Mobile Mania

We all know as soon as a feature comes to the iPhone, Apple invented it right? Perfect examples are the full touchscreen form factor, mobile apps, visual voicemail and the accelerometer — all brought to market by Cupertino. But none of those things are Apple inventions, you say? Pfff, clearly you’ve never met an Apple fanboy. So let’s take a look at a few of Apple’s latest mobile inventions fresh from today’s town hall:

• Push notifications for apps. Finally. As you well know, this will allow the iPhone/iPod Touch to be notified (via a badge, text pop up and/or audio alert) in near real-time of a new server-side event associated with a specific app. Think of it as a poor man’s answer to background processes. Background processes, by the way, are not an addition to version 3.0. Apple’s excuses: Battery performance and memory strain.
• Updated media player adjusts streaming video quality according to current bandwidth.
• Cut, copy and paste. That’s right folks, Apple’s polio vaccine. Double-tap to select text, drag start/end points and do your thang. You can even shake to undo/redo edits.
• Send multiple images at once. Joy.
• Wider landscape keyboard availability. Apple finally tossed the landscape keyboard into all native apps, including Mail. Thank you.
• MMS! Hooray for decade-old tech! SMS and MMS are now lumped into a Messages app. It won’t be available on 2G (1st gen) iPhones.
• New calendar features. CalDAV allows for sharing across a bunch of services such as Google and Yahoo and .ics subscription support.
• Flushed out Stocks app.
• Extended search. Users can now search in all key apps including Calendar, iPod, Notes and Mail.
• Spotlight for iPhone. A “search homescreen”. It’s like Spotlight for Mac and it only searches native Apple apps.
• Bluetooth A2DP support (stereo Bluetooth) — but it won’t be available on 2G (1st gen) iPhones.
• Tethering.

Beyond that, Apple recapped the iPhone’s current position of course, with a presence in over 80 countries, 13.7 million iPhones sold, over 16 million iPod Touches sold and the App Store now has over 25,000 apps and over 800 million downloads. The iPhone SDK has been downloaded over 800,000 times by over 50,000 different entities, though over 60% of them have submitted no apps to the App Store. Damn, the Dev Team is growing by leaps and bounds — wink, wink. Apple tried briefly to woo potential developers by showing off how easy it is to develop an iPhone app, also touting that Gameloft has over two million paid downloads to its credit. Bank.

With iPhone 3.0, Apple is introducing 1000 new APIs for developers. It is also allowing developers to submit apps that carry subscription models — one download that is periodically refreshed with new content. In other words, Apple is now facilitating a more continuous revenue model compared to the one-time purchase model. Sell new magazine editions in a magazine app, sell new levels in a game, etc. This model will apparently not apply to free apps, so devs can’t give an app away and then charge for content. Apple has also added APIs to support peer to peer connectivity for things like online gaming via Bluetooth without the need to pair devices. Woo! Beyond that, additions such as the ability to build apps that communicate directly with hardware accessories via Bluetooth or the dock connector, streaming audio and video APIs and the introduction of a Maps API to facilitate app integration (including the use of Maps for turn by turn directions) were covered. Some pretty cool stuff, though nothing earth-shattering.

A beta version of 3.0 is available today to developers and end users will get it some time this Summer; free for iPhones, $10 for iPod Touches. So there you have it folks — discuss.

Apple has quietly introduced a new 4GB iPod shuffle. Not only is it bigger on the inside -- it's smaller on the outside. So small, in fact, that it has no buttons other than the shuffle mode switch. All the controls are now on the earbud cord, which means that you'll be stuck using Apple's own earbuds until third party versions make it to stores.

The new Shuffle also talks to you. Press the center button on the remote (a long press) and the "VoiceOver" function will tell you the name of the song and artist you are listening to, and it will also read your playlists. This is a rather helpful new feature, especially since, at 4GB, the Shuffle is approaching the capacity of the original full-sized white iPod.

VoiceOver speaks 14 languages, from Spanish to Mandarin. The actual speech is generated by iTunes and then schlepped across to the Shuffle when you sync. This means that if you are syncing with a Mac running OS X Leopard (the latest version) you get to hear the rather good robotic voice of Alex. If you are running an older version of the OS, or using a PC you get a rather crappy voice. You can check them out here at the Apple site.

And because the Shuffle now reads out your playlists, you can skip through them until you find the right one. Suggestion: Keep the names short and distinctive to avoid frustration.

The new iPod also loses a couple of hours in battery life -- 10 instead of 12, and costs a little more at $80. The old Shuffle is still available in 1GB form for $50.

The iPhone is set to get a face lift. Apple will show off a new version of the iPhone operating system, iPhone 3.0, on March 17, along with a new version of the phone's software development kit.

While details are scanty, iPhone 3.0 could include features such as universal search, multimedia messaging and an updated user interface.

Apple will unveil the new OS and SDK at a media event for reporters and bloggers at Apple's Cupertino, California, campus at 10 a.m. Pacific time next Tuesday.

"In the past two weeks Apple has introduced new Mac hardware and a new iPod shuffle, for which the company simply issued a press release," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says in a note. "The fact that Apple is hosting an event for the iPhone OS 3.0 shows that it will likely involve meaningful changes to the iPhone feature set."

The software preview event could also be a sign that an iPhone refresh is coming this summer. Version 2.0, the last big upgrade to the iPhone OS, was released in July last year, along with the new iPhone 3G.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will likely be a no-show at the company's event, but Apple won't let that hold it back. In January, Jobs said he will take five months off for medical leave. In his place, it's possible that marketing head Phil Schiller, who keynoted at Macworld, will lead the event; iPhone software chief Scott Forstall is also a likely candidate.

Some bloggers and analysts have been suggesting that Apple will launch a new version of the iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. But new hardware will require an updated SDK and possibly a new version of the operating system. Those speculations align well with Apple's planned event next week.

Among the features that users can expect with the new iPhone OS are multimedia messaging and tethering via Bluetooth and USB, according to the Boy Genius Report. Universal search and a redesigned user interface are also possible, says Piper Jaffray's Munster.

Palm, which is set to release the Palm Pre phone in the next few months, will have universal search as one of its significant features. Universal search allows users to look through the contacts, e-mails and documents on their phone as well as search the internet with a single search string.

Apple's last enhancement to the iPhone software came in November 2008, when it offered Version 2.2. The update offered features such as Google Street Views, improvements to e-mail, and measures to reduce dropped calls.

What would you like to see in the new Apple OS? Let us know in the comments.