While many people took the time, money, and resources to upgrade to the new iPhone 3GS, some of us who either weren’t compelled enough by the minor updates or simply didn’t have the money stayed behind. One of the best parts about the coming of the new iPhone was the release of iPhone OS 3.0 which brought with it numerous enhancements for legacy users of older iPhones. The initial honeymoon was great. People were affixed to their devices trying out all of the new features that 3.0 brought. However, spending a few minutes on Google will show you that in the last few days, the inter webs are full of horror stories and tales that the honeymoon may potentially be over.
Now before you sell your background capable smartphone, put on a cape, and try to jump off the roof, you may want to first know that it isn’t true background processing still. It isn’t like you can open an app such as Pandora, get the digital bits flowing and then back out of it expecting to still hear your streaming audio goodness in the background. That still won’t fly. However, thanks to mobile Safari’s latest updates and support for HTTP streaming audio and video. So what exactly does that mean? Well, the HTTP streaming audio and video support isn’t a new revelation. The background support of those HTTP streams is however. All you have to do is point mobile safari to a streaming site such as tune.mobi, hit the home button, and get ready to enjoy background streaming audio. While this background support comes exclusively for Apple’s in house mobile Safari app and the features within, don’t get to worked up over any false hopes of it spreading to 3rd party apps within the near future. Still, those craving Apple approved background support should be happy with what they can get. Is HTTP audio/video streaming where it’s at? Shout out.
Source: Into Mobile, MattRaskin
For some time now, background application support and the iPhone were something that didn’t quite go together, an oxymoron if you will. However, thanks to the developer community, Backgrounder, an app available on Cydia brought the ever elusive background support to virtually any and every app. Because backgrounder isn’t an “officially” supported app by Apple, naturally some bugs do exist such as certain apps occasionally “dropping” their background support upon close. Apple meanwhile has been adamant from day 1 that background 3rd party applications and even a few Apple applications would not be permitted. What’s Apple’s deal?
For many Apple fanboys and Steve Jobs Fan Club members hoping to see their dear leader return to the helm of the fashion forward tech giant will have to come to the realization that it just isn’t the right time yet. Apple themselves have outlined the way WWDC is going to go down with Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing leading the charge, not everyone’s favorite black turtle neck model. As always, the event will kick off at 10:00am PST (they like sleeping in) which equates to 1:00pm for all of you east coasters. Highlights of the event will include an “in-depth” look at iPhone OS 3.0 as well as a much deeper look at OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. So, while the news that ‘ol Stevie boy won’t be there will leave many searching for the Kleenex, at least you have the 3.0 and Snow Leopard to look forward to, right?
Source: Engadget, Apple, Image Source
If the iPhone’s measley 2 megapixel camera just isn’t doing it for you and your fed up with the blurry, overexposed crap called a picture that Apple’s jesus phone currently puts out, you may have something to look forward to in OS 3.0. iPhone.ru has some pictures showing the differences between objects photographed in iPhone OS 2.2.1 and OS 3.0. You’ll notice in the particular cat picture above that it is obviously less blurry. On top of better blur control, overexposures and black detail levels are also said to be fine tuned. If Apple doesn’t take the chance to bump up the next gen iPhone’s resolution, it appears that at least the new phone will benefit from some updated brain code. iPhone photographers, do you care?
Source: Gizmodo, iPhone.ru
The iPhone 3.0 preview last week revealed to the world Apple’s latest up and coming goodies that are on track for this summer. Copy & paste, multiple photo email, etc were some of the many *average* features added to the iPhones feature set. Even with more than 1,000 new API’s, some developers are still asking for more. Not more as in more complex, but as in make it easier to make simple apps. Neven Morgan details on his blog that for something as simple as a pill reminder app to take your meds you have to use the push notification service effectively walking around 10 city blocks just to go to the house next door. Why is Apple making it so hard when they can just add an API to use the existing clock app and tie into that to have notifications? Why make even simple things exponentially harder when Apple is all about simple? Hopefully Apple addresses this as they still have a couple months. What’s your take?
Source: Alley Insider
Apple/iPhone fanatics have a new reason to jump up and down in uncontrolable excitement as today it has become common knowledge that Apple will be previewing iPhone OS 3.0 on March 17th. Besides the iPhone OS itself, a new version of the SDK will be shown giving developers something to salivate over while they wait for all of the new iPhone goodness to arive. So what are you hoping for in iPhone OS 3.0. We already know copy/paste and background notifications are getting a big nod. What about widgets ala Palm Pre? New method for managing apps? Get the guessing machine goin’ folks.
Source: Boy Genius
