iPhone 3.0: Underwhelming, Super-Exciting or Just Right?
I’m back from a long lunch with St. Patrick (or just some old guy in green clothes, I’m not sure which) and just catching up on the Apple iPhone 3.0 Software event. By now, you’ve probably seen that cut, copy and paste made the cut. So did MMS support (for 3G models), stereo Bluetooth, universal search in the form of Spotlight, and Push notifications, which apparently got pushed into this year. Actually there’s plenty more good stuff in there, as you can see from Engadget’s live blog, which was my first stop. No news on new hardware, which semi-surprises me: I figured that some new features might work better on beefier hardware and therefore, we’d hear about a new handset for summer availability. No such luck.
After all is said and done, my first impression rates all this as “satisfactory” from where I stand, and now I’m leaning more towards a Palm Pre when my iPhone contract is up in July. I really wanted to see video recording as well as background applications, but perhaps Apple’s push notifications are a more optimal solution in that area. Time will tell. What do you think?
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What if it was both exactly what I expected and underwhelming at the same time? I just know that Apple showed absolutely nothing that would make me reconsider my almost definite decision to pick up a Pre.
If you’re not reconsidering a decision to pick up a Pre, I’d go with underwhelmed… even if you expected to be underwhelmed! :)
I think the thing to remember is that this was a developer preview. They needed to preview the new features of the OS to the developers. The iPhone is transitioning from Apple providing all of the wow and now letting the third party developers come up with the applications and uses for the iPhone. They’ve opened up a number of things (access to hardware, Core Location, etc) which were previously not available. I believe that you will see the next great thing for the iPhone come from a third party developer.
just a laugh … more “de commerce du pomme” as expected.
As a developer the interesting developments to me were allowing turn-buy-turn directions (although map licensing is not included and can be expensive) and the ability to integrate maps into application.
There was some nice opening up of access to existing hardware that wasn’t before. I’m sure we’ll see some interesting developments with some of it.
But I’m not sure it should really qualify as 3.0, more like 2.5.
Best benefits for me, A2DP, cut n paste, google map access for location apps,push notifications.
Now, I recently took the plunge to jailbreak my iPhone and it really demonstrated the potential of this device. Half decent video recording, multitasking, live uplink videostreaming, enhanced camera photos – all are technically possible and I certainly understand people’s frustration with Apple’s incremental implementation of smartphone features.
After this, it’s clear: Pre for me. As far as 2009 goes, it is now established that Palm has leapfrogged Apple. Pity, because I like the iPhone 3G hardware, but the software is just so behind, and now we know that 3.0 isn’t going to change that. The Pre is like the deep functionality and professionalness of Windows Mobile combined with a GUI that blows even iPhone out of the water, all on a brand-new forward-looking OS. It’s a no-brainer.
Will I be able to finally, FINALLY, itunes sync to my dam computer over bluetooth. Saw stereo bluetooth (A2DP I assume but it could be some apple proprietary crap you never know with theses guys). Sounds like the BT stack is still being heavily restricted which disappointing and we still have to wait to find out the when it will show up and what will actually be in it (how long back was pushed announced?). Given how long it taken them to get this car color me unimpressed but at leas the slightly moved the needle.
Yeah, about what I expected. However, it was pretty underwhelming and essentially cements my decision to buy a Pre the next time in the market for a phone. The only thing that might tempt me otherwise is the HTC Magic/TMobile G2, since it’ll invariably be at least $300 cheaper (under contract) than an unlocked GSM Pre.
I love my iPhone, but, come on….3.0 means something revolutionary, and this update just wasn’t.
Definitely underwhelmed! That won’t change anything to my desicion to stay with Winodws Mobile.
Will you be writing a “Why 78% aren’t impressed with iPhone OS 3.0″ article?!
You definitely should do this, as you did with Windows Mobile 6.5 (which got me even more excited than iPhone OS 3.0!).
In order to catch up with the Pre (and even WinMo in my opinion!) Apple has to deliver the iPhone jailbroken out of the box! It would be so easy… but after all, that’s Apple…
The real question is – between iphone 3.0 and pre will anyone pay any attention to Android?
I really hope either Nokia or RIM buy Palm, that way the pre will get a good back and we get one less non-relevant contender in the smartphone OS race.
it’s actually both underwhelmed and what I expected. I new Apple would finally enable copy&paste, MMS and stereo bluetooth. I am surprised the iphone will not be able to,combined messege app’s, contact aggregation app’s, nor will it have a notification system, or have the ability of multitasking app’s. Those are the “Pre like features” many were expecting. Lastly, the Webcast seemed more like a gaming/app convention.
As a developer I am super excited. The biggest thing for me is the peer 2 peer networking support. Finally we’ll have adhoc gaming like the Nintendo DS.
I think you’re all being a bit harsh. If you bought an iphone then you bought it without all those features and you bought it knowing they wern’t there. Now you’re getting a whole bunch of stuff for free (even the 2G owners) and you’re winging about it. Seems like a pretty good deal for me.
I’ve had several WinMO phones and not one of them has ever provided an upgrade even when they could, not even an offer of a paid one. And the upgrades to my Palm Treo were big fixes because it kept crashing. So I’m very happy. Thanks Apple.
Unfortunately, its not free for iPod Touch owners!
–Ken
“I’ve had several WinMO phones and not one of them has ever provided an upgrade even when they could, not even an offer of a paid one.”
That’s because WinMo has always had all of those features…
Haha, good one! Also, Winmo devices give you the ability to install apps up the ying-yang. Nothing has to be approved by Microsoft. Everything Apple demoed today is fools gold.
Actually, WinMo is often customised by either the carrier or the manufacturer. So often WinMo is hobbled quite badly. WinMo is “capable” of everything but it’s definately not always enabled.
This is on par with what I expected. iPhone is quickly moving away from Apple provided apps and to 3rd party provided apps and this preview from a developers perspective cements in that Apple will spend a lot of time implementing API’s so that they work properly and are useful to developers with less risk of deprecation or changes down the line.
Backgrounding is a non-issue, and I think it is funny to see a website that is essentially devoted to “cloud computing” be so critical of one of the perfect uses of cloud computing by Apple, in their push notification service. Push notifications are always a battery drain, unless the phone can get access to non-IP network services (such as those used by SMS) etc.
While I would prefer to have my phone listen for any push message I have owned enough other phones with 3rd party apps listening for push messages over IP that I know this kills the battery. For example, WinMo never offered a good implementation of IMAP until 6.0, I always had to have a 3rd party email client. If you leave on Push IMAP on those clients you go from a full day of use to about 4-6 hours of use. Blackberry doesn’t count because they “cheat” with their implementation of push email. Without their carrier based push cheat, BB would not be able to achieve a full day of battery usage either.
So while heavily criticized, I see the user experience value of their notification system. More importantly, from a develop side, their push notification system alleviates the developer from spending a lot of time optimizing battery life with a Push based app. Instead you just plug into an already optimized push API system and you are done for the day. If you have ever programed an app for other platforms that receives message over IP, you will understand what a pain it is to optimize these for battery life.
Also this cements in a hard road ahead for the Pre. Since the Pre is only on Sprint for 6 months and because of the huge developer backing of mobile OSX, Palm is going to have a long road ahead to catch up with enough user base to be a true competitor to the iPhone. I actually think gaming and apps like mobile ESPN could be the big road block for the Pre becoming as popular as the iPhone.
If Palm were serious about competing with the iPhone, they should reconsider their 6 month exclusive with Sprint, or I’m afraid next year we will mostly be discussing iPhone vs. Android.