

IPhone 3.0 has copy/paste, subscriptions, micropayments, P2P, maps, push, MMS, etc - sama
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/17/live-from-apples-iphone-os-3-0-preview-event/#continued

======
ryanwaggoner
_"Now as I said before, 3.0 brings a lot of new features for devs, but for
customers as well... starting... with cut, copy, and paste."_

Freaking finally!

~~~
jgfoot
> Q: Why did copy paste take so long?

> A: Scott: It's not that easy. There were security issues.

What does this mean? Could it be that with the iPhone, letting the user
extract his own data from the device and sending it elsewhere is a "security"
issue?

~~~
tptacek
You download a game. You play it once. It sucks. Meanwhile, it has stolen your
mail and phoned it back home to a server in Uzbekistan.

~~~
jonursenbach
What does this have to do with copy and paste?

~~~
cameldrv
If you don't trust the free game you just downloaded, you might not want it to
be able to see what's on the clipboard. Some number of people will copy their
passwords, credit card numbers, etc. If an app phoned home the contents of the
clipboard every time it ran, eventually it would pick up some private
information.

~~~
tptacek
And that's assuming that all the bug gives you is the cut buffer. Who knows
how they were actually led to implement the feature?

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bemmu
In-app sales will create huge new opportunities.

~~~
wvenable
From the talk: "Would you like to purchase one rocket launcher for $0.99?"

Oh yeah, that sounds like fun. Clearly a great way to be nickle and dimed to
death in every application and game.

~~~
henning
_Clippy resurrects himself from the grave and pops up in the lower right-hand
corner_

It looks like you're trying to copy and paste. Would you like to pay $0.05 in
order to continue? (Continue/Cancel)

It looks like you're trying to exit the application. Would you like to pay
$0.10 in order to continue? (Exit and pay $0.10/Stay for free)

It looks like you're shocked to see one of Microsoft's worst creations pwn
your smartphone. Would you like to buy a copy of iLithium(R), iXanax(TM), or
iProzac(TM) to soften the blow for $14.99? (Yes/No)

~~~
mechanical_fish
I have no idea why this is getting downmodded. _I_ think it's funny. Maybe I'm
just the right age for this joke.

Obviously, this in-app payment feature was _deliberately_ designed to be
irritating and intrusive. Apple understands that, to most paying customers,
the word _micropayment_ carries a connotation of _being slowly and
imperceptibly bled to death by vampires_. So perhaps Apple is going to provide
an API which turns in-app charges into such an ugly, flow-shattering
experience that nobody could possibly miss it -- which will also compel app
designers to avoid using this feature unless they really have to.

~~~
wensing
It's possible to abuse any feature. I can see this being a win-win for apps
that provide layers of value (depth).

------
nanexcool
"So, copy/paste in iPhone 3.0." Applause. Applause for a feature that every
other device in the world has. Odd.

I like the iPhone, but this sums up what I usually feel about Apple products.

~~~
sounddust
Applause because the iPhone went from being the best mobile phone despite
lacking major features, to the best mobile phone which lacks no major
features.

~~~
pietro
Except for video recordings, a decent camera, and built-in TV. Those are
standard features in high-end phones in Europe and Japan.

~~~
pxlpshr
Built-in TV is a joke.

~~~
c3o
Why?

~~~
pxlpshr
Have you ever seen an OTAHD antenna? That's why.

~~~
nailer
N95 has TV in some countries. The phones look like ordinary N95s. So do lots
of Telstra phones in Australia (which have Foxtel content) and KDDI phones in
Japan. They just look like ordinary phones.

~~~
Andys
The Telstra phones stream the Foxtel content digitally over NextG if I'm not
mistaken?

~~~
nailer
Yup, and good point: there's no need for a giant antennae, anything capable of
3G can do it fine.

------
comatose_kid
SDK access to bluetooth? Awesome, I have a client who is dying for this...

------
markessien
Lovely. This was a good platform choice for me to specialize in. I'm going to
start consulting almost exclusively for the iPhone, I think it's a platform
that will be here for a good number of years.

------
pxlpshr
Apple really nailed it with version 3.0, and this is going to be great for us.
I suspect you'll start seeing app acquisitions as companies look to acquire an
'install' base to leverage.

Time to get crankin' on more apps before gold rush 3.0!

~~~
pxlpshr
Actually, hmm.. I wonder how the subscription will work for apps that were
formerly free. I assume users will be able to 'opt-in' for subscription
payment, otherwise the application is deleted.

~~~
GHFigs
In-application payments are not available for free applications.

------
Hexstream
96% of apps are approved? I thought the percentage was much lower. Vocal
minority, I guess.

~~~
jedberg
That doesn't say how many times the app had to be resubmitted before approval.
I'd like to see the rate of _first time_ rejections.

~~~
jshen
A lot of first time rejections are for things like version numbers not
matching. I'm not sure why that stat would be meaningful.

~~~
wizard_2
Well obviously we want to know more about the procedure and why apps get
rejected. We want to know what Apple's "moral" objections are and what values
they're trying to impose. Its more a fear of some agenda (beyond no apps that
don't work or do harm) that we may not agree with then stats.

It also doesn't hurt to know what your chances are to have trouble.

------
ObieJazz
3.0 SDK beta is available today. Can't wait to try it out.

~~~
kylec
Is the new OS just for registered developers? How hard would it be for a non-
developer to obtain and install it?

~~~
ROFISH
It's just the normal $99 developers. Originally the betas were limited to
whoever Apple liked.

------
ivankirigin
30% cut to Apple isn't a micropayment, which I define as tolerating small
amounts without getting killed on overhead. You could just charge their credit
card and get better rates. I wonder if they'll block services like
<http://tipjoy.com> from working on the iphone.

This sounds like an awesome release though.

~~~
auston
I agree. If I wanted to sell an ebook or mp3 or something at a competitive
price it would be impossible!

------
sama
Search mail on the server!

------
jonursenbach
I'm pretty pissed about MMS not being available on the 2G, but at least now
with copy & paste I can finally copy those fucking username/password
combinations that AT&T sends me.

~~~
gamache
If I understand correctly, MMS will be available on all iPhones once they are
updated to iPhone OS 3.0. It was never a hardware issue.

~~~
jonursenbach
Nope.

\---- Engadget ----

11:27AM "What about the rest of us? iPhone OS 3.0 will be available this
Summer. A free update to all of our iPhone 3G customers. And it works on the
original iPhone. Now the hardware has changed between these two devices. For
instance, A2DP and MMS won't be available on the iPhone 1st gen. It's also
available for the iPod touch... for $9.95."

\---- gdgt ----

11:27AM - “As a bonus, we’ve enabled it to work on the original iPhone. The
hardware’s changed though: MMS and A2DP won’t be available on the original
iPhone.” iPod touch users: $10.

11:27AM - App Store will be in 77 countries. 3.0 ships this summer for free.

~~~
generalk
This sounds like bullshit to me: maybe I'm just naive, but I can't for the
life of me figure out how a cell radio could be unable to transmit MMS.
Especially the radio in a phone released after 2002.

------
charlesju
Shouldn't we wait until this conference is done before posting?

~~~
sama
too exciting

------
zhyder
Lots of great updates, but still missing voice-activated dialing, which
-especially with a bluetooth headset- is very useful when driving.

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quilby
Why does apple not just release new features once they finish working on them?
Why do they have to do these we-got-new-features press conferences and only
release new features on those dates?

~~~
Angostura
Not suprisingly, Apple releases the SDK ahead of the OS release, so that
developers get some lead time. When the SDK is released it also announces the
new features.

------
jhatcom
Can someone tell me why cut and paste is so much in demand? I've been using my
iPhone for months and never once needed it. Are folks editing documents on
their iPhone?

~~~
sounddust
What I need it for the most is when someone sends me the details of a social
event via mail/facebook (location/time/phone number) and I need to SMS it to
my friends. Currently, the only way to do so is to flip back and forth between
the apps and rely on your short term memory.

It's also a pain the other way: When you receive an SMS and you need to
facebook/e-mail/SMS others (although SMS forwarding solves 1/3 of this
problem).

------
pieter
I wonder how the dock accessoires will influence the app review process.. Will
you be required to ship your accessoire to Apple before they can review your
app?

------
jodrellblank
Does the MMS and voice notes support mean you could record a voice message and
'text' it to someone?

Like the best bits of voicemail and SMS combined? Because that would be
brilliant.

~~~
modoc
Yes, it does exactly that!

~~~
dans
Wow. How very revolutionary! You have been able do that with any standard Sony
Ericcson phone, for the last 2-3 years, and probably Nokia, HTC, Samsung too.
My phone has a button that says "reply with voice-message" and then using some
sort of black voodoo it gets sent over mms.

I like it when apple make a new product, strip it of most basic features and
then when they finally add the long missing features... It's like the second
coming of Jesus.

~~~
modoc
I never said it was revolutionary. It's a feature that seems useful, is new to
the iPhone, and will be a free upgrade. As a very happy iPhone owner (and yes
I've had Sony Ericcsons, Motorolas, Nokias, HTCs, etc...) this upcoming
feature (and the others) are something to look forward to.

If Sony Ericcson offered a software upgrade that did over the air sync of all
my MobileMe data, that would be great, and I can't imagine saying "well I've
been able to do that for ages with my iPhone" to a happy Sony Ericcson owner.
Why does it have to be a battle?

------
dustineichler
What was the report on streaming video? if it's what i think it is, this is a
huge win for qik and others.

------
mattmaroon
As a serial app developer (though not yet on that platform) here's what I
heard from Apple's announcement:

crap, crap, crap, IN GAME PAYMENTS!!!, crap, crap, crap.

P.S. background notifications

I guess that list would probably be a little less bland were I an iPhone user.

------
martythemaniak
The app store upgrades look like they might be useful for many devs, but to be
honest it's pretty hard to get excited over features other smartphones have
had for many years.

And of course, users still don't have access to their own data.

------
statictype
Wait - the iPhone didn't have bluetooth before this update right? Which means
it was enabled entirely through a software update. Is that right? I know it
operates on the same frequency as wifi but still, that's pretty impressive,
isn't it?

~~~
allenbrunson
the iphone had bluetooth before this update, but it was very limited in scope.

------
ajju
How good the micropayments feature is depends on what their cut on it is. 30%
off of 10 cents hurts a lot more than 30% off of $10.00

~~~
cubicle67
um... in what way does it hurt more?

~~~
ajju
That was a stupid comment made in haste that makes no sense as written. Paying
apple 30% of repeated micropayments _would_ hurt me more than the alternative,
but it's only true in my context - which is probably not the context Apple
designed their system for.

I am building a web based service which can also be accessed via an iPhone
app. I get paid via micropayments which I aggregate till they reach a certain
dollar amount and then process via a payment processor that charges me in
single digit percentages. I have the option of using iPhone's own micropayment
service but that would hurt me more.

~~~
pieter
The advantage of using the app store micropayments is that users don't have to
create a new account somewhere and put their account info in your app. They
can use an existing system and have a one-click buy option.

It'd be interesting to see what will result in more profits. My guess would be
that the increased sales on the iPhone outweigh the higher profit margin with
the alternatives. This depends on your costs too of course (e.g. copyright
fees for eBooks)

------
phd_student
is iphone 3.0 only for the iphone, or is it supported on the ipod touch too?

~~~
robotron
There is a fee for Touch users to upgrade.

------
tocomment
So you can embed Google maps in your app, but you can't use their maps? Isn't
that kind of worthless?

~~~
peregrine
You can use their maps just not for turn-by-turn. Read the article. :)

------
raptrex
yay for turn by turn apps in the future

~~~
briansmith
It will be interesting to see what happens with the pricing for those apps. On
other phone platforms, they usually cost over $100 _per year_. A very bad
deal, IMO.

~~~
pieter
I came across <http://sygic.com/press/press_12.3.09.html> which says it'll
release its software for the 3G for $79

------
jodrellblank
Soooo ... how long until people pull the SDK apart looking for indications of
a new iphone with new hardware in June?

Software streaming video support, the recent release of an Apple patent on a
front facing camera behind the screen - are we likely to see a videophone
iPhone?

~~~
briansmith
What would a new iPhone be like? Slightly smaller? Better battery life? Better
camera? It would be hard for many people to justify dropping $600+ for just
those features. And, Apple has demonstrated with these major firmware
revisions that they can upgrade the device substantially; I think consumers
will get angry if they start withholding firmware updates as an incentive to
buy more hardware. That is exactly what Nokia does, and I don't think Nokia's
customers are going to take it anymore after seeing what Apple's doing here.

Very soon the typical smartphone lifespan will be close to 5 years and the
average computer lifespan will be close to 10 years. The Nokia N95 was
released in 2006 and there are still tons of people rocking that device. There
will probably be millions of people using the iPhone 3G and the Nokia N97 in
2014 (maybe as hand-me-downs).

~~~
ryanwaggoner
_the average computer lifespan will be close to 10 years_

Is anyone here using a computer they purchased in 1999?

Come on.

~~~
zandorg
I'm using a 2nd-hand Omnibook 6100 which is from 2000-2001. It still works,
and it's pretty powerful, so I use it.

The main reason is the CPU fan almost never comes on, so it's a quietbook.

Other than that, software development on it is a good idea, because if it runs
adequately on this, it'll run blazingly faster on a new machine!

------
trezor
From the report:

 _No backgrounding, no multitasking, no unobtrusive notifications. No copy and
paste (yet), no MMS, no video. Really pretty minor stuff thus far._

Ah well. So we have push notification, better hardware access and the maps API
opened up for apps. Not totally shit but not revolutionary either.

~~~
jws
You really should watch the live coverage by someone other than engadget. I
get the impression their person is only there because someone threatened to
fire him if he didn't go.

If you are looking for information the Grumpy Mystery Science Theater version
of the live cast is the wrong place to be.

~~~
ashr
I recommend watching the video on apple.com

------
asciilifeform
Micropayments: death by a thousand cuts. Mark my words.

~~~
icey
Well, that's kind of the nice thing about capitalism. If you don't like it,
vote (or rather don't vote) with your wallet.

~~~
asciilifeform
This would be true in a market driven by competition between near-equals.

The iPhone does not live in such a market. It has no competition. It is a
qualitatively different product from other mobile phones. The cell phone
market is divided into two categories: the iPhone, and inferior crud. If Apple
were to begin charging $0.05 per "click", you would have to cough up the dough
or switch to a vastly inferior product. Therefore, your ability to "vote" with
your money is academic in this case.

~~~
GHFigs
You're conflating the third party iPhone application market (which can now use
micropayments) with the cell phone market as a whole. That's very odd.

~~~
asciilifeform
Micropayments could easily become a standard, expected part of iPhone use. In
that case, there will be no escape.

I suspect that this is the reason why Apple users complain about (even
potential!) misfeatures to the extent they do. In the product categories where
Apple is a player, from the standpoint of a dedicated Apple user, they have
zero competition. All of the supposedly competing products are far below the
quality-of-user-experience Apple users are accustomed to. Hence the perception
that there is nowhere to run to.

~~~
GHFigs
_Micropayments could easily become a standard, expected part of iPhone use._

Given how everything else you've said hinges on this assumption, you'd have
done well to explain why you think it is true. Like I said before, you're
conflating two markets.

As it depends on all players in a highly competitive market suddenly colluding
to degrade the user experience upon which they all depend without anyone
realizing that they might stand to make more money by not doing so, I find it
hard to believe.

~~~
asciilifeform
> degrade the user experience upon which they all depend... I find it hard to
> believe.

Try this on for size:

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/11/apple-brings-
hdcp-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/11/apple-brings-hdcp-to-a-
new-aluminum-macbook-near-you.ars)

~~~
GHFigs
That doesn't relate at all to anything I've said, nor does it reinforce your
point in the slightest. Your powers of misinterpretation are astounding and I
hope that in the future you will refrain from commenting anywhere on anything.

~~~
asciilifeform
The linked article shows an instance of Apple unambiguously, deliberately
degrading user experience. It is highly relevant to this discussion.

~~~
GHFigs
That's not a discussion that any of my posts in this thread have been about.

