back to article Apple to show off iPhone OS 3.0 next week

Apple will take the wraps of the third major release of its iPhone operating system next week. At a special event being held in Cupertino next Tuesday, Apple will show off iPhone 3.0 and the software development kit that goes with it. The news suggests Apple is continuing with its annual iPhone rollout programme, with the new …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Si
    Happy

    Features

    I don't miss copy and paste much, but I would like to see Flash support (even if it's only basic enough to run the various video websites out there), improved auto-correction on the keyboard and the ability to run some apps in the background (internet radio, Ambience, etc). Oh, and proper YouTube playlists/bookmarks rather than just a giant list of favourites.

    More storage would be nice and the faster CPU of the 2nd Gen Touch would be good. Although obviously new hardware is needed for that. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new 32GB model though...

  2. gautam
    Paris Hilton

    More aggro

    AT least El Reg will have no shortage of news stories surrounding the Iphone hoopla and more reader's angst (or orgasms for fanbois).

    Your pages wil be full in the coming weeks on the merest of speculations.

    PS

    Does anyone know which colour underwear Jobs wears? Now that would also be good tech-news reading here!

    Paris, cos even she would be sick of iphone hullaballoo by now.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Pshaw!

    Windows Mobile won't get a proper release until next year, by which time it will be too little too late. Android still hasn't gathered any momentum outside the geek-spectrum, Symbian is going nowhere but downhill. RIM might have some trouble finding new customers outside of their core business, in spite of their efforts so far. Most people I see with a BB have one because of their job, and no one I have seen has bought one for him/herself. The Palm Pre, now there's an interesting development. Let's hope it won't prove to be Palm's swan song. Some of their ideas are pretty nifty, but I expect many of those will be incorporated in other OS's soon enough (March 17?).

    iPhone has nothing to fear so far. Some of the things I would like to see in 3.0 though: faster, more responsive, better handling of battery, unified mailbox with better spam handling, interconnect with address book and maps. As with the Pre, making an appointment with a certain person at a certain location should deliver enough data that can be acted upon. Allow developers to tie into that, so that if ou have an appointment and the gps+traffic control figures out you're going to be late, it might offer to send an email to the other person. Stuff like that really, nothing too revolutionary. Oh, and better handling of the home screen.

  4. Code Monkey

    Cut and Paste

    OK Apple bashing isn't terribly original* but no Cut and Paste? Really? In 2009?

    * it's fun though

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Cut and Paste

    "OK Apple bashing isn't terribly original* but no Cut and Paste? Really? In 2009?"

    I had no idea that 2009 was the Year of Cut and Paste. Don't remember seeing that one in the Chinese zodiac.

    What was 2008, the Year of Drag and Drop?

  6. Rob
    Linux

    itards

    i discovered my favourite feature yet of the iphone the other day

    the only way to put music on the phone is by making a playlist,

    all seems well and good

    now buy an album on itunes on your phone

    plug it into your pc

    the album you bought on your phone wasnt on the play list you originally syncd, so the songs you bought yesterday have just been deleted

    seriously, how f**king stupid are these people?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Voice Bluetooth

    Let's be honest, they either rushed out the iPhone without the right hardware or had a bunch of clowns to programme it - probably both.

    It just lacks.

  8. Giles Jones Gold badge

    @More aggro

    Simple, if it says iPhone in the title of the article don't click it. What do you expect the article to be about?

    Why does everyone talk about the next iPhone killer? simple, it's the benchmark in terms of user interface and design.

  9. Jim Coleman
    Boffin

    I would move over to iphone from Windows Mobile, but...

    ...there are several things I need iPhone 3.0 to deliver before I part with my HTC Touch Pro. The Touch Pro has all of these already (except 5 which is coming soon)...

    1. VGA or better resolution for decent surfing

    2. On-phone Word / Excel creation & editing

    3. Cut and paste

    4. Bluetooth stereo headphone (A2DP) support

    5. 32GB capacity (32GB microSD cards will be out soon, so it needs to compete here)

    6. An on-phone to-do list

    7. Full synchronization of contacts, calendar, notes, to-dos & email with Outlook

    8. Full synchronization of internet favourites and files with my PC

    9. At least a 3.2MP camera with auto-focus and flash

    10. Video recording

    11. Single-press speed dialling

    12. Flash support

    13. Multitasking

    If this next iphone has the software and hardware updates to do all of the above, I'll consider saying byebye to the Touch Pro.

    Until then, it can go take a running jump. (Yes I do use all of the above functions, ta very much)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @itards

    You don't have to sync a playlist, you can manually add songs onto the phone.

    Give me a shout and I may show you how for a small fee! :)

  11. Jim Coleman
    Boffin

    And another thing....

    .....I forgot to mention...

    14. it will also need to support tethering to my laptop to give it internet access.

    Damn, I knew I'd forgotten something!

  12. Chris Gibson

    Word/Excel

    Some interesting points there, Jim, albeit with the slightly pompous overtones that these kind of posts often have. I can imagine you typing it out and thinking, "Hah! Steve Jobs thinks that I, Jim Coleman, will be switching to the iPhone, eh? Well, let me tell him why I won't! Let's see what he makes of this little list!".

    A higher resolution screen would be nice, as would a better camera / video recording, although I still think that if you want to take a decent photograph, you'll always be better off with a separate camera. Where I do disagree, though, is with the Word/Excel creation and editing. Do you honestly, genuinely write Word documents on your HTC?

    I used to have a Vario II, with the pull-out QWERTY keyboard, and writing a Word document would have been painful to say the least. If I'm away from my desk and need to write a long document, I'll invariably have my laptop with me -- it'll take a fraction of the time to type, regardless of how good the keyboard is on the handset. I don't see my iPhone as a computer replacement -- it's something that's great for checking email, firing off quick replies, managing my calendar and contacts and so on. If you want your mobile to essentially act as a very small laptop, then the iPhone probably isn't -- and never will be -- your best option.

    I think the same goes for copy-and-paste. I can count on one hand the number of times it might have come in handy in the last couple of years. Anyone who can't write a text message or email without getting to the end and thinking, wow, I wish I could restructure that... to be honest, you might just need a bit more practice writing emails.

  13. MGJ

    Bluetooth keyboards?

    Any news on whether it will support a standard bluetooth keyboard? My N95 does, but of course only in portrait mode (well done those driver writers...)

  14. Monkey

    @ Buck Futter

    You are generalising a little too much there mate about Blackberry usage. It may just be the circles I mix in (as with yourself I guess), but only a few people with mobiles I know HAVEN'T had a BB for personal use the last three years or so. Granted about half of them have had other devices since and have little loyalty or preference to any particular handset type, but the rest won't be parted from their BB's. Especially as the multi media aspects have improved so dramatically with the last three or four devices.

    To comment on the article though... I say it's a good thing Apple are bringing out new iterations of the OS each year. It's pushed Symbian, MS, RIM, Nokia etc to get off their lazy arses and do something new with their handsets/ OS. Or at least bring them up to a level to meet the expectations of consumers, rather than just shrug their shoulders with a 'let them live with it' attitude toward cobbled together features and functions.

    I don't like the device, but thank god for the iphone because of what it has done to the mobile phone market. Bring on OS3 of the iphone because as soon as it gets the cut and paste, and software features it is currently lacking, all the other manufacturers won't have any places left to hide or excuses to make when reviewers make appropriate comparisons to the iphone.

  15. Mark Thomas
    Paris Hilton

    I wonder...

    if this will be available as an upgrade for my iPhone 3G? Any ideas, comments, rumours?

    Paris? She got boobies is all.

  16. Anomalous Cowherd Silver badge

    @ Chris

    Are you telling me not one of your mates has texted you asking for someone's number? You've never had to dig up a piece of paper and scribble it down, or dutifully memorize the ten digits, fire up a new text and realise you've got as far as "07"...?

    Hell, I'd prefer vCard support but cut/paste would be a good start.

  17. ForceMajeure
    Unhappy

    MP3 ringtones/txt alert tones etc.

    Why can my sad old Sony mobile (and even older Motorola V3 etc.) use any mp3 I like for ringtones/alert tones etc but my new whizzy iPhone can't? WTF? Yeah, yeah I know I can edit it, convert to AAC then rename etc. etc. but honestly what a palaver compared to my old mobile.

  18. Patrick

    iPHONE

    I have had many windows mobile phones and also most smartphones that have been out over the years. I'm no Apple fan boy but I find its one of the most stable Phones I have ever owned that has the features of any smartphone type device.

    I would like to see picture messaging and better battery life. and buttons on side for track selection when screen is off

    Also like above would like to be able to use internet radio while doing net etc.

    And bloody satnav not google bloody maps.. arghhhhhhh

    And some sort of folder system instead of all the bloody icons over 400 screens lol

    And also to be able to charge the iPhone while its turned off?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @Mark

    You'll find that she hasn't actually.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @Jim Coleman : Here here!

    Your list is so spot on..

    I'd have added an accessible file system to it too, so I could download/upload files over the internet, transfer over bluetooth or wifi. It's nice to have the WinMob levels of system level tweakability, but hardly necessary - I'd settle for a "My Documents" kind of folder access on the iphone.

    If the iphone had a VGA/WVGA screen it'd probably be a lot slower with its current configuration (RAM+CPU). I also suspect if the Iphone had multitasking it'd be quite slow and glitchy.

    There might also be a need for a removable battery so I can carry a spare in my wallet or pocket, but that's a hardware thing.

    Anyway - It looks like I'll be sticking with the WinMob for some time.

  21. Law
    Boffin

    RE: itards

    Tech support to the rescue.... just tick the "Recently Purchased" or "Recently Played" smart playlists to your iPhone sync music options... it's THAT hard...

    Some would be stressed if it ignored specific options the user already set and did what it want, then people would be complaining about how it used up valuable space for music you didn't want on the phone, why won't it just do what they say?! ;)

    Personally, flash doesn't excite me, nor Java... just allow sideways texting, cut&paste, and MMS... I would be more than happy for their engineer to come and upgrade my camera resolution/optics too.. but I highly doubt that would be included in the free upgrade! :(

  22. Simon Says

    @itards

    Errmm my iPhone happily syncs up all my music whether it is in a playlist or not so don't really know what gave you this playlists only idea. It's an option certainly, but not the only one.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    When will we get a Vodafone or T-Mobile iPhone?

    All I want to know is when I'm going to be able to use another mobile phone provider - O2 signal here is so variable you can't walk along the High Street without loosing your caller at some point.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    @iTards

    Clearly, you are far too stupid to use an iPhone.

    "It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt."

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like