Apple held a developer preview of the 3.0 software update coming to the iPhone. I was watching it on the various live blogging platforms, but primarily on Gizmodo. I felt like a kid in the candy store, almost the whole time, minus some of the demos. It won't be available to most people until the summer time, but I am a developer.
The single biggest feature from a user perspective, for me at least, is the Cut, Copy and Paste. I missed this feature so much, since leaving my Treo and getting the iPhone. In fact, I have learned to totally not expect to copy and paste anything, where now, it doesn't bother me when I need to copy and paste anymore. Weird and scary, but true. So, having this missed feature will do wonders for me.
The new home screen, search and push notifications will also be a major change in how I use the iPhone.
On the developer side, the things we can now add to our products seem to be boundless. Push will be huge, we can do notifications for alerts. Our users will love this. We can also likely integrate calendar data with the iPhone's calendar, again, big plus. I know adding the native maps to our apps, including the Kosher Restaurant app and Siddur user map will be a huge plus.
Now, accessories and how they integrate with apps has blown my mind. They showed a blood pressure machine hooked up to an iPhone, so the machine sends the data to the iPhone for data storage, sharing and charting. A plug in Shofar? A real virtual menorah? A compass accessory for the Siddur for which way is east? Ha!
Also, as a developer, we can now sell upgrades within the app itself through Apple. So if I ever do work out a deal to add English or translation to the Siddur, selling it at an extra "upgrade" fee is possible. Plus, selling app data on a monthly subscription is possible.
Anyway, I just covered some of the many features coming to the iPhone. More details can be found at the SDK page.


Comments
Thanks for posting this. I am a little underwhelmed though - if anything Apple should have apologies for not including copy and paste a year ago and begged for our forgiveness.
A better annoucement would have been a much much much better email client (with a search?).
Otherwise praise Jailbreak :P
Posted by: Dan Milward | March 17, 2009 3:37 PM
Dan, email client has search n 3.0.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | March 17, 2009 3:40 PM
Announced was additional language support. Will Hebrew now be supported? I assume that Push will really help you parking meter app.
Posted by: Sam I Am | March 17, 2009 5:06 PM
No mention of Hebrew yet and I cant get into the dev area.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | March 17, 2009 5:22 PM
Discovered anything interesting going through the documentation?
Posted by: Sam I Am | March 18, 2009 1:05 PM
Hebrew seems more supported by nekudot dont render perfectly yet.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | March 18, 2009 1:13 PM
It looks like Hebrew will now be officially supported including a native Hebrew keyboard. From http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-complete-guide-to-iphone-os-30-for-iphone-and-ipod-touch/
"Amongst other improvements, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, two Portuguese, and Thai keyboards have been added, along with region formatting and localization for new territories."
http://www.ilounge.com/assets/images/news_i30s/33.jpg
Posted by: Sam I Am | March 18, 2009 11:14 PM