After much anticipation, including rumored (yes, rumors!) delays – Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 finally sees the day with its release for both iPhone and iPod touch. Build number for this release is 3.0/7A341 – it seems to match the GM seed version that I have for my iPod touch.

Users can get the download straight from iTunes by clicking on the Check for Updates button. iPhone owners get the update for free, while iPod touch owners will need to purchase the update for only $9.95 – this is due to Apple’s accounting practice.

Most of the features are already quite familiar with those of us who swarm Apple news and rumor sites daily. Here’s a list of changes listed by Apple – they cover both the iPhone and iPod touch:

• Cut, Copy & Paste – self-explanatory, one of the most requested feature debuts with this new update
• Landscape keyboard – built-in apps now have this feature, something which should be there since day 1, if you ask me
• MMS – iPhone only, not many people sends MMS, but since you asked for it, please go ahead and make full use of it
• Spotlight Search – find what you’re looking for across the device from one convenient place
• Voice Memo – capture a memo, meeting or any audio recording, iPod touch owners will need to attach a microphone
• Internet Tethering – iPhone only, now you can share your internet connection with your laptop via Bluetooth or USB
• Peer-to-Peer Gaming – now you could waste more time, with a friend, provided the game supports it
• Push Notifications – apps can now receive information and let you know its there, even then the app is not running
• Movies, TV Shows and Audiobooks purchase via Wi-Fi – get the best entertainment titles from iTunes directly on your device

And many more. Head on over to Apple’s site for more details on the update. iPhone users. iPod touch users.

One more thing. If you device has been unlocked somehow using one of the (ahem) available utilities, I’d suggest that you wait for an official unlocker to be released.

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Apple has just made the keynote video of the presentation on March 17 available. You can choose to either view the streaming version or download a higher resolution version directly from within the iTunes Store.

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Beginning with changes for the developers, Apple mentioned that the SDK (Software Development Kit) for iPhone OS 3.0 features up to 1,000 new APIs. According to Scott Forstall, Apple’s Senior VP for iPhone Software, the main objective is to help developers succeed, and that is thru making the SDK the best tool ever for creating software on the iPhone OS platform.

iPhone OS 3.0 will also support In-App Purchases – this makes it possible for developers to sell subscriptions, new levels for games or new chapters for e-books, for instance. We’ll see less of apps like Guide-to-London, Guide-to-Paris, Guide-to-Frankfurt appearing in the App Store, each being sold separately. Instead, developers can now offer an app called Guide-to-Cities. Guides for a certain city are sold separately inside the app. The business model for In-App Purchases remain the same, developers get to keep 70% of the revenue, with Apple taking a 30% cut.

Another new exciting feature is Peer-to-Peer. Based on Apple’s Bonjour technology, and utilizing the Bluetooth chipset, the new set of APIs allow iPhone owners to ‘find’ each other, create an IP connection, and then play a game together. Peer-to-Peer is not limited to games only. Developers can, for instance, create an app that shares contacts between devices.

Accessories – developers can now build apps that talk to certain hardware, over the dock connector or using Bluetooth. This can be achieved via standard or custom protocols. For example, an FM transmitter – in iPhone OS 3.0, developers can now create a customised app that pairs with the transmitter, then find the right station and tunes in.

Next is maps. Apple now allows developers to embed the map technology built into iPhone OS. Besides that, turn-by-turn navigation apps are now allowed. However, developers would need to create their own maps instead of relying on the built-in ones due to licensing.

Push Notification – better late than never. Apple had to re-architect the solution based on developer feedback, after it was announced six months ago. Scott mentioned that the architecture is now ready to go.

Apple also made available a new set APIs for streaming audio and video as well as In-Game Voice. The media player now adjusts the quality based on the available bandwidth.

Cut. Copy. Paste. Yes, the rumors are true! It took Apple some time to enable this, citing security issues. Cut, copy and paste works according to the rumor: double-tap, select cut, copy or paste, then double-tap again to paste.

Besides enabling MMS, iPhone OS 3.0 will also enable support for sending multiple photo attachments via the Mail app. Landscape mode has also been added to most Apple-shipped apps, like Mail, Notes and SMS.

Two additional calendar types will be supported in iPhone OS 3.0, first being CalDAV, second being subscription .ics format.

One last major new feature of iPhone OS 3.0 is Spotlight – the search technology built-in to Mac OS X. You can now search your Calendar, songs, Notes and etc. A new Home Screen app called Spotlight will be made available to support searching in a single place.

Other minor new features in the new OS include Note Sync, Auto-fill, YouTube accounts, stereo Bluetooth, Wi-Fi autologin and anti-phising.

Apple is making the new iPhone OS 3.0 SDK available today in beta format. Check out http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/sdk.html for more information. For the rest of us, iPhone OS 3.0 will be deployed this summer (June) as a free update to all iPhone customers. iPod touch users will need to fork out $9.95 to get the update.

iPhone OS 3.0 Preview: http://www.apple.com/iphone/preview-iphone-os/
iPhone OS 3.0 Media Event stream: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0903lajkszg/event/index.html

Related Posts

• iPhone OS 3.0 Released
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• Coming Soon! iPhone OS 3.0 – Cut & Paste, Palm Pre-like Features
• iPhone OS 2.2.1 Released – Improves Stability
• More Than Just a Jailbreak

What’s in store for us? Well, to begin with, there’s Cut & Paste, as revealed by Kevin Rose during SXSW Live Diggnation. Here’s a description of cut and paste, Apple style – double-tap to bring up a magnifying glass with two quotes, you drag quotes around text string to select, and then you can cut/copy and paste.

Check out the following video recording of the announcement at SXSW Live Diggnation. Pardon the strong language, though.

Besides that, expect to have the iPhone now on par with the Palm Pre, features wise. I foresee this to be the integrated social network contacts, unified messaging, notifications and multi-tasking features the the Pre touted. Let’s see how Apple does their version of these features.

No word on whether MMS will make the cut or not, but seriously, I personally use MMS just to post pictures to Facebook. The iPhone can do much better in terms of posting pictures to Facebook using the official client. Video recording doesn’t seem to be making it as well due to technical limitations – writing too often to the NAND flash memory would burn it out.

There you have it, version 3.0 of the iPhone OS seems to have only two notable new features. But again, these are just rumors. March 17 is just right around the corner. Heck, there’s no indication that the firmware will be released on the same day itself. We’d probably see this coming in a few months time? And, what do you think of Kevin Rose’s claims? Will he finally get it right this time?

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Not much of a fanfare, but the cat is finally out of its bag. Yeah, that is firmware version 2.2.1. There’s not much fixes to shout about, but Apple’s official release note showered love on both Mobile Safari and Camera Roll.

Mobile Safari gets some stability improvement ‘injection’ with this update. Also fixed is an issue where some images, when saved from the Mail application, do not display correctly in the Camera Roll. The iPod touch version of this update calls the Camera Roll as “Saved Photos”, and comes with an additional fix for an issue that caused some Apple Lossless (ALAC) audio files to skip during playback. Since this is a minor bump from the previous firmware version, there appears to be no other major fixes. However, as we all know the mighty Apple, they might have hidden some other fixes or improvments or features in between the code.

Reader reports say that the recent emoji hacks are still working after the update, so I’d say it’s practically safe to update your device to 2.2.1 not working anymore if you update to 2.2.1 and then install Frostyplace. I’d strongly suggest that you install Frostyplace first and have your emoji enabled before updating. Thanks to reader Sassoverde for highlighting.

If you have previously unlocked or jailbroken your device, then updating to the new release will break them. Ars Technica stated that this update might mess around with your iPhone’s baseband and thus, may affect your unlocked unit. Confirmation is needed here. Unlockers please wait for a while (I am sure team yellowsn0w is now hard at work) and let the rest do the guinea pig test, eh?

Getting the update is easy. Simply plug in your device, then launch iTunes and click on the “Check for Updates” button from the device screen. iTunes should then ask if you would like to download and install the update, or just perform a download. I like the Download Only feature as it allows me to save the updater file for sharing with friends later. Although this is a minor update, the download is weighing in at about 277.7 MB, but I’d say it is worth every byte of it for stability’s sake.

Again, the iPod build ID for this version is a little bit different. iPhone users should see build ID 5H11, while iPod touch users 5H11a. On the iPhone (presumably), the modem firmware is now upgraded to version 02.30.03.

Oh ya, if you have to ask. There is no copy and paste, no MMS and no kitchen sinks included in this update.

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