Tuesday, March 17, 2009

iPhone OS 3.0 - People rejoice (and cry)

Have you been following Engadget's coverage of the Apple iPhone OS 3.0 Preview Event? If you haven't, heres some info about iPhone OS 3.0.

Apple finally added copy/paste and you can do these actions across apps.

You can copy/paste by:
- double tapping the screen then dragging your finger over text you want to copy or paste over, then double tap to bring up a bubble with the copy/paste options.
- double tapping auto selects text, then an option bubble will come up with the option to copy/paste.
- you can also undo

Other features include iPhone to iPhone connectivity (via bluetooth), a "Voice Memo" app, ability for developers to make custom apps for accessories, Spotlight search, Text Message forwarding, and many more . Engadget has the complete list of features here .

People may be saddened because there is no bluetooth tethering (data/internet sharing from iPhone-Computer) or background apps. There is no bluetooth tethering because they would rather have developers make the apps for it. Apple is working with carriers to get that feature to iPhone users. The reason for no background apps is that it drains the battery too much. This would cause much inconvenience to users.

There was some concern in the Q&A about lag and sluggishness in the OS but Apple assures the press that they are working on it and the OS was only being seen on demo units.

The OS will be available to iPhone users for free and $9.99 USD for iPod Touch users and will be available in the Summer.

-Update-The iPod Touch 2G will have bluetooth. The bluetooth iPod + Nike chip inside the iPod Touch can be unlocked on OS 3.0.