Apple has given a preview of version 3.0 of its popular iPhone software. At an event held in Cuppertino CA, Apple executive Greg Jos led a presentation that began with some statistics of Apple’s current iPhone numbers that included:
- Sales of iPhones as of Dec. 2008 – 17 Million
- Sales of all devices (iPhones and iPod Touches) – 30 Million
- Number of iPhone Application developers – 50,000
The initial part of the presentation focused on the iPhone SDK and changes for iPhone Application developers. Apple is giving developers the option to add the ability for users to make purchases from inside their application. With In App Purchase the delveloper can set a price for items such as subscription content or extra game levels. The revenue model stays the same the creator receives 70% and Apple receives 30%.
Apple is also adding a number of other developer friendly features including CoreLocation for turn by turn GPS capability, and increased awareness of accessories like speaker docks and radio tuners and push notifications.
A number of partner companies demonstrated improvements in their products that would combine with iPhone 3.0. Oracle demo’d supply chain management applications and business process applications. Electronic Arts showed the Sims3 on the iPhone and discussed how users will be able to purchase individual items for their Sims via the iPhone interface for only 99 cents. ESPN gave a peek at their new alert service which will utilize the iPhones’s push technology to deliver sports info.
Other demo’s included health care related applications, games, social networking and interactive music programs.
Important improvements for individual iPhone users include:
- The long awaited ability to cut and paste
- Stereo bluetooth support
- P2P capabilites (via bluetooth or bonjour)
- Voice Memos
- Application Search capabilities
- VPN
- Call log
- shake to shuffle…and many more.
IPhone version 3.0 is expected to arrive on the scene this summer and will be a free upgrade for iPhone owners. It will be available to iPod Touch users for 9.95. At a question and answer session following the presentation, Apple officials had no comment on any new hardware to accompany this release.
