Today is Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 announcement. I’ll capture my thoughts here.

The iPhone OS 3.0 Announcement Scorecard is pretty good. Hopefully we’ll see more than a few of these!

Here we go:

Overview:

  • 13.7 Million iPhones shipped
  • 800,000 downloads of the SDK
  • 50,000 iphone developers
  • Gameloft has had 2 million downloads
  • 25K apps in the app store
  • 96% of submissions are approved
  • 800 million app downloads (and the rate seems to be stable, perhaps even accelerating)

SDK 3.0 preview:

  • Major update to the OS
  • 1,000 new APIs (is that a good thing?)
  • New App store models (”In-App Purchase”)
    • Buy new game levels
    • eBooks
    • Subscriptions
    • Still uses iTunes store (sweet!)
    • 70% still goes to developer
    • Paid apps only
  • Peer-to-peer connectivity
    • IP over Bluetooth
    • Standard system panel to find other local iPhones running same app
    • Uses Bonjour
  • Accessories
    • Apps will be able to talk directly to them
    • Examples
      • Speaker
      • FM Tuner
      • Blood pressure monitor
    • Over cable or Bluetooth
    • Standard and/or custom protocols
  • Maps
    • Now can be embedded in your application
    • Can do turn by turn directions!
    • The catch - can’t use built in maps for turn-by-turn
  • Push Notification
    • Delayed due to developer requests for new usage models (hmmm)
    • Still don’t like background processes (kill battery life)
    • Seems like previously announced architecture
  • Video & Audio
    • New streaming API for video and audio
    • New API for in-game voice
  • Other things on the SDK slide
    • In app email
    • Data Detectors
    • Shake API
    • iPod Library Access
    • Proximity sensor
    • Open URL
    • Battery API
    • GPS Lingo
  • “2-week” examples
    • What can someone do in 2-weeks with the new SDK?
    • Meebo (IM)
      • Showed chat and push notification
    • EA (games)
      • 10 iPhone games so far
      • “The Sims”
        • In-game purchases
    • Oracle
      • iSnooze ;-)
    • ESPN
      • Alerts
      • Streaming video (auto adjusts to available bandwidth)
    • LifeScan (Johnson & Johnson)
      • Diabetes testing
      • Diet calculations
    • ngmoco (games)
      • TouchPets
        • In-game purchases
      • LiveFire (Multiplayer First Person Shooter)
        • In-game chat
    • Smule (Ocarina)
      • Leaf Trombone (multiplayer music app)

New user features

  • Cut, Copy & Paste!
    • Double tap to select
    • Slide to grab more text
    • Pop up has “Cut|Copy|Paste”
    • Shake to undo (at least in Safari)
    • Send multiple pictures and paste into e-mail
  • Landscape in Mail, Notes, SMS
  • SMS
    • Forward & Delete Multiple Messages
    • MMS (3G only)
    • Can add contacts, photos, audio you receive
  • Voice memos
  • 2 new Calendar types (CalDAV, ?)
  • Stocks
    • News stories & details
    • Landscape view
  • Search
    • Mail!
    • Calendar!
    • iPod Library!
    • Search everything from Spotlight app - nice!
    • Flick past leftmost homescreen to get to spotlight
    • Can run apps from spotlight (yea! no more “lost” apps!)
  • Other new features (from Apple slide)
    • Notes Sync
    • Auto-fill
    • Parental controls
    • Shake to Shufle
    • WiFi auto login
    • Stereo Bluetooth (YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!) (3G only)
    • Anti-phising
    • YouTube accounts
    • VPN on demand
    • Call log
    • Live streaming
    • Create meeting invitations
    • Audio/Video Tags
  • “Missing” features
    • Background apps
    • Video recording
    • Flash
    • Bluetooth sync
    • Tethering

Developer beta available today!

Available to end users in June

  • Free for iPhone
  • $9.95 for iPod touch

App Store

  • 15 new countries
  • 77 total countries

Q&A

  • Why no flash?
    • Can’t tell us
  • Will peer to peer work with other devices?
    • It’s limited to Bonjour (so, Macs, I guess?)
    • No file or music sharing
  • Tethering?
    • Apple is building support in.  
    • Sounds like carriers make the decision
  • Push notification uptime guarantees?
    • No
  • Addressing current OS “lagginess” problems?
    • Definitely
  • Could you serve audio files over bluetooth, could you move them?
    • Very unsure “probably not”
  • Approval process
    • There have been issues, e.g. content available to children.
    • Working with developers to improve it.

Thanks to engadget.com and cnet.com for their live blogs!

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