The Apple effect 2.0

Yesterday Apple had it’s announcement and preview of the 3.0 iPhone software. It introduced a lot of new things (many of which I thought would never happen on the phone) so let’s go through some of the key points:

Landscape Keyboard now available on all applications: This isn’t such a big deal to me but seems that a lot of people have been asking for it. This means that, just like on the Safari application for the iPhone, you’ll be able to use the accelerometer and turn the phone sideways and type on a bigger keyboard on the mail and SMS applications as well as others.

Text Messaging Improvements: Mass forward/delete as well as MMS capabilities have been huge demands for this phone and Apple has finally delivered. My only question is, why did it take so long?

1,000 new APIs/ Application enhancements: The ability to add in-game chat, in-application downloads/updates for new content either on a one-time basis or even on a subscription-fee service, integrate maps into their applications or make turn by turn applications, and many more enhancements were given to developers in order to make their applications much easier to use and worth more of the money that the users have been paying for them. One big thing is that developers can now have their applications work with devices h0oked through the dock connector (Examples include an FM Transmitter or a blood pressure monitor but the possibilities are endless)

A2DP (Stereo Bluetooth): With the 3.0 update also comes the ability to use stereo bluetooth headsets, this means that all of the wireless headphones and bluetooth headpieces that double as bluetooth headphones will now have full functionality on the iPhone.

Spotlight search: The 3.0 update will also add an additional homescreen to the iPhone and iTouch’s desktop that will have a global search on the phone. Song titles, applications, contacts, calendars, and anything else on the device can be found through this.

And the big two:

Push Notification: While giving a good explanation on why background processes won’t be used (lower battery life being the main point), they also introduced (again!) the arrival of push notifications to your device. This means that messaging applications as well as any other programs on the device will be able to take advantage of using a webcloud server through Apple to send notifications of new messages and new updates available to you. This is the one I’m most excited about and as long as Apple allows it to run correctly (such as quick and reliable fetch times) this will bring about better and more efficient applications as well as happier and new customers.

Copy and Paste: Pretty self explanatory and from the video (which can be found on Apple’s website) looks like it will be very easy to use on the device. With this comes multiple picture selection to send in e-mails as well as being able to copy and past not just on the web but across all applications both first and third party.

These updates for the phone are huge. With growing competition from other devices (Palm-Pre, Blackberry Storm, etc..) Apple needed to step it up in this update and definitely delivered. Also, these were just the main points and Apple said that they also had much more in store for their devices. The update will be available for free to iPhone users (both 3G and 2G, but certain things like A2DP will not be available on the first-gen phone) and will be $9.95 to iTouch users.