New features in iPhone 3.0 firmware

By Aditya Mhatre at 21 March, 2009, 1:28 am

Apple recently released the 3rd iteration of its iPhone software bringing it a few steps closer to perfection. Its amazing how apple not only manages to generate buzz for it’s products but also for the firmware upgrades of its products. The iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade is available free of cost for iPhone users but iPod Touch users will have to shell out $9.95 for the same but I am sure some smart cracker will find a way to get the 3.0 firmware onto the iPod touch for free.

What’s new in iPhone firmware 3.0?

Cut-Copy-Paste: Apple made a lot of people unhappy when they didnt provide this much required function in the 2nd upgrade of the firmware. But complain no more, copy-paste is here. The functionality is will people to copy text from one application and paste it into another and if you have pasted a text by missed just shake the iPhone to get rid of it.
MMS Support: Its funny that In this day and age I am writing about MMS support being introduced to a phone as if it were a major upgrade. This feature should have been there by default but for some mysterious reason, apple kept MMS away. Not that I use MMS or ever see me using MMS but now that it is available, there’s one less thing to complain about.
Bluetooth support: Another feature which should have been there from verson 1.0. iPhone users can also link to other phones via Bluetooth and automatically be connected to wi-fi hotspots. The earlier version didn’t let iPhone sync with Bluetooth stereo or in-car Bluetooth handsfree. It lacked A2DP on Bluetooth. A2DP audio devices, such as stereo Bluetooth headsets, offer better quality audio.
Text Message forwarding: This upgrade has made significant changes in the iPhone’s native text messaging app. users will now be able to forward an SMS, delete a specific message within an SMS conversation and be able to send and received meeting invites and contacts details via SMS.
GPS support: The iPhone will now become a full-fledged GPS device with iPhone 3.0. The new upgrade will enable users to receive turn-by-turn instructions for driving similar to those in use on GPS navigation devices. The feature will be available through apps.
Shake to shuffle: Now, one of the coolest upgrade in the firmware is the shake to shuffle feature in the built in music player on the iPhone. This technology was first introduced in the iPod Nano.
Landscape mode: Users will now be able to read/type email in landscape mode which might make typing longer emails possible.
Push notifications: The upgrade will enable developers to write application which will allow people to receive notifications for an application even when the user is not using it. Earlier this was not possible and the user had to explicitly open the application to receive any updates. Not anymore.
Spotlight in iPhone: The Spotlight the universal search feature is now available on iPhone. The feature will let users hunt for information in multiple applications at once, including notes, calendar and iTunes.

I would say that only shake to shuffle, spotlight and push notification are the real upgrades that are worth talking about. The other features like MMS support, GPS support etc. are pretty much basic features that any high end phone should have.

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