari automatically select large blocks of text; it will also copy HTML. Users can undo by shaking the device. The same process will work in third-party apps as long as they use the API. Users will also be able to select multiple pictures in the photo app to copy and paste, allowing for multi-picture emails.
10:30 – New APIs. In iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is offering a new API for streaming video and audio, and adding an API for in-game voice. Other APIs shown in a graphic include the battery, proximity sensor, an audio recorder, iPod library access(!), a Shake API, and text selection, which suggests that cut & paste is indeed coming in iPhone OS 3.0.
10:27 – Push notifications. Forstall said they expected to have the feature working last year, but didn’t get it done, in part because developers approached Apple wanting to use the feature in ways they hadn’t thought of, leading them to re-architect the server structure.
10:23 – Google Maps. All developers will now be able to add Google Maps capability to their application using a standard API. In addition, developers will be able to use core location to provide turn-by-turn directions, but they will need to supply their own maps when using turn-by-turn functionality due to licensing agreements.
10:21 – Accessory compatibility.
