Catching up with the 20th Century
[Turns out the Globe can't publish two articles covering the same subject back to back so here it is for your reading pleasure. Deliberately did not write a review in favor of an opinion piece]
What’s the deal with iPhone OS 3.0? What in the world is iPhone OS 3.0 for that matter and why have people gone ga-ga (no, Lady Ga Ga has nothing to do with it) over this little thing? What does it do that makes it so highly anticipated? Cut, copy and paste? Hey, my two year old busted phone can do that. Forward SMS to other people? Really, that’s a big thing? MMS? I’ve been sending MMS since the start of the decade! Is the iPhone really that bad?
Alright, let’s back track a couple of years to when Apple just introduced the iPhone. Just the idea that Apple really was introducing a phone got more than a few people excited. This was the expected, hoped, and rumored device that people have been waiting for since 2002 when the web address iphone.org was redirected to Apple’s website (along with many other addresses such as mammals.org, but that’s a different story).
When the iPhone was introduced in June of 2007, it hailed a new direction for mobile communications device. Touch screen devices were not new but the iPhone was the first device to introduce multi-touch and finger gestures to operate on screen functions. It was also completely finger-operated, no stylus. The touch interface was like no other. It was smooth, required no pressure, and it was a joy to use.
Sure, people had to get used to not using a physical keyboard, not having a removable battery, not being able to edit text properly or forward SMS, not being able to deal with MMS, not having access to the kinds of applications that are available to other phones via the java environment, and the browser can’t even display flash components on websites.
Come to think of it, The iPhone must have been so special that it managed to grab quite a large portion of the US smartphone market as well as winning the mind share of just about everyone who’s ever heard of it despite all of its shortcomings. Whether they were praising it or deriding it, the iPhone was always there in their minds.
Fast forward one year to July 11, 2008 when Apple released the second version of the iPhone operating system alongside the iPhone 3G. This version opened a whole new world to iPhone owners. It also paved the way for 3rd party developers to finally be able to play inside Apple’s sacred playground. Previously, Apple kept the iPhone programming toys to itself. Those who were dying to play with the inner workings of the iPhone had to do it in ways that Apple did not approve. It all changed with iPhone OS 2.0.
With OS 2.0, Apple allowed anyone to create applications for the iPhone and sell them on the iTunes App Store. In under a year, Apple’s App Store had surpassed 50 thousand iPhone applications with more than one billion applications served to customers. Apple sold 40 million units of iPhone and iPod touch combined, exceeded its goal of 1 percent of the overall mobile phone market, grabbed more than 10 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, and jousted with Research In Motion, makers of the Blackberry devices, for the number two smartphone company behind Nokia.
On June 18 2009, Apple released iPhone OS 3.0. Their developers conference held ten days earlier had sold out within two weeks, three months ahead of the event. Every mobile developer was eyeing the new release, and of course, along with everyone who wanted one. What the new operating system brings for consumers will initially seem like completing existing features and filling in the gaps. Apple launched the first iPhone with barely any basic and expected features that is even expected of a cheap phone. What it brought however, was a new way of thinking. The iPhone was more than a phone.
In OS 3.0, Apple finally brought those basic features to the iPhone. Cut, copy, and paste text across applications, send and receive MMS, forward SMS without additional application, use a bluetooth earphone to listen to music and not just for phone calls, allow the iPhone 3G to be used as a modem, record and share voice memos, autofill forms and save passwords in the browser, and even choose among 30 languages including Indonesian.
There are more than one hundred new features inside OS 3.0. I also have to mention search. The excellent Spotlight feature in Mac OS X has been ported to the iPhone OS and it searches just about any kind of text that is stored inside the iPhone. It searches your emails, messages, notes, applications, calendar appointments, contact lists, titles of songs, podcasts, videos, and audio books. Spotlight is also present in many applications.
Apple now also allows developers to create applications that are so much more imaginative, creative, resourceful, and most important of all, useful. When Motorola launched the Star TAC back in the mid ‘90s, everyone’s minds went back to the ‘60s when Captain Kirk made a call to Commander Spock through his flip-style communicator. In 2009, it will be possible to use the iPhone as sort of a Tricorder, which is a multipurpose scanner. While the Tricorder Mark I and II were made and released roughly a decade ago for medical purposes, they never caught on.
As developers are finally given access to create applications and devices than can interface with the iPhone or iPod touch via its Dock connector, the possibilities are astounding. Imagine the iPhone as a heart monitor, or a wind detection device. Apple itself has been working on making the iPhone and iPod touch as a mobile purchase device for use in its 300 stores worldwide, hooking them up with card readers and barcode scanners replacing the older regular devices. It is also not impossible for the iPhone to eventually be used as a speed camera. All it takes is a creative and resourceful developer.
While people may belittle the update as simply finally bringing 20th century technology to a 21st century device, they haven’t seen what an innovative mind can do with a modern operating system. When the new iPhone 3G S arrives, it will offer OS 3.0 even further possibilities with its video camera, voice recognition, and digital compass available for developers to play with.
iPhone OS 3.0 is a free update for anyone who owns an iPhone or an iPhone 3G, or $9.95 for iPod touch owners and requires iTunes 8.2 on either Mac OS X or Windows.
