Our Reaction :: Apple Special Event March 17th 2009

Posted on March 18th, 2009. Written by Arron.

Yesterday Apple held the long awaited software event which centered around the next release of the iPhone OS software, iPhone OS 3.0. I’d like to let you know what I personally thought of the event, and let you in on some of the new features you should expect this summer ..

Hot on the heels of their last ever Macworld conference, Apple yesterday took to building 4 (on campus) to unveil iPhone OS 3.0 in front of the world’s media. Before we get into what was announced, let’s look back at what was widely rumored before the event ..

Just a week ago Apple officially announced the event, and from then on people have been rampantly spreading rumors everywhere. The most requested feature was one from the phones of 2003 – Copy and Paste. Such a simple function, yet one wanted by millions. Next was MMS, again most of the phones on the market could do MMS from get go, leaving Apple in the dust with the iPhone and iPhone 3G. Other feature requests included the implementation of video recording (seen as though the capabilities and concept of have been proved to work on jailbroken devices), and tethering.

Before I get into the event and delve into some of the announced features in a little more detail, if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably know by now that this morning I too was accepted into the iPhone Developer Program. This gives me ability and license to legally submit applications to Apple’s App Store – and I probably don’t have to tell you how majorly excited I am about it!

Now although I do have iPhone OS 3.0 Beta installed, for legal reasons I’m not allowed to divulge any information which may breach the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) confidentiality agreement I signed. According to Apple, the software is due for release publicly this summer.

Below, I’ll be taking a look at the new features using mainly imagery and information from technology columnists such as Engadget and Gizmodo, while also giving you my initial opinions of the OS and changes to the iPhone SDK.

In-App Purchasing
At the start of the event Scott Forstall warned us all that this was a “Major update to iPhone OS” – and he wasn’t kidding. After the usual roll over of statistics on the App Store sales, Scott explained that developers had approached Apple wanting an easier way to provide in-app updates for end users. Cue In-App purchasing, the first announcement of the day. Now personally, I think I’d rarely use this feature, but it does add a string to Apple’s bow, at the same time benefiting developers too.

With just one of the 1000 new APIs in iPhone OS 3.0, developers are now able to introduce level packs and UDC (User Downloadable Content) within the same application. You may have seen the recently released online multi-player game iMob [App Store]. This used a concept of extension ‘packs’. Now this was great, but the problem was that each pack was a separate app in itself, which in turn wasn’t great for the App Store.

With the new system, developers will be able to include these extension packs in the main app. If you like the look of some new levels for a game, you can now just tap to buy them. The API then talks to the App Store, you enter your iTunes account credentials as normal and the packs are downloaded straight into the app.

They also announced that to keep things relatively simple, they’d be limiting their In-App Purchasing API to working in ‘Paid’ applications only. This was interesting because it brought out one of Apple’s App Store Policies – All FREE applications on the store will remain FREE, forever.

Peer to Peer
Bluetooth A2DP! – Finally. An enhanced version of Bluetooth which is actually useful. Also new? Peer to Peer connectivity. Games developers have faced this problem for quite a while. How do we offer a multi-player experience outside the realms of Wi-Fi? Before iPhone OS 3.0, developers had to rely solely on Wi-Fi connectivity to provide any form of multi-player experience and interaction within their games. This posed issues such as the requirement of having an accessible Wi-Fi hotspot to play, and also battery life used during being permanently connected to the network during game play.

Using Apple’s patented Bonjour service, developers will now be able to integrate wireless connectivity between iPhone and iPod touch users, through the use of Bluetooth (A2DP).

Accessories
Previous to iPhone OS 3.0, Apple has been reluctant to let 3rd Party developers use their applications to drag data from the dock connector and attached accessories. Yesterday Apple announced it was adding support through a new API. Developers will now be able to build applications which can fully interact with and control dock connector accessories. – This is great news for both accessory manufactures such as Griffin Technology, and even better for developers!

Maps
Next on the list was a little update to Maps. Scott explained that with the help of Google, Apple had been able to create what they deemed to be “an incredible application”. To give more accessibility to developers Apple announces it would be opening the Maps API for use in app development. What this essentially means is, leading developers of navigation software (for example TomTom) can now embed the maps directly into their applications.

What’s even better though is Apple is giving access to Turn by Turn navigation, with the only snag being you have to bring your own maps to the party. Scott explained that due to licensing agreements with Google, Apple doesn’t own the right to make Google’s map titles available for use.

Push Notifications
“Now, we’re a little late on this one” – The words of Scott Forstall as he announced Apple’s Push Notification service which was scheduled for September 08. We covered the delay a while back. The question is — What took Apple so god damn long?! Quoting myself from back in September 08, here’s a brief insight into what push notifications actually are:

” The Push Notification Service. When Apple finally get round to launching this service, it will be fantastic. Basically, it will allow independent ‘dependent’ applications (for example, instant messaging clients) to alert you to new status updates, in one of three ways:

* Sound notifications

* Visual notifications (SMS Bubble Pop-up)

* Badge notifications

… even when the application is closed.

Now you might ask; How does Apple intend to provide updates and alerts to an application which is closed? Because closed application’s can’t run outside of their sandbox to provide these alerts, right? Normally, yes, but this is where the Push Notification Service comes in. Apple explained that the service would become a cloud. Developers could then build the API for the cloud into their application’s and back-end servers, and push status notifications up and through into the cloud. They would then keep a persistent connection to your device, and this would allow application’s like instant messaging clients to alert you to incoming messages without relying on SMS or E-mail services.”

- Source

Scott explained that for push notification to work as they wanted it to, it had to scale. The example shown was that of Meebo.

Meebo, who also confirmed they were creating a native application for iPhone and iPod touch, announced it had (on average) 35M people sending up to 5 billion instant messages per month – That’s a lot of messages, and this is just one app out of potentially thousands. – They explained this is what Apple had been doing for the past 6 months. They simply had to completely re-architect the system to cope (and meet) with the sheer amount of data demand.

Consumer Focused OS Features
As well as blueprinting the future path for developers, an Apple event would not be an Apple event without announcing some juicy end-user features too.

There were a few new features in iPhone OS 3.0. 100 in total, but none were met with the sheer amount of elation of the crowd, than Copy and Paste.

Copy and Paste
A feature present in all phones the world over since 2003, it has to be said, Apple are probably the only company (in the world) who could of got us excited about this. Never the less, it’s here. Copy, Cut and Paste. It’s system wide and it works in and between all of the Apple stock applications. Not only that, Apple are adopting Copy, Cut and Paste standards, so if your using the standards in your own app, your good to go.

Landscape Keyboard
Rejoice! Landscape e-mails and SMS are now a reality. Apple has integrated the landscape keyboard into every crevice of the new iPhone OS 3.0 software. It’s in Mail, it’s in the new ‘Messages’ app, it’s in Notes, Safari. Everywhere. Also, the API is now included in the new iPhone SDK, meaning third party apps will also get landscape keyboards. It’s something which in my eyes has been needed for a long time. I mean the introduction and ability to turn off auto-correct (which came with 2.0) had made it less of a immediate necessity, but really for the devices to excel in the corporate environment. It was a must.

Calendar & Stocks
Nothing much new here. Not for normal Jo’s like us anyway. Apple added two new industry standards to Calendar, which are great for sharing calendars appointments. These included: CalDAV and Calendar subscriptions. In Stocks Apple made available the ability to see details of stocks, and switch out to landscape mode to see a bigger graph of your overall stocks – a nice addition.

Search & Spotlight
This seems to work very, very well. Basically Apple have listened to it’s user base. We wanted a way to search in applications. Search our music, videos and apps. Now we can. Apple have added search to all their major applications which come with the iPhone, but also they’ve created a new home screen. In iPhone OS 3.0 you can flick left and you’ll be brought to Spotlight. From here you can search your entire iPhone for anything, just like on a Mac. What’s even cooler is, the content doesn’t have to be on your iPhone. If your connected to a network it’ll search that too!

Overall
I loved this event, and I can’t wait to get to grips with the all new features of iPhone OS 3.0 and the iPhone SDK. There are so many features which need exploring. Some may say these features should have been here in the first place. At the beginning. At 1.0. They’d be right, they should of been, but they weren’t.

Yesterday, Apple brought the iPhone up to the standard of the Smartphone. Finally.