iphonesdklogo Apple held their iPhone 3.0 software sneak peak event this morning in Cupertino, CA. Developers (and users) all over wondered.. would there be background processing? What’s up with push notification? WOULD THERE BE COPY AND PASTE?? Well, let’s find out shall we? Here’s a summary of what’s in and what’s NOT in the upcoming version of the iPhone OS:

  • First off – some numbers for all of you to digest: 13.7 million iPhones sold in 2008 with 17 million in use around the world. Add in iPod touches, you get 30 million Apple multi-touch devices in use – that’s a lot of devices to write software for. (Ka-ching!!!). 800,000 downloads of the iPhone SDK and 50,000 companies in the iPhone dev program. 25,000 apps in the App Store with 800 million apps downloaded thus far
  • 1000 new APIs are being added to the SDK
  • Developers will be able to sell in-app content now (otherwise known as In-App Purchase) – same revenue share with Apple – a 70/30 split between developers and Apple
  • Bonjour in iPhone will use Bluetooth to auto-locate devices in the same area – no need to use Wi-Fi for this. This ultimately means users will have peer to peer connectivity (remember Zune Sharing?)
  • Using External Accessory framework, developers will be able to communicate to “Made for iPod” hardware accessories attached to the iPhone or iPod touch via Bluetooth or via the 30 pin dock connector
  • Maps is available now as an API which means developers can integrate Maps into their applications with support for multi-touch gestures etc
  • CoreLocation will be available for Turn-by-Turn GPS applications but developers will need to supply their own Maps since Google isn’t licensing this out
  • Apple admits Push notification is late (no duh). They apparently had to redesign the Push Notifications server (uh huh). Apple’s push notification solution will reduce standby time by only 25%. Push will support badges, text, and sounds. All 80 countries will be supported by Push Notification
  • This also means there will be NO BACKGROUND APP SUPPORT. Blah
  • Lots of new API calls including support for streaming audio/video, in-game voice audio, iPod library access, proximity sensor, audio recorder, access to battery info, etc etc etc.
  • Lots of new features including Notes Sync, tagging of audio and video, shake to shuffle, Wi-Fi auto login, Stereo Bluetooth support, LDAP support, iTunes account creation, YouTube ratings support, VPN on demand, etc etc.
  • Oh yes.. cut, copy, and paste will indeed be available. Hallelujah! Double-tapping a word in an application like email will bring up a popup box for cut/copy/paste. You can also use two icons to customize the highlighted selection. You can also shake the device to Undo the operation. Nice.
  • All applications will get landscape keyboard mode now – which means all apps will be usable in landscape mode
  • MMS support is coming to the iPhone.. everyone say Hallelujah again please! Hallelujah! MMS will support sending photos, contacts, audio files, and your location
  • Messaging will also support forwarding and deletion of individual messages.
  • Voice memo coming to iPhone
  • Calendar being updated to support CalDav
  • Global search coming to iPhone via Spotlight support

The beta version of 3.0 is available starting today to developers. iPhone 3.0 will ship this summer and will be free to all iPhone 3G owners out there. Original iPhone owners will also be able to use the 3.0 OS but will not be able to access all of the features. iPod touch owners will be able to upgrade to the new OS for $9.95.

Thanks to AppleInsider for loads of tidbits.

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