iPhone 3.0 OS – what it means for you and me

Well, there was no new handset and no or touch tablet revealed but Apple seems to have done it’s homework in time for last night’s release of the iPhone 3.0 OS software. A lot of people have branded the event an exercise in catch-up but I think that rather trivialises what is an important upgrade both for users and new customers in terms of the iPhone experience.

Critics of Apple’s multi-million selling handset are often quick to jump on the lack of copy and paste, MMS and video capture that prevent the Jesus Phone from being the full package. The fact is that the thing’s damn near perfect by current standards anyway but it’s good to see that Apple is responding to the weaknesses and continuing to improve their product all the same.

Step this way for details on excatly which of the holes they’ve plugged…

Well, the first bit of bad news is that there’s still no video function but otherwise it’s thumbs up. You can now send picture attachments using MMS, you can copy and paste, and you can even receive push notifications as well.

The MMS and copy and paste are self-explanatory but the idea of the push notification is that you can receive alerts from certain applications while using other applications and without having to use up the battery of them both running in full at the same time.

Naturally, a lot of the benefit of the 3.0 software is for developers with the launch of a new SDK and a host of improved features, but the final piece of interest for the end user is the introduction of peer-to-peer functionality. Now the minute I hear those words, my mind flicks to file sharing and swapping music tracks.

Somehow, I’ve a feeling that Apple isn’t going to let that happen but you will at least be able to send documents and pictures and such direct to other iPhone users. Expect surprise photos of sexual organs turning up and stories of the latest iPhone virus spreading like wildfire.

The software is available to developers now and to the public as a free upgrade if you have an iPhone this summer. It’ll be a slightly mean $9.95 for your iPod Touch.

For full details and right good read of all things iPhone, head over to iPhonic where the handset master general, Andy Merrett will tell you all about it.

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