iPhone Firmware 3.0 Preview (liveblog)

AppleToday Apple will be previewing new firmware for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple has said nothing about features yet but there are lots of rumors including copy & paste and MMS (picture messaging). There’s also rumors of a better graphical interface to keep up with the new Palm Pre. The event will start at the following time: 7:00am Hawaii, 10:00am Pacific, 11:00am Mountain, 12:00pm Central, 1:00pm Eastern, 5:00pm London, 6:00pm Paris, 2:00am Tokyo (March 18th)

Firmware 3.0

10:53 About an hour to go!

12:03 Event has begun, info should start flowing here shortly

12:03 iPhone Sales = 17 Million, with iPod Touches total = 30 Million (in 80 countries)

12:04 800,000 downloads, 50,000 joined paid SDK

12:06 They are talking about the guy who made Trism. Hey, we know him!!!

12:08 25,000 apps in the App Store, 96% of apps submitted are approved, 98% of those have been approved in 7 days or less

12:10 1000 new APIs for SDK

12:13 3.0 software is a major update to all iPhones and iPod Touches

12:14 New feature called In App Purchase that allows developers to sell eBooks, Subscriptions, more levels, etc from inside the app (this is a great way to do demos, just release the game free with one level and make users pay for the rest.

12:17 New feature called Peer to Peer connectivity via bluetooth (not just for games)

12:19 Developers can now make software for their accessories that allow control from the iPhone or iPod Touch. Accessories can talk to the phone over the dock connector AND over Bluetooth
accessories

12:22 Use of Google Maps inside of apps

12:24 Google Maps Turn by Turn!!!! (developers have to use your own map for this, this is not part of the maps app) Turn by turn will work on the iPhone from someone like TomTom, can’t use Google maps though, licensing issue, so bring your own maps.
turn-by-turn

12:25 Push Notifications!!!!!! This allows for live badge updates, pop up text and sounds from any app! (even when it’s closed) This is better than apps running in the background because it saves battery life. Only one connections stays running to Apple’s servers, and those servers interact with the app’s developer server saving the iPhone performance and power.

12:32 Meebo will be a native app with notifications! It’s a multi-account IM service.
meebo

12:35 Sim 3 Coming to the iPhone, starts at $0.99. Playing music from the stereo in the game lets you play music back from YOUR music library.

12:39 Oracle also coming to the iPhone. Quote from Gizmodo: “Bore-acle, I mean, Oracle guys are talking about their app that tracks supply line and blah blah chain blah blah company stuff.” LOL

12:41 ESPN score updates via push notifications & sound effect (thing your iPhone is blowing up now with texting & Twitter?)

12:44 New video streaming feature adapts quality based on your connection. (scaling video)

12:46 Johnson & Johnson Glucose monitoring connects via bluetooth to device (or via cable). Also tracks food & exercise.
gluecose

12:52 ngmoco (Rolando Developer) announces two games: Touch Pets, a social pet simulator & LiveFire, a multiplayer first person shooter over 3G or Wi-Fi & in game chat.
fps

12:57 Side Note: this feature of being able to buy more in games (more guns in a first person shooter or shirts for my fake pet dog) is going to make Apple a lot of money and possible make games suck. Developers will nickel and dime you to death with upgrades. :(

1:00 Smule has a new multiplayer app called Leaf Trombone (World Stage).

1:04 COPY AND PASTE!!! and cut too! Double tap onto a bit of text and it automatically places a “CUT, COPY, PASTE” bubble above your current selection. Double tap to paste later. (shake to undo) Works everywhere, 3rd party apps, SMS, HTML in Safari.
copypaste1 copypaste1

1:05 100 other new features.

1:11 You can send more than one photo at a time via email via copy and paste.

1:13 landscape in “all key applications” including Mail
landscape

1:14 Text is now called Messages, you can forward and deleted messages individually.

1:15 MMS (Picture Messaging)

1:17 Voice Memos. Send via email or SMS, edit on iPhone,

1:18 Messages can send a lot, seems locations, contacts, etc.
sms

1:19 Adding CalDAV support

1:20 Spotlight! Search Anywhere!!! iPod, calendar, email, notes. Swipe left from your 1st home screen to access. Searches for apps and can be used as quicklaunch.
spotlight

1:25 More: Notes Sync, audio/video tags, live streaming, shake to shuffle, Wi-Fi auto login, Stereo Bluetooth, LDAP, iTunes account creation, YouTube ratings, Anti-Philshing, Call Log, Parental Controls, Media Scrubber, OTA profiles, VPN on demand, Languages, YouTube subscriptions, YouTube accounts and Encrypted profiles. Also, auto-fills.
100-features

1:28 Developer Beta available TODAY

1:30 iPhone free update this summer, iPod Touch $9.99, Old iPhone doesn’t get MMS or Stereo Bluetooth

1:31 Q&A time…

1:34 Q: Why did copy paste take so long? A: Scott: It’s not that easy. There were security issues.

1:35 Q: Flash? What are you doing? A: We have no announcements on that topic today. But there are a lot of video streams we can handle. h.264 works great. We’re adding HDTV streaming for audio and video. We think there’s a lot of great video solutions for a single clip.

1:37 Q: Could you qualify a bit more about the peer to peer. It looks like it’s available across the two iPhones, but it seems like you can do peer to peer with other Bluetooth devices. A: It’s really a device to device Bluetooth connection. It’s 1 to 1, using Bluetooth and Bonjour to discover other devices and make an IP connection.

1:39 Q: So you can control devices…? A: Yes, now you can, with third-party applications, control and talk to accessories over Bluetooth.

1:40 Q: Are people able to trade files, say music files, through iPods with this? A: We have the ability to stream music to music apps, and certainly a game, if a game has music in the game it would be possible to download game tracks, but if would be confusing for other music apps with downloadable music that isn’t through the app store.

1:40 Q: Where do you stand on tethering? A: Scott (explains tethering): We’re supporting tethering in the client side, we’re building that support in. We’re working with our carriers around the world. We are building that support in.

1:42 Q: Will you make any promises about push notification in terms of uptime? A: No. We want it to be as reliable as possible.

1:42 Q: On the voice memo, you mentioned external microphones. Could you use an off-the-shelf microphone? A: Yes absolutely, if you have an adapter.

1:44 Q: Bluetooth human input device profile for external keyboards. A: We have nothing to announce.

Q: Can you say anything about hardware? A: No.

Q: Netbooks? A: Nothing to announce today.

1:45 Q: Are you addressing some of the performance issues in the current OS? It’s slightly laggy, are you going to address that in 3.0. A: We absolutely take performance very seriously. These units, because they’re tethered, are more laggy than you would see on standalone units. But we are addressing lagginess in our own ways.

1:46 Q: With Peer to Peer, can you have access to other iTunes library? A: You can see them but I don’t know if you can play them.

Q: Is there a physical hardware problem on the first-gen iPhone that prevents it from doing MMS. A: It’s a different radio, so it is a physical issue.

1:47 Q: Do you have any comments on your app acceptance scheme? A: We want to help developers to be very successful. We also want a store where customers feel great about the quality of what they get, so the numbers speak for themselves.

Looks like that’s it! We’ll go into detail more later on our site of each of these features.

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Comments

  1. MICHELlota says

    When is 3.0 firmware will be released????

  2. Cortland1998 says

    30 minutes!

  3. event has been going on for an hour, why no news on 3.0?

  4. it just started 15 minutes ago.

  5. Is there a live stream of this event?

  6. Boodlezoid says

    Yes, as they have on the top of the blog. Different times for different places!

    I think that App Purchase could be a very effective concept for Apple!

  7. PUSH NOTIFICATIONS YES YES YES YES

  8. and hold on…hasn’t it only been 32 minute in?

  9. Cody Witmer says

    Has the price for the Ipod Touch been announced yet?

  10. Half the rumours are looking unlikely at this point.

  11. Cody Witmer says

    i mean the update for the ipod touch

  12. STINKS STINKS STINKS Apple is slipping no copy and paste no MMS no video no phone!!!

    Just a money making unit buy an IPHONE so that we can sell you stuff this STINKS!!

  13. What’s the link to the live feed????

  14. Well this has been lackluster so far. Mainly minor updates, more like a 2.3 or 2.4, not 3.0.

    Meh.

  15. COPY PASTE CONFIRMED!

  16. YAY….native copy and paste!! Though, I thought hclipboard was decent.

  17. apple good job!!!!

  18. MMS IS LAUNCHED YEA Now 3.0 is phone app please do video please

  19. Man…now we are getting to the good stuff! Picture Messaging, Copy and Paste, Ladscape view in Mail, SMS, Note, Stocks…,Voice Memos, Search!

    Now for Tethering and Video Recording!

  20. Now the main question on everyones mind that nobody is saying is…. when is 3.0 going to be jailbroken???

  21. WE HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL JUNE???? LAME APPLE… LAME…..

  22. no mms for 2G iphone shucks

  23. GUESS GUESS new Iphone announced in June with dual core processor and the ability to do video phone. Video on new IPHONE to be sold in July?? Just a guess on my part.

  24. BS, for the questions being asked now:

    Jason Chen:
    Q: Is there a physical hardware problem on the first-gen iPhone that prevents it from doing MMS.
    A: It’s a different radio, so it is a physical issue.

    It’s all DATA 0’s and 1’s the old iphones can do it if they wanted it to.

  25. I don’t think 3 months is that long of a wait. I already have the features through cydia that I wanted. 

  26. Lewis England says

    I got confused about this last time with 2.0…..why do iTouch people have to pay for the firmware when they arent getting as many features as the iPhone gets?

  27. Wait… so no MMS for 1st Gen. Phones??? This stinks.. this really stinks. Why can’t apple make it for eveybody?

    • i totally agree! T__T

    • The answer to this is written above: It’s a different radio, so it is a physical issue.

    • Correct, but I think that’s crapola.

    • yea but im guesing swirlymms will work now for 1st generation and second generation.. because mms is now allowed so if it is allowed then swirlymms should work on AT&T… that would be my guess… so 1st generation iphone there is still hope ;)

    • Yablonsky says

      They have MMS apps for jailbroken iphones already….it CAN be done….they are just being lazy.

      I say this because I did not get my upgrade….I gave mine to my wife…she has the 3G and I still have my 2G.
      :0

  28. So….if we can search for apps, does that mean that the “148 limit” is gone? Because you can /load/ 148+ apps, but they won’t display…so will they come up in the search?

  29. Yea,
    Did they address the issue of the iPhone holding a finite number of apps? I heard a rumor about 3.0 including App., folders. Did they mention anything about that?

  30. So will there be a new iPhone to accompany this firmware like 2.0 had the 3G?

  31. The changes are better are more what we wanted than what we thought we were going to get. Kudos to Apple.
    There will always be people unhappy regardless of what they did in 3.0

  32. First of all let us all tip our hats off to Cydia and Installer for making us enjoy our iphones and ipod touch. And to apple, it’s about time so all the credit does not go to you.

  33. Hope there’s a new iPhone to come with the new firmware since the stereo bluetooth won’t work with my old iPhone. (Come on SweetTooth, make it work for us!)

  34. Hey guys, what’s the chance of apple putting out a 32 gig iPhone with video phone capability?
    I’m new to iPhone, only been with my baby for 8 months now.

  35. Terrific post however I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this topic?
    I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more.
    Appreciate it!

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