iPhone 3.0 Rumor Round Up!
We’re just under 24 hours away from when — we presume — Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall (and maybe Tim Cook?) will take the stage at Apple HQ and preview iPhone OS 3.0 and the new SDK. We’ll be meta-live blogging it, of course, tomorrow at 1pm EDT/10am PDT, so be sure to join us for the TiPb take on things as they unfold. In the meantime, here are the current rumors, broken down by functionality… after the break!
Cut/Copy and Paste
This appears to be the big one. Daring Fireball wished for it back before Macworld (and reminded us they did) and MacRumors backing up the notion. Kevin Rose told us that it will work with pinch-able quotation marks, and Daring Fireball just weighed in again with:
I have no idea whether this description of how it’s going to work is accurate, but from what I’m hearing Copy-and-Paste is a big part of tomorrow’s announcement.
Push Notifications/Background Multi-Tasking
Another from Daring Fireball’s wish-list that MacRumors backed up, but Kevin Rose said he hadn’t heard anything about.
Apple, of course, promised Push Notification back at WWDC 2008, and targeted it for September, though that deadline came and went. Did they fear a MobileMe-style launch failure? Did they realize true background tasking was necessary? Were they just delayed? Or will this still be missing in action come Tuesday?
MMS
No sooner had Apple announced their March 17 event than Boy Genius Report claimed they’d heard MMS was coming in the update, but again Kevin Rose said it wasn’t anything on his rumor list.
New App Launcher
Back on Daring Fireball’s site, and yet again given weight by MacRumors, another new addition was wish-listed as an improved, rebuilt SpringBoard, aka the Home Screen that houses all the application icons. Rumors say it could include categories, like the old style PalmOS did.
Tethering
Apple and AT&T said they were working on Tethering, and Boy Genius Report claims we’ll finally see it with iPhone OS 3.0. Will it be free? $20 more a month? Not even show up? Guess we’ll see…
Compass
In addition to backing up Daring Fireball’s wish-list, MacRumors added a feature of their own: compass. The Android G1 already has this functionality — when you turns, it knows and can turn the view with you (for example, in incredibly cool looking Google Street View demos).
Does the iPhone need this? It would make sense if turn-by-turn GPS apps were about to appear in…
Premium App Store Plus
Rumors of a “premium” App Store Plus have been around for a while, and Wired just brought them back into the spotlight. It would be a place where $20 apps could enjoy attention exclusively away from the free fart apps that glut the regular old App Store. Office suites, high end games, and Turn-by-Turn GPS are all fantasies for this type of deployment. (Though reader antonoj did point out G-Maps has mysteriously disappeared from the App Store, and will “return soon”…)
One More Thing…
Apple being Apple, the only thing we can really expect is the unexpected. Usually we get some of what we want, and some stuff we never even dreamed of. This time last year we ActiveSync, 802.1x, remote wipe, Cisco VPN, the first SDK, the App Store, and a host of small improvements in 2.0 (which grew over 2.1 and 2.2).
Could we even get an interim iPhone OS 2.2.1 or 2.3 to tide us over? This time tomorrow, we’ll know for sure!
March 16th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I hope we’re not stuck putting our apps into categories (I doubt it). That’s just more unnecessary clicks for me. I don’t have a hundred nonsense apps confusing me, so I’d like my home screen left as it is now.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I’m dying to find out. Please…2.3 to tide me over.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Sounds good. They still need to improve some of the current apps as well. Hopefully we get at least one more update (2.3) before 3.0 !
March 16th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
no one is even mentioning the the ten inch tablet??? would make sense with the 20 dollar apps.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
isnt “the TiPB” a little redundant, is that not saying “the The iPhone Blog”????????
March 16th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
i am mainly curious about the stuff the supposedly will put the iphoneOS on par with Pre WebOS
agree that a 2.x firmware before 3.0, if takes 3 months, is a must
March 16th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Please allow forwarding of contacts via SMS. Friends are agog a phone of this magnitude cannot do something that simple.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
If Apple is going to allow Office Suits, and charge a premium for them – they’ll need to change the way Mail works with attachments. I just want iWork!
March 16th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Ability to attach pictures or YouTube links (from history or bookmarks) while IN the mail app. Come on!!!!
March 16th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Cut and Paste is tied with another must have feature I don’t see any press on. WE NEED DIFFERENT EMAIL SIGNATURES FOR DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS! This is so basic, I can’t believe they didn’t fix it eons ago. FIX THIS NOW!
March 16th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
No tablet! (!!!!)
I can’t wait for tmrw but don’t think Apples gonna deliver. Maybe some stuff but definately not all. Apple needs something in these shuning times.
March 16th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
There are 3 showstoppers for me. 1. The ability to forward a contact/forward an SMS. 2. The ability to copy/paste details from Mail into Safari and back again. 3. The ability to setup push/fetch from other apps like RSS readers.
I would also be please to see any improvements in battery life and signal switching.
March 16th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I didn’t realize there was an 802.11x! Now, I’ve heard of 802.1x…
March 16th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
1pm is so far away…;(
Just hoping there is a bunch of cool stuff and that we don’t have to wait forget to get it. Also, that they don’t block the live blog streams at work. Are you guys gonna put up something early so we can be ready?
March 16th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
@tim 802.11x means 802.11n 802.11g 802.11b and any future denominations this standard(802.11x) will produce in the future
March 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
one more nice thing would be the ability to remove some of the inbuilt apps we never use or have replaced with purchased ones – for example remove stocks as I personally prefer Bloomberg’s app.. and they could be restored if need be from itunes
March 16th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Gmoney – or you could just put change all of that in settings.
March 16th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
George is gettin’ upset!
March 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I don’t mind categories. At first I did, but this would undo the limit of 9 pages, if I’m not mistaken.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Landscape SMS !
March 16th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Oh yeah, this update better let me assign ringtones to differnt alerts.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Just checked Apple’s website under the iPhone section, and there was a link for iPhone 3.0 software preview and when I clicked it I was directed to the “hmmm, the page you requested does not exist” after a few minutes of checking my email I went back to Apple to copy the link and it was no where to be found. Looks like they are getting ready for the preview!!! 1 o’clock cannot come fast enough!!!
March 16th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I hope they include a better camera, or maybe opera mini in the app store…
March 16th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Better camera would have to wait for new hardware, not software like 3.0.
Opera Mini?! Um, no proxy browsers for me, thanks. Anything that breaks SSL is a non-starter. Even Opera Mobile has no value add I can see on a handset…?
March 16th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Turn by turn directions is surely coming. There can’t be any other reason for TomTom and everyone else to have no app in the store. Apple must be working on something, probably with Google, to really hit this market. It makes sense, with satnav hving taken off so well, Apple has the hardware, Google has the maps!
March 16th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I see the ability to add a photo to an email from the email app. Maybe multiple photos as well.
Copy -n- Paste would be awesome
MMS even better. It’s funny I don’t really MMS except on the iPhone. I realize it’s because the iPhone takes better pics.
Turn by turn would seal the deal for me. I pay AT&T/Telenav $10/mo for it because it works so well.
March 17th, 2009 at 5:06 am
sms landscape, so simple,