With all the excitement surrounding the new iPhone release it’s difficult not to notice the absence of a certain, rumored to be healthy CEO. Apple restructured their laptop line, announced two OS updates, and announced the newest iPhone, all without their captain at the helm. Hopefully Jobs will soon be well enough to return to his handicapped parking space.
We’ve talked Macbooks, we’ve talked iPhone, but Apple spent most of the keynote on OS 3.0 and the new options it yields for developers. All of this stuff was really old hat – landscape keyboard, copy and paste, tethering, MMS. The big disappointment so far is that tethering and MMS are both unsupported by AT&T at this time, with support apparently coming at the end of the summer. Why AT&T can’t get it together when 20 other carriers can baffles me.
One cool feature coming to OS 3.0 on the 17th is “Find My iPhone.” The service, which is only available to MobileMe customers, allows you to locate your phone on a map using a web browser. Using the service you can also send alerts to the phone, including a message stating, “This phone is lost. If found, please call me at [number you specify].” (You can actually input any message, this is just the one Apple demoed.) You can do this from a distance, allowing you, hopefully, to get your phone back. Find My iPhone also includes a sort of kill pill, allowing you to remote wipe the phone. It would be really nice if it could disable the phone, rendering it useless to whomever snags it should they not acquiesce with your return requests. The remote wipe is really there to ensure your privacy, though, allowing you to restore the phone to factory settings from a distance. I smell some nasty pranks coming with this one. Don’t leave your MobileMe password where your friends can find it.
Apple relinquished the stage late in their 3.0 presentation, allowing developers to showcase new functions like GPS navigation and in-game purchases. The developer presentations dragged on, plagued twice by technical difficulties and eating up precious minutes. By the 100 minute mark I would bet few people were hoping for an iPhone update. It came, though, fitting the remaining time slot well as more of an evolution than a revolution.
As good as their word, Apple released OS 3.0 for the iPhone today. You’ll need to have iTunes 8.2 installed for the update, which is free for iPhone owners, $10 for the iPod Touch.
