Google Street View, emoji coming to iPhone 2.2?
MacRumors hears news of some interesting new features that may see the light of day in the next iteration of iPhone firmware.
The Maps application will apparently have support for Google Street View. It remains to be seen if the integration will be as impressive as that of Google Android, which used GPS compass data to dynamically change the street view depending on which way you're actually pointed.
Also included is support for Japanese emoji icons: 461 popular pictures that can be added to text messages and emails. Emoji support is popular on Japanese phones, and including it on the iPhone might give a boost to sales there (described as less-than-stellar by the WSJ).
In a move sure to be popular with non-English users using the English keyboard, the new firmware will also let you turn off auto-correction.
It's not clear when the new firmware will be generally available. Developers received version 2.2, beta 1 on September 25.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Bryan Veloso said 3:14PM on 10-06-2008
To be honest, I'd rather see support for direction via mass transit in Google Maps. The fact that it's nearly impossible (read: annoying) to do that using the web browser makes me really hunger for this on the native app. Sure, Street View is awesome, but why not sneak this in too?
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Ed said 3:17PM on 10-06-2008
I believe Google's phone has a _real_ compass, it doesn't rely on GPS to tell what direction you're facing.
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JAMES said 3:17PM on 10-06-2008
test
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Andre said 3:23PM on 10-06-2008
It sounds cool, but I'd rather they concentrate on getting the email fetching bug fixed in the new firmware. And soon.
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Sam said 3:37PM on 10-06-2008
how about multimedia messaging, a full-on word processor, more robust notification system, etc etc?
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CR said 3:48PM on 10-06-2008
Where is MMS? Going to viewmymessages.com is getting annoying!!!
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Ryan Goins said 5:31PM on 10-06-2008
Not that viewmymessage isn't bad enough but they couldn't even be courteous enough to include a link to the message or perhaps copy/paste to copy the long ass code. I've resorted to making all my friends put my email in their phone and them remembering they have to email me the picture. What a solution that is right?
bob said 5:46PM on 10-06-2008
No, this request is getting really annoying, There will NEVER be mms, it is left out on purpose, and i can hardly believe you actually use it!?!?!
Zyber said 3:53PM on 10-06-2008
I wonder if apple listen to the phone different podcast where that was mentioned.............
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rei_vilo said 3:59PM on 10-06-2008
False news.
What I'm expecting is synced notes and to-do lists?
How long should I wait?
Zyber said 4:09PM on 10-06-2008
@rei_vilo (I think that's the proper reply terminology)
I would say @ least till 2.3 (if were lucky) probably 3.0
Zyber said 3:59PM on 10-06-2008
The new favicon still needs work....... Try making the corners round and give it a 3-D shadow effect.
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Marco Senf said 4:03PM on 10-06-2008
"In a move sure to be popular with non-English users using the English keyboard, the new firmware will also let you turn off auto-correction."
It's more than that. I really love the auto-correction on my non-English iPhone, but it has to stop making wrong suggestions to correct written words and to choose them by default. THAT is annoying... .
To be frank, I think choosing the suggestion by default is the critical error here... . I wouldn't want to turn the feature off, completely.
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MapsRus said 4:05PM on 10-06-2008
Can't wait! Now I can spy on everyone with my iPhone!
http://streetviewgallery.corank.com
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Jason said 4:35PM on 10-06-2008
Re: emoji:
This would be great if the iPhone had MMS capabilities.
I wonder if 3rd Party Push is a part of 2.2...
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Dodger said 5:07PM on 10-06-2008
With so many bugs to be fixed with the new firmware, they'd rather concentrate on them instead of developing new features, but of course it would be cool to see the Google Street View, hope it will not slow down the iphones performance.
http://www.pikaba.com/c/ContestRules.aspx?m
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punkassjim said 5:13PM on 10-06-2008
Two questions:
1) why does anyone care about Android's "street view" fanciness. Hold up your phone, turn around, and watch the picture on your phone do exactly what you can see around you. Holy wow, fancy technology, but how the hell is it useful? To prove to you that your GPS is working? Seems odd.
2) Now that the App Store is in full swing, I would like to know why apps like Stocks, Notes, Weather, YouTube and Maps (these two especially) and all the others don't get a) published to the App Store so they can be updated more easily, and b) added to the list of apps that we can remove from the device.
I care less about removing the default apps, but I find it really very counter-intuitive that a YouTube.app update can't happen without a firmware update. The bar has been raised in terms of app functionality, and these days it's just plain SILLY that the YouTube app doesn't have subscription listings, contacts, commenting, etc.
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theoldman said 9:08PM on 10-06-2008
Yes, yes, and yes!
Farmer Joe said 7:34PM on 10-06-2008
Um... copy and paste?
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Jash Sayani said 11:09PM on 10-06-2008
Obvious news !! Since its already on Android, Apple will definately get the iPhone version......
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