iPhone OS 3.1 Beta Available for Developers
Following closely on the official release of iPhone OS 3.0, Apple has seeded a developer build of version 3.1, build 7C97D, along with the SDK.
The point release appears to be more than bug fixes, too. A number of sites, including Gizmodo, are reporting features like:
- Faster boot time
- Bluetooth voice control
- Access to video editing through APIs for third-party developers
- Non-destructive editing of video by allowing saving of copies
- Fraud Protection, or phishing warnings, as an option in preferences for Safari
This discussion at MacRumors also has an interesting list of new features:
- A carrier selection preference, though apparently not for AT&T customers
- An MMS option, though again this does not apply to AT&T customers yet
- Saving video sent in e-mail to the camera roll
- Direct copying and pasting in the address book, no need to select edit first
- Copy and paste phone numbers to and from the phone keypad
- Canceling text messages as they are sent
- Choose picture size/quality for MMS video, where MMS is an option
As for fixes, the biggest problem, so far, relates to hardware of the iPhone 3GS, not the OS. Whether the new firmware helps with overheating issues has not been reported yet.
The speed at which Apple is updating the iPhone firmware is intriguing. From the final of version of 1.0 to 1.1, over two months passed, and nearly that much time from 2.0 to 2.1 and 2.1 to 2.2. Of course, this latest version of the iPhone OS is a beta, but it’s hard to imagine two more months will pass before iPhone OS 3.1 is officially released. One possible explanation might be that with the apparent early success of the Palm Pre, Apple feels the need to compete a little more aggressively. If so, bring on Windows Mobile 7.
Tweet This (12)
Sajid Khan on July 1st, 2009 at 11:01 am
Off topic, but can anyone else check whether Spotlight indexes SMSs? Really hopes this makes it into 3.1.
Adam Jackson on July 1st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
going to wait until it’s public. I ran 3.0 beta since March and kinda regret doing that upgrade.
Jason on July 1st, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I hope it addresses the woeful performance of the iPod app on the 3G and 2G phones. 5 seconds to skip forward a track? Not great…
David on July 1st, 2009 at 9:31 pm
5 seconds to jump tracks? Not here on 16GB 3G or 32GB 3GS – <1 sec usually
Kyle on July 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am
when is this update going to go public? and if it isn’t going public soon, is it possible for us common folk to get it in advance?