iPhone 3.0 update drops today: Here are the features

The iPhone 3.0 firmware will officially be released today, adding many user-requested features as well as a few new ideas.  The update, which was announced in March, is free for iPhone users but will cost $9.99 for those upgrading their iPod touches.

The biggest, most-requested addition has to be MMS.  And, unfortunately, this will also come as the first disappointment to those on the AT&T network.  A multitude of carriers worldwide will officially support MMS on the iPhone today but the sole provider of the iPhone in the U.S. won’t be one of them.  Instead, AT&T users will have to wait until “later in the summer” for MMS capabilities.  That said, those who will be able to start sending and receiving MMS messages today will be able to send and receive picture messages as well as receive video messages.  Those who pick up the new iPhone 3G S later this week will be able to send video messages, as well.  Finally, the iPhone will now have the one feature that most free phones have had for years.

Cut, copy and paste was another heavily requested feature ever since the iPhone first dropped in 2007.  Why this wasn’t included in the first place, no one is sure.  With the addition of this feature, copying and pasting things like contact information, URLs and directions will now be possible.  This should make the lives of a lot of people much easier.

One feature I’ve been wishing for ever since I got my iPhone?  A landscape keyboard for every application.  Thanks to the 3.0 upgrade, this is now a reality.  No longer will the landscape keyboard be reserved for the Safari browser - now every Apple application on the iPhone will support it.  That means landscape in email, SMS, MMS and so on.

Push notifications will also debut after a confusing absence.  This feature was supposed to be unleashed months ago but, for some reason, Apple decided to hold back and wait for the next major OS release to include it.  Applications will now be able to receive push notifications in the background, meaning apps like AIM will no longer be totally useless on the iPhone.

Spotlight Search now comes to the iPhone in the 3.0 release.  For those unfamiliar with Macs, this is basically a system-wide search program.  It will allow iPhone users to search across multiple applications and databases, such as their song database, contacts, calendar entries and more.  For those with a LOT of info on their iPhones, this feature will probably be a savior.

There are a few other features making their way onto the iPhone in 3.0, such as over-the-air media downloads (tv shows, movies, audiobooks, etc.), Find My iPhone (which uses MobileMe to track the exact location of your lost or stolen iPhone) and other improvements made to existing OS features (a better Safari, for example).  With all these new features, iPhone users should have a lot of new stuff to play with over the next few days.

June 17th, 2009 by Shawn Farner | Posted in Uncategorized | (0)