Sean Walther's Blog

iPhone OS 3.0: Update on “Copy and Paste”, on Tuesday 3/17/2009

According to Macrumors.com, Kevin Rose (of Digg fame) revealed details about “Copy and Paste” functionality during a taping of Diggnation at SXSW.  

Watch the video of Kevin’s description of the functionality.  You just double click the word, it highlights, then you use the magnified view to drag quotes before and after the word to select your target.  You can then cut or copy it.

Additionally, the Apple event announcing details on iPhone OS 3.0 is actually on Tuesday, not Monday like I had reported last week.

Tags: Apple, copy paste, digg, iPhone, iPhone OS 3.0, kevin rose, macrumors.com, OS 3.0, sxsw

iPhone OS 3.0 – Apple to preview on March 17th, 2009

Apple will be previewing the new iPhone OS 3.0 on Monday March 17th, 2009 @ 1pm EST (10am PST) at the Cupertino Apple Town Hall. 

This has been repoted by quite a few various sources including Engadget, Macrumors, etc.

As far as “What” will be presented, it is known that this will be a developer version of the operating system only.  It will show off an updated SDK (for developing for the iPhone OS 3.0).

Rumors are running rampant on the net with regards to what the new OS major revision will contain.

Widely held to be true, are rumors of:

• MMS (Multimedia text messaging)
• Tethering via Bluetooth and USB (we’ve been talking about tethering on the iPhone for a while now, this isn’t a big surprise — after all it already worked almost a year ago)

More “out there” options, that have no confirmation, but seem likely are:

• New Home screen app (SpringBoard) – we all now have too many apps to efficiently manage with the 16 icons (+4 static) per screen
• Push notification to apps
• Background processes
• Copy & Paste
• Flash support
• Magnetometer support (digital compasses, as in the Android G1)
• Syncing of notes
• Better bluetooth support (headphones, car kits, etc)
• Horizontal Keyboard
• Video Conferencing (ok, we’re stretching it now)

In my opinion, we’re likely to see MMS, as  well as tethering.  Don’t get too excited, I’m sure tethering will come with a clause from ATT (most likely a monthly fee just like the blackberry).

Otherwise if we get just 1 or 2 of the wishlist items, I think we should be happy.  We’ve been looking for Copy / Paste, Flash, Push notification, and background processes for a while.  I know push notification is working for “MobileMe”, but I mean the type of push notification Apple was touting last summer (here’s a hint, its the same as the original Exchange push notification that Apple NEEDED to have in order to somewhat compete with blackberry).  

Let’s hope there is good news on Monday for us all.

Tags: Apple, Apple iPhone, Apple Town Hall, AT&T, blackberry, bluetooth, copy paste, Cupertino, engadget, Flash, homescreen, iPhone, iPhone OS, iPhone OS 3.0, magnetometer, MMS, OS 3.0, Push notification, Springboard, Tethering, video conferencing, WDC