Apple iPhone OS 3.0 Event: Live Blog

Q: Could you serve audio files over Bluetooth, could you move them onto a device?
A: Scott: "I think probably not -- you couldn't move the file." Panel is a bit unsure of the answer.

Q: Are you addressing any of the lagginess with the new OS? We saw some of that when you loaded SMS up.
A: We're definitely addressing those issues. The units you saw today are demo units.

Q: Push notification, will you make uptime promises?
A: No.


Q: Where do you stand on tethering?
A: Scott (explains tethering): We're supporting tethering in the client side, we're building that support in. We're working with our carriers around the world. We are building that support in.

Q: Will peer to peer work with other devices?
A: It's limited to Bonjour, peer to peer devices.

Q: Flash? What are you doing?
A: We have no announcements on that topic today. But there are a lot of video streams we can handle. h.264 works great. We're adding HDTV streaming for audio and video. We think there's a lot of great video solutions for a single clip.

Q: Why did copy paste take so long?
A: Scott: It's not that easy. There were security issues.


Q&A Time...


Engadget [11:28AM]: "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." "So Scott and I would like to thank you, we look forward to the amazing things devs will do. Thank you very much."

Engadget [11:26AM]: "We've designed this to be compatible with the thousands of apps, but you should start testing this for your apps now." "We're adding 15 more countries to the App Store list... it will be available in 77 countries."

Gizmodo [11:25AM]: How are they going to make it available? First as a Developer Beta available TODAY. It’s going to be available to everyone in the iPhone developer program. You can join now and get access to the beta. They’ll have more info on their website as well.


Engadget [11:24AM]: "So, iPhone 3.0. We are so excited about this. In-app purchase, peer to peer, accessories, Maps, push notifications, cut/copy/paste, landscape, messages, Voice Memos, Calendar with support for CalDAV, new Stock app, Search, and Spotlight." "And these are only a few of the hundred new features. We're really excited about this. It is a major update. And I can't wait until you get your hands on it. And to tell you about it, Greg Joswiak."

Engadget [11:22AM]: "So, Spotlight. A single place to search across your phone. And again, these are only a few of the new features that come with 3.0. Like Note Sync, you can sync your notes." Auto-fill, YouTube accounts, stereo Bluetooth! WiFi autologin, anti-phising.




Macworld [11:19AM]: Here we are on the Home screen; flick to the left, and it brings up a search field. Searching for "Tim." It's searched across the phone: first hits, contacts. Tap the result and it takes you to the Phone app. The next items are are applications. If you have over 100 apps, like Scott, it makes it easy to find and launch an app quickly. The next items are the iPod library; tap it and it launches the iPod application. Also notes, emails, and even a calendar appointment. That is Spotlight.


Engadget [11:16AM]: "Next, support for subscriptions. This is the .ics format."

"Next is Search. In iPhone 2.0 we added search in contacts. This year we're adding search to all of our key applications, starting with Mail. You can search from, to, subject, and all headers. If the message isn't on your iPhone, you can continue that search on the server."

"Search in Calendar: you can search for appointments. Also, search in iPod, song name, album, artist... and, search in Notes, by the title or body."

You can scroll to the Spotlight homescreen. It lives in your pages of apps as its own page. It works as you'd expect, a keyboard is present and allows you pop up anything you're looking for in a list below a search box.

"But we didn't stop there. We thought, wouldn't it be nice if there was a single location you go to search all of these. That's what we did. We created a new home screen to do this. We call it Spotlight."

Engadget [11:16AM]: "Next, Calendar. In iPhone 1.0 we supported personal calendars, last year, we added Exchange support, and this was always up to date. This year we're adding support for two additional calendar types. The first is CalDAV."


Macworld [11:16AM]: Brand new application. Voice Memos. Shows an image of a fancy microphone and a VU meter. You can use the built-in microphone or an external microphone; you can edit the memo by trimming it and share it via email or MMS.


Engadget [11:14AM] Ah, you can finally add contacts. It sounds like you can add photos / audio to your devices if you get them in a message. "Next, Voice Memos."

Macworld: Messages app now can forward and delete messages, either individual or multiple messages. But the BIG news is support for MMS. Not quite as much applause as for copy and paste, but it's pretty good. You can now send and receive photos, contacts (using vCard standard, and automatically add it to your contact list), audio files, and locations. All of this is in the existing application.

Engadget [11:13AM]: "Next: messages. We have a fantastic text messaging app in the iPhone. You can now forward and delete multiple messages. But the big news is that we're adding support for MMS."

Engadget [11:11AM]: Cocoa Touch controls have support for copy/paste built in. "Next... landscape. We always had support for landscape built in. This is great for reading stories. A lot of users love that landscape keyboard. We're now taking that to all of our key apps. Starting with Mail." "So, landscape in Mail. It works in Notes and SMS as well."


Gizmodo:


Engadget [11:10AM]: "Now there's one more thing I want to show you. And that's photos. We've had requests to send more than one pic at a time -- and now you can do that." You can select multiple pictures and copy them, then paste them into a mail message. "So, copy/paste in iPhone 3.0."

Engadget [11:09AM]: "But this works for 3rd party apps as well. Here's wikimobile." We're going to go ahead and say that copy/paste probably works the same here. Yes -- it does.

Macworld [11:06AM]: Copy can also copy HTML. "I'd like to swim with the dolphins." Put the finger and it'll select the block. It uses the same technology that helps Safari figure out how to zoom in to detect the blocks. Paste back in Mail and it pastes in the rich text. Say you didn't mean to paste that? Shake to Undo! Shake it again and you can redo paste. Undo and redo multiple times.





Engadget [11:05AM]: Double tap on text, and it automatically selects it -- then puts grab points at the end of the selection, with a cut/copy/paste bubble above it. To select a whole block, you double tap, slide with your finger or thumb (you get a new magnifying glass), and pull across what you want to grab.


Gizmodo:


Engadget [11:04AM]: "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." Big cheers.

"We've been working really hard to design an easy to use interface for this on our touchscreen display. Let me demo it for you right now."

Gizmodo:


Engadget [11:02AM]: Dr. Wang and assistant are about to perform "a little ditty" for us. "This is Phantom of the Opera on Leaf Trombone." It is. It is! Everyone is giggling. This is pretty amazing, just because it's so intensely bizarre.

Gizmodo:


Engadget [11:01AM]: "We're excited about the new iPhone SDK." He's showing off an app called Leaf Trombone World Stage. Seriously. It's a multiplayer music app.

Engadget [10:58AM]: Scott: "Next, is Smule. The creators of Ocarina. Here's Dr. Ge Wang."

Gizmodo:




Macworld [10:56AM]: Ohh, he got 0wn3d. "If you've ever played a first-person shooter for the first time, that may have happened to you." Now he can pull up his friend list and invite Neil in. He can bring up in-app commerce in the meantime and buy a rocket launcher. Now Neil's in the game, and the two of them can try tot ake on their adversary. And they rocketed their adversary into tiny little bits. Well done.

Engadget [10:56AM]:
"Okay, now let me show off something completely different. LiveFire. I'm going to launch into a global game server." Wow, this looks pretty sweet.

Engadget:


Macworld [10:53AM]: TouchPets has an embedded social network, and you can have playdates with other people's dogs on your device. It's Scruff and Mittens jumping around and yipping. They're going to go to the TouchPets store and buy Scruff something slick so his playdate will go well. There are more item packs that can be purchased, which brings in the in-app commerce API, and the new itmes are now available.

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:52AM]: Scott: "So imagine the possibilities. We think this is profound. Next, ngmoco -- a startup that develops games exclusively for the iPod touch and iPhone. Here's a sneak peak of some new games they're working on." Neil Young... not THE Neil Young. "Hello. The iPhone is a wonderful device. It's always on, always with you, and always connected to a network. It can enable new types of social play and new gaming experiences." "We're going to show you two games today we're working on. The first is Touch Pets, and our multiplayer first person shooter, LiveFire."

Engadget:


Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:46AM]: They're showing off glucose testing (finger pricking). "Given the new SDK, the meter can transmit that data over Bluetooth or the dock connector."

Macworld [10:45]:
As an example, here's a 15-year old girl who's diabetic. She has to track glucose and give herself insulin injections. It's lunch time: how much insulin does she have to take before her meal? She could have to do that 6 times a day; now using the iPhone, it can transmit information to her iPhone. Then she can mark the reading as Fasting, Before, or After meals and add notes. She can then go into the meal builder, and pick the type of food she's going to have and use it to estimate how much carbohydrate she'll be taking in; then it can help calculate the insulin dose that she needs. Better than having to do it in her head.

Engadget [10:45AM]: Scott: "We had to spend the last six months retooling our push notification for companies just like ESPN."

Now they've brought up Anita Mathew from Lifescan (a Johnson and Johnson company). Please show the iPhone heart surgery app / hardware combo. No... just diabetes testing. This could be cool.

Gizmodo [10:43AM]: With this app, ESPN doesn’t have to deliver for the “lowest common denominator”, and can scale video quality automatically using the API so you get the best quality for your connection type.

Engadget [10:42AM]: Ooh, they're showing off streaming video right now. Looks pretty damn nice. "We're using the new media player that automatically adjusts quality for the bandwidth you have."


Engadget [10:40AM]: Soctt: "JD Power ranked the iPhone number one for business users. Next up, ESPN."

Macworld [10:36AM]: Here's an alert on the iPhone that gives him a notification that there's low inventory on the teddy bear production line (Critically low on plastic eyes!). Can use the Mobile Sales app to help contact the vendor who will be most affected, and can send an email directly from the app without having to leave the application.


Engadget: "Next up, Oracle."

Gizmodo:


Macworld [10:34AM]: EA is showing off The Sims and what they get from iPhone 3.0. They've got a sim named "Scott." They're customizing and upgrading his house, but there are new items that get populated over the network, where you can pay real money (via in-app purchase) for items. Scott likes his new stereo; and now they can play music from the iPod library via the stereo in-game.

Engadget [10:34AM]: Scott's back: "As you can see, that's a perfect candidate for iPhone OS 3.0." "Next, EA." Travis Boatman from EA. "Hey everybody. We announced Spore a year ago at the original SDK launch. The game we're showing off today is The Sims."

Gizmodo [10:32AM]: What are some of the new features in meebo? First, there’s IM networks like AOL/MSN, networks like Facebook, plus proprietary social networks like MyYearBook. Why did meebo wait until now to build an app? Because they felt like push notification was NECESSARY to make a complete IM user. They wanted to allow an easy way to quit out of the app and get back in “when it made sense.”

Engadget [10:30AM]: "For the first time, Meebo will have a native iPhone app. Our goal is to let user's communicate with friends regardless of what network they're on."


Gizmodo [10:30AM]: From meebo, it’s Seth Sternberg, the CEO of meebo.

Engadget [10:29AM]: "So, push. Preserves battery life, maintains performance, optimized for mobile networks." Well, there goes background apps. So much for those predictions, but not surprising at all. Apple wasn't about to upend their whole architecture. "We're introducing a new API for streaming video and audio. And we're adding an API for in-game voice." "This is a big update for the iPhone SDK. Now, a couple of weeks ago, we called a few devs to see what they could do in two weeks..." Ah, this old gag! Should be interesting.


Macworld [10:27AM]: This model scales, Scott says. IT's a unified generic push notification service for all developers. They've also optimized it for mobile networks. Since they're in over 80 countries, with over 25 carriers, there are a bunch of different configurations. Apple does the hard work keeping the connection open. "And now it's really scalable and ready to go."

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:26]: "Here's how it works. Let's say you have an IM app. While it's running it's connected to your server. But, when you quit the app, you no longer have this connection open. That's where our push service comes into play."

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:25AM]: "We were asked, why don't you do background processing? It's bad for the customer. It drains battery. We've been testing this, and running some background processes on some phones. We took a popular AIM client, and we just let go in the background -- then we measured the standby time. And it dropped by 80% or more." "We took a 3rd party Push notification system -- battery life only dropped 20% in the background."

Gizmodo:
“There’s a few reasons for this, most importantly, within two months of launching the App Store, we had over a thousand applications on the app store.” Apple had to completely rearchitect the structure for the push notification in order to make it scalable for all the millions and millions of downloads. But now, they’re “good to go.”

Engadget [10:24AM]: "Next, Push. You know, we're late on this one."

Engadget [10:23AM]: "Now there is one more thing we're doing with maps. We're enabling developers to use core location for turn by turn directions." Again, finally! "Now there is one catch -- bring your own maps. Due to licensing, we can't use those tiles in maps." So turn by turn is coming.


Engadget [10:21AM]: "Next... maps. We've worked with Google to build an incredible app for the iPhone. But devs have said they'd like to use Maps in their apps. They keep asking us to build something natural, that can wrap our maps into their applications. We're making the heart of the Maps application an API which devs can embed into their applications." "So, Google Maps can be embedded directly into your application."

Macworld 10:19 PT - JS: I'm sensing a strong support for Bluetooth in this presentation so far. Given how bad Bluetooth has been on the iPhone up to now, I'm really encouraged. Is there more?

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:18AM]: "Here's an example -- an FM transmitter. With 3.0, the dev can build a custom app that pairs up with it, and automatically finds the right station and tunes it in." "Now here's a class that we think will be really interesting -- medical devices." Scott's showing off a blood pressure reader that interfaces with the iPhone -- wild. "They talk over the dock, and wirelessly over Bluetooth. Things like playing and pausing music, getting artwork -- or you can build your own custom protocols."

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:17AM]: "Next: accessories. There are thousands of accessories that work great with iPods and iPhones. Here's a popular one, a speaker." "With 3.0, we're going to enable accessory developers to build custom apps that talk directly to that hardware."


Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:16]: "With the new APIs, you can bring up a standard system panel which finds other touches or iPhones which are in the same app. You form an IP connection, and you can game together. This will automatically discover running apps, wirelessly over Blutetooth." "We use Bonjour as the tech, and this isn't just for games. We think it's great for games, but this works for any peer to peer app."

Gizmodo [10:15]:
Next, is support for Peer to Peer connectivity.

Engadget [10:13]:
"City Guide, you can sell the app, then sell new cities from within the application." "This whole thing is tied directly into the iTunes store. When you tap buy, it brings up a standard iTunes authentication panel." "The model for in-app sales is the same as the rest of the App Store, 70% goes to developers." "This is for paid apps only."

Engadget [10:12AM]: "But some devs have come to us and talked about other models they'd like to use. Like subscriptions. A place where you could renew that sub in the app. Some game devs have wanted to be able to sell new levels from within an app. There are many examples of that, like e-books. Like a bookstore built into an app. We supporting these new models in what we call In-App Purchase."


Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:11AM]: "Starting with enhancements to the App Store. As you heard, over 800m downloads. It's the best way ever for devs to get their software out. It's also a great business deal. They can give apps away, or they can sell them. 70% of that revenue goes to the devs. And we cover all the fees, and devs are paid monthly."

Gizmodo:
"Let me tell you what we're doing for developers. Our goal was to make devs successful, we gave them the best tools ever. It blew us away what they did. We've spent the last year working hard to make the SDK even better."

Engadget [10:08AM]: "I'm here to tell you about iPhone OS 3.0. This is a major update to the OS. It comes with incredible features for devs and customers."

"Let me tell you what we're doing for developers. Our goal was to make devs successful, we gave them the best tools ever. It blew us away what they did. We've spent the last year working hard to make the SDK even better."

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:07AM]: Applause for the video. "So clearly the App Store appeals to big and small devs. We've had an explosion of apps. Over 25,000." "We've had a lot of curiosity over the submission process... 96% of apps that have been submitted were approved."

"This is something we haven't seen before, and this is just the beginning. We're only 8 months into this. I'd like to bring up Scott Forstall for a preview of OS 3.0"

Gizmodo:
His Trism game was made in his spare time OUTSIDE of his work, most likely allowing him to quit his job entirely. He lives in San Francisco and has a nice looking apartment. App Store money!

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:05AM]: Steve Demeter, creator of Trism. A little video on him.

Engadget [10:04AM]: "This has been great for devs. In one year's time we've had over 800,000 downloads of the free SDK. We've had over 50,000 companies and individuals join our dev program. And most of them, over 60%, have never developed for any Apple platform before."

Gizmodo:


Engadget [10:03AM]: "We've sold 17m altogether, you can see how people have accepted the 3G. But the touch also runs the same OS, and if you look at the time period, we've sold over 30m units of iPhones and iPod touch."

Engadget [10:02AM]: "Before we shipped our first phone, we set an aggressive goal -- we said we'd sell 10 million phones. And we sold 13.7m. We blew it away."

Ars Technica [10:01AM]: iPhone is now in 80 countries around the world. A year ago just in a handful of countries.

Engadget [10:01AM]: "Good morning everyone, welcome to the campus." Greg Joswiak!

Engadget [9:59AM]: They started playing the "every day you wake up" ad song... but then quickly killed it in favor of Dave Matthews. Odd. Very odd.

Engadget [9:55AM]: "Our presentation will begin shortly, please silence cellphones and pagers." Pagers!? Pagers!?

Macworld: We're being serenaded to the sounds of what appears to be Jack Johnson while the various attendees find their seats. Phil Schiller's up at the front of the room, as is Greg Joswiak. They're really packing them in here; it's a pretty small venue.

Gizmodo:


Engadget [9:54AM]: There's definitely a feeling that this event is much quieter, more subdued. Everyone seems to be expecting the same thing -- and that's not surprising.

We will be live blogging the Apple iPhone OS 3.0 event starting 10am PST / 1pm EST at this url. Our coverage will combine the live feeds from a few different sources to provide you with all the details possible.