Filed under: iPhone, SDK, iPod touch
iPhone 3.0 Friday roundup
Tuesday's iPhone OS 3.0 announcement has left the interwebs even more iPhone-obsessed than usual. If you find digging through all this information overwhelming (or, if like me you were out of town when OS 3.0 was announced), check out this round-up of news, opinions and videos. The only thing missing is a beta copy of OS 3.0 and that's already floating around various torrent sites.If that's not enough, be sure to check out our continuing iPhone OS 3.0 coverage.
Watch the OS 3.0 presentation -- Were you left off the invite list too? Check out the video in HD or SD at the link above or in iTunes [iTunes link] as a video podcast.
Engadget's iPhone OS 3.0 Hub -- Engadget has a whole page dedicated to their furious and hands-on iPhone OS 3.0 coverage, including this video walkthrough.
What Apple Didn't Announce -- Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 presentation didn't answer every question or address every iPhone issue. Our old friend David Chartier tackles what was left out.
SDK 3.0 brings more NDA fun -- Much to the chagrin of many iPhone devlopers, the NDA is back for SDK 3.0. At Arstechnica, our pal Erica takes on what this means for developers. Let's just hope the NDA is lifted as soon as 3.0 is officially released.
OS 3.0 Screenshot Pr0n -- Pfft, what NDA? iLounge has put together a great gallery of iPhone OS 3.0 screenshots, showing off what's new and improved. Love it.
iPhone OS 3.0 vs. Android -- Lifehacker has a pretty neat comparison of features that are currently avaialable in the iPhone 2.21, stuff that's coming in OS 3.0 and what's available and coming for Android. As someone who has spent a LOT of time using both the iPhone OS and the T-Mobile G1, I'd just add that hardware and UI is actually just as important as "features" when comparing the two platforms. Right now, the iPhone absolutely cleans Android's clock -- despite having fewer "features" -- because the hardware is better (that G1 keyboard is terrible), the UI is more thought-out and the third-party software is better by leaps and bounds. (hat tip, Gruber)
Future iPod/iPhone models referenced in latest betas -- The latest iPhone OS 3.0 SDK includes references to future iPhone and iPod models (3,1) and two other unknown devices.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Andrew said 5:53PM on 3-20-2009
One thing no one has reviewed is the calendar....
Can i dial a phone number by clicking on it if it is embedded in a appointment? Giant headache dialing a con-call number with pin
Where is my pencil and paper? I have to write it down as no field in an appointment is clickable - only editable if i created it.
I hope this is fixed!
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greggwsmith said 5:01PM on 3-21-2009
I can't agree more! What a pain in the butt!
Tedeks said 8:59AM on 3-22-2009
At least you have copy and paste now....not sure if you could copy and past into the phone, probably not....
no name said 8:38PM on 3-20-2009
I installed 3.0 last night to play around with it, but the damn thing is soooo buggy, that i rolled back to my lovely jailbroken 2.2.1 about an hour later.
3.0 is definitely NOT ready for an every day use.
Oh, and the current MMS implementation is a complete FAIL.
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Jack said 10:43PM on 3-20-2009
This isn't the case for me at all. I'm using 3.0 right now and I have very few problems. Its extremely usable for me. Maybe its because I'm on a 2G..
mmendoza27 said 12:11AM on 3-21-2009
How long did you mess around with it? I've been using it for 2 days and it's perfectly fine. It's usable, it acts a little funny, but it's a BETA. It's mainly used for testing your applications, making sure they are ready. I've had no problems whatsoever.
Oh yeah, the MMS implementation is FAIL because it doesn't work, it's not supported by AT&T yet.
no name said 5:17AM on 3-21-2009
well, i played with it for an hour. in this 1 hour it managed to reboot all on its own, iPod app locked up to the point where i had to reboot, landscape mode in mail and notes worked 2 out of 5 times, while typing an SMS message the text you are tyoing went outside the borders of the text input field. MMS did not send (fine AT&T did not roll out the changes yet), but *trying* to send an MMS (1 picture and a word "test" in the body of the message) resulted in 1 picture looking like an sms bubble, and another SMS bubble with a word "test" in it (are you serious? how hard is it to make it look like 1 bubble??? hopefully you will not be charged for this as for 2 sms messages). Trying to compose (not even send) another MMS message and taking a picture to attach, resulted in a blank message (this is after i added To: address, added some text, took a picture and hit "Use picture" button). Also the Camera icon was completely missing from my Springboard (i did reset homescreen layout, but it did not help). I tried assigning Camera to the Home button doulbe click, but it did not do anything AT ALL. Also EVERYTHING felt super-sluggish.
If this is something you guys can live with on daily basis, move power to you, but to me, this is completely unusable. I will wait for another beta to play with it more, but in my eyes (apple fanboy and early adopter to the core, also a loyal apple customer since '97) i will not be able to use this on day-to-day basis as of yet. sorry.
Matt said 9:06AM on 3-21-2009
I take it the reason that the MMS sends currently as two bubbles is simply because the message fails. Is it possible that the picture fails to send because AT&T hasn't 'turned it on' yet, but the text does send as a regular SMS?
Were you expecting such an early beta to be actually usable? I wasn't, and I'm actually surprised that it seems mostly stable.
Frankie Teo said 12:00PM on 3-21-2009
Well, Apple is pre-announcing a product release for fear of new competition. This is a defensive move they are doing now and it seems like a desperate act.
For some, the Pre is it.This is me. After feeling short changed, iPhone at V3.0 should be the V1.2 features that we never had. This is actually worse than MicroSoft's record, so iPhone has no future as my handset period.
Tedeks said 9:01AM on 3-22-2009
3.0 definitely has some bugs to work through. I find that typing is very very slow and sometimes not even possible. Also going into apps can sometimes take longer then usual. I guess when you are using a beta OS, you have to expect it. I wonder how often they are going to release updates for us.
tys said 2:12AM on 3-21-2009
I used it for a day. IMO it's entirely useable if a little sluggish.
Ironically, I downgraded back to 2.2.1 mostly because I need copy and paste! Apple's version didn't work as well as the Clippy app for Jailbroken phones for what I needed. (not able to paste into Safari) No doubt it'll be improved in the final version. Spotlight was very nice but needs the option to search safari bookmarks and history.
They need a way to disable landscape auto-rotation. I find it annoying enough in iPod and Safari and now it happens everywhere!
Several apps stopped working for me.
Never tried the new MMS or new Bluetooth features.
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iPhoneOS30 said 3:26AM on 3-21-2009
HEY, If you guys need on a DEV account to use iPhone OS 3.0 just send me an email. You will also be included in our up and coming app beta test!
Bobby@designgears.com
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bagslead said 4:50AM on 3-21-2009
why in my area have this iphone sell?
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frank.lowney said 9:52PM on 3-21-2009
I'm very curious about the 1000 new APIs and 100 new features in iPhone 3.0 but I'm not a paid iphone developer so haven't got access to them. So, where could I go to find an annotated list of all 1000 new API hooks and all 100 new features. Something like what Apple did on announcing the Leopard had 300 new features.
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starkruzr said 4:27PM on 3-21-2009
Guys, could we maybe have a little less fanboyism and a little more reporting/analysis?
Right now, the iPhone absolutely cleans Android's clock -- despite having fewer "features" -- because the hardware is better (that G1 keyboard is terrible),
Subjective and largely unjustified. Also, the hardware on the G1 is actually ENABLED, while the iPhone's is crippled and will remain partially crippled after the 3.0 update. The G1 is much faster and has more RAM. It also at least has the OPTION of using a hardware keyboard which the iPhone does not share.
the UI is more thought-out
Also subjective.
and the third-party software is better by leaps and bounds. (hat tip, Gruber)
The software library seems to me to be quite similar, if smaller on Android.
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louisraffio said 6:08PM on 3-22-2009
I have been using it since the 17th.... yes a little sluggish. But after reading some forums I realized it is best to NOT do a restore but install as a new phone.... I reloaded as a NEW phone and almost all my problems went away some apps crash but relatively stable this is my everyday phone my life...... AGAIN this is BETA I LOVE all the new features, yes way long overdue but guess what.... there are here now...apparently Apple is listening to us 1) soon video 2) ichat? the future is looking good
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Graeme said 7:04PM on 3-26-2009
One thing that I haven't seen that I would be interested to know is, with the enabling of bluetooth on the ipod touch, will I be able to share my 3G connection from my mobile phone via bluetooth. My phone doesn't have wifi so I can't use something like Joikuspot, but I would love to be able to access the internet anywhere on my ipod touch using my 3g mobile and bluetooth. Will this be possible under os 3.0?
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Christina Warren said 3:42PM on 3-27-2009
This would be awesome. I'm hoping the new software hooks will allow developers to at least look at sharing stuff that way (making the iPod touch act as a client computer so it can accept a shared data connection). Granted, sharing a connection over bluetooth might not be any faster than the joikuspot method (my phone DOES have wifi, BlackBerry people just aren't interested in trying to port the app, which is frustrating...), but it certainly has potential.