iPhone Software

Billed as an advance preview, Apple's March 17th event to discuss the iPhone OS 3.0 software and SDK is generating quite a buzz. Most speculation revolving around the event has rehashed old, tired rumors about features that have failed to materialize on the iPhone, however there are some new developments.

Two of the most interesting new firmware 3.0 predictions are reports of a revised SpringBoard and possible iPhone support for magnetometers. A update to the SpringBoard could include features to help organize multiple applications into folders or categories on the home screen. Magnetometer? Think digital compass, à la Android G1.

Apple does not approve of your sense of humor. That is unless you're downloading one of the 80+ iPhone apps related to farting, belching or puking. Next time you're sitting down to watch the cable television show South Park, make sure you have permission from Papa Jobs. The South Park crew was working on an iPhone/iPod Touch app for the AppStore but has now been forced to abandon its work on the project.

Rejected twice from the AppStore for being potentially offensive, the South Park application was already receiving glowing reviews last fall. For fans of the show, the app would have offered a multitude of clips, news, and wallpapers. There was even a feature to associate popular South Park characters to people in your contacts list.

How long have we been hearing about Flash coming to MobileSafari? Why is Flash installed on 98% of desktops and 800 million mobile devices, yet not one is an iPhone? Apparently it has been in development since June 2008. Apple was unhappy with the limited old Flash Lite, and the full version would suck up too many resources on the already battery-strapped iPhone.

We were expecting a release in September 2008, however somebody must have decided that version of the iPhone Flash wasn't good enough for release. Adobe's CEO, Shantanu Narayen said, "The onus is on us to deliver." What was billed as a collaboration between Apple and Adobe now sounds like an Adobe responsibility. Necessity is the word that comes to mind if you're an iPhone user.

The same streaming Sirius XM radio stations available to subscribers on the web are coming to the iPhone. The application, scheduled for submission to Apple for approval today, is named the uSirius StarPlayr. Streams will be available via Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE.

Development of the app is part of the StreamSmart project, which plans to release StarPlayr on a variety of mobile and desktop computing platforms by 2010. The iPhone application is expected to price between $12.95 and $19.95. Users must have a current subscription to satellite radio, and can expect to pay an additional $2.99 per month for online stream access starting in March.

Settle the dispute with your golfing buddies on the spot, and learn a thing or two about the ever-complicated Rules of Golf. An iPhone and iPod Touch version of the award winning "Golf Rules Quick Reference" has been submitted to Apple for approval.

The developers are expecting the application to be available on the iTunes App Store in February for $9.99. The author of the booklet, Yves C. Ton-That, has been an international rules official for over 10 years and spent 4 years developing the reference.

There's good news for those of you out there who are fans of Live365 and would like to listen using your iPhone or iPod Touch. An application that will stream audio from Live365 Internet radio stations has officially been submitted to Apple for approval.

The app was planned for release in the third quarter of 2008, however it did not materialize. At the time of this writing, the ball has been in Apple's court for two weeks.

One of the top complaints about the iPhone is the lack of cut and paste functionality. Now those who have jailbroken their devices can fix this problem with a new app called Clippy. Any user-editable text can be selected and copied to a clipboard, then pasted into another application.

This beta version by Ryan Petrich is easily accessible using the number keyboard. After pressing the "123" button simply hit the "copy" button. Proceed to select the text you wish to copy with the magnifying glass (selected text will be highlighted). Hit "copy" again to copy the text to the clipboard. Move to the application you'd like to paste the text into and click "paste". It's that simple.

Those of you who had previously jailbroken their iPhone and used either Installer or Cydia to install unofficial third party applications may have found no clear answer when wondering how to uninstall applications purchased or installed using Apple's new iPhone AppStore.

In the case of Installer or Cydia, applications are deleted or uninstalled from the package manger itself, by selecting the installed application and choosing uninstall. In the case of the AppStore, the equivalent is actually more intuitive, though it may seem otherwise to jailbreakers out there.

With the release of the second generation iPhone 3G right around the proverbial corner, Apple has released the accompanying iPhone OS 2.0 to the public. iPhone OS 2.0 has been in beta testing with developers for months now, and has been the test bed for the first official third party applications which are now available via the iPhone AppStore (you must be running OS 2.0 to access the AppStore).

New iPhone 3G models will be pre-loaded with iPhone OS 2.0, but the public release of the software allows existing owners of the first generation iPhone to upgrade their phones to the new 2.0 firmware. The new iPhone OS brings a host of new

Apple and some of their featured developers spent a good deal of time showing off some of the new and exiting native applications coming with the official release of the iPhone 2.0 software/firmware. Developers included SEGA, TypePad, eBay, and Loopt - who showed off their very cool social networking application with location based services. Below is a little bit of information on some of the applications developers presented.

SEGA

As you can imagine, SEGA was there to announce a native game for the iPhone (presumably you weren't expecting an office productivity application from SEGA). In this case it was the well-known SEGA classic Super Monkey Ball. The SEGA