iPhone 3.0 proves to be a developer wet dream

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Apple has tonight given us a sneak preview of what is coming in the iPhone 3.0 major update which DaniWeb writer Davey Winder was second guessing earlier. While Davey managed to predict the arrival of cut, copy and paste functionality for iPhone 3.0, this was pretty much a given to be honest. He also got it bang on when he said the event would "pretty much all be iPhone business" and there would be none of the mythical Apple Tablet announcements some had speculated about.

So what exactly did Apple announce in what turned out to be less launch event and more of a live press release of a forthcoming release, for want of a better description?

The answer is quite a lot really, more than 1000 developer APIs and 100 additional bits of iPhone functionality for end users. Amongst them, something that Digg supremo got wring when he predicted there would be no MMS support for the new iPhone OS. Yes, Apple is adding MMS capability so you will soon be able to send images, and audio for that matter, via the iPhone messaging application. Yay.

Search gets a big nod, with the arrival of Spotlight which brings a 'search all your iPhone' mentality to the fore by allowing users to search all the core applications such as Mail, as well as searching your installed apps and your iPod library for good measure. While Spotlight is a welcome new arrival, at the launch it appears that the demo of Mail being searched did not make it clear if message bodies could be searched or not. Hopefully Apple, or the blogosphere, will clarify this real soon now.

I also like the addition of a voice recording app, Voice Memo, which brings this functionality into the built-in apps rather than relying upon 3rd party ones, which is nice especially as it appears the resulting memos can be sent making use of that new MMS functionality.

But this event was really more about the developers, all 50,000 of them who have registered with the paid for Apple iPhone development program. There are more than 1000 new APIs in the new iPhone 3.0 SDK, including new models for payment which allow for in-game and in-app subscriptions for additional content. A P2P Bluetooth API allows for automatic discovery of other iPhone users running the same app or playing the same game in the local area, and a new mapping API brings turn-by-turn directions into 3rd party mapping apps at long, long last.

Talking of 'at long last' items, as well as that cut, copy and paste function there will also be push notification functionality which is long overdue in my opinion.

The developer version beta of iPhone 3.0 is available immediately to registered developers, and the public release is slated for 'this summer' according to sources at Apple.

Dani AI

Generated

Useful developer-focused notes and short checklist to follow up on 's write-up.

Apple’s March 17, 2009 preview put a developer beta of iPhone OS 3.0 into registered hands and advertised the new SDK as having over 1,000 APIs and 100+ user features—big changes worth planning for now rather than rushing. (apple.com)

Concrete steps to prepare your app for 3.0

  • Build and run the 3.0 SDK against real devices early. The simulator is useful but hardware differences (Bluetooth, MMS, etc.) matter.

  • Guard 3.0-only APIs so your app still runs on older OS versions. A simple runtime check:

    if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] respondsToSelector:@selector(registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:)]) {
    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:
        (UIRemoteNotificationTypeBadge | UIRemoteNotificationTypeSound | UIRemoteNotificationTypeAlert)];
}

    Use the same pattern for Map/Peer‑to‑Peer/StoreKit calls and weak-link any new frameworks.

  • For In‑App Purchase and Push: set up the StoreKit sandbox accounts and APNs test certificates ahead of release, and exercise full server-to-device flows before submission.

  • Test multiplayer and P2P flows on a local LAN/Bluetooth with multiple devices; edge cases (sleep, foreground/background handoff) frequently surface during real playtests. (macrumors.com)

About App Store terms and the “control” argument from
Apple has historically enforced SDK/App Store rules (no private APIs, strict rules about downloaded executable code), and that enforcement caused real-world rejections for some frameworks (PhoneGap reports at the time). If you rely on non‑Apple runtimes or dynamic code, read the current SDK/App Review terms carefully and embed everything you need in the app bundle to avoid surprises. Practical options: refactor critical code into native modules, use officially supported APIs, or consider alternative platforms if those constraints are a blocker. (groups.google.com)

Finally: the public 3.0 update shipped in mid‑June 2009, so plan timelines, run compatibility tests, and stage your App Store submissions with the new entitlements and server pieces well before any planned launch. (apple.com)

Member Avatar for windowsrefund
windowsrefund 0 Newbie Poster

This article is obvious propaganda and the writer should be ashamed for helping Apple spread their agenda. Developers do not want a sexy API, they want to know that their innovations are not subject to a license that grants Apple complete and exclusive control. Developers who were foolish enough to develop for previous versions of the iPhone got burned the first time around and nothing short of a complete overhaul to Apple's business model is going to change things now.

If the writer of this article had a clue, the freedom-granting Android OS would have been covered instead. One has to wonder if this writer is getting paid off to subject our community to this propaganda.

Member Avatar for windowsrefund
windowsrefund 0 Newbie Poster

Real developers know that Apple uses its license agreements to hijack innovation. This article is an obvious attempt to spread the Apple agenda. When developers want real control over the software they're writing, they use freedom granting, copyleft licenses like the GPL.

Member Avatar for happygeek
happygeek 2,411 Most Valuable Poster

This article is an obvious attempt to report the news, get over it.

Member Avatar for kajanpb
kajanpb 0 Newbie Poster

Ohh, i really want the new iphone OS, cant wait until june :P

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon
Ancient Dragon 5,243 Achieved Level 70

Even the title of this article is obnoxious-- a "wet dream" is what teenage boys experience. So are you trying to say that male programmers will ejeculate at the thought of iPhone 3.0?

Member Avatar for Appspy
Appspy 0 Newbie Poster

I agree that developers now have much more capability with the iPhone 3.0.
To call it a wet dream is a little too much for me though.

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