Months ago, I wrote about my wrestling match to get the 64-Bit Windows 7 Public Beta installed on my MacBook. It took all day, and then, well, I had a copy of Windows on my computer that required a reboot to access. It was, as it turns out, every bit as pointless as many commenters accused my activity of being. I deleted my partition and never really gave it a second thought — even though I could use a Windows install to debug stuff for work.
Until today, that is, when Sun blogger The Fat Bloke provided detailed instructions for installing the most recent revision of the WIndows 7 Release Candidate on VirtualBox, the company’s totally free virtualization system. And I have to say, it works like a charm. I was up and running within about two hours, and I didn’t even need to follow the secondary instructions about Vista mode or whatever. If you’re curious at all, it’s absolutely the best way to get a Windows installation on your Mac for free.
Whether it’s useful remains to be seen. I might find myself deleting this next Sunday.
Apple has notified iPhone developers their submissions to the App Store must be compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 or they will no longer be reviewed, according to an iPhone Developer Program email.
Existing apps in the App Store should already run on iPhone OS 3.0 without modification, but Apple advised developers to test existing apps with iPhone OS 3.0 to ensure the absence of compatibility issues. “After iPhone OS 3.0 becomes available to customers, any app that is incompatible with iPhone OS 3.0 may be removed from the App Store,” the email read.
iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5 and iPhone SDK 3.0 beta 5 are currently posted in the iPhone Dev Center, which means major hoopla in iPhone-world is likely mere weeks away.
What it is: A multi-account Twitter client, available for iPhone and Mac OS X.
Why it’s good: Both versions of Tweetie succeed in marrying a usable UI with a strong feature set. Although Tweetie for iPhone and Tweetie for Mac share some aspects of design, both play to the strengths of the host platform. On iPhone, Tweetie makes the most of the touch display, and its efficient UI means there’s never any stuttering. On Mac, Tweetie has keyboard shortcuts for practically every action, and its sidebar deals with the thorny issue of multi-account UI without resorting to tabs. In both cases, the app is feature-rich, providing a great experience for most Twitter users. The 1.1 update also brings saved searches, Growl support, and a bunch of other tweaks and fixes.
Where to get it: Tweetie for iPhone is available on the App Store for $2.99. Tweetie for Mac is available from atebits.com. By default, Tweetie for Mac is supported by unobtrusive and surprisingly relevant ads, but you can make them optional by paying $19.95.
What it is: Star Walk is the official mobile astronomy guide for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009), a $5 app for iPhone and iPod Touch that makes enjoyment of the celestial universe easier and possibly more enjoyable than anything outside a professional telescope.
Vito Technology, developers of the app, recently updated this popular title with improved existing features and several new functions. The new version (1.5) has even more striking graphics, enhanced speed, more images and a greater depth of information than the release version, which has already spent more than 4 months in the Top 25 paid apps of iTunes’ App Store.
Why it’s cool: Star Walk not only gives you a reliable guide to the present night sky based on your current location, it lets you change perspectives to locations thousands of miles away. It can also take you back in time to look at different events (such as eclipses) in the sky on specific dates; view lunar phases and learn about the discovery of constellations’ images and the reason for their shape. Use the super cool ‘infra-red’ night mode for easy outdoor stargazing without adding your device’s bright lighting to the ambient environment.
The new version has been improved with more stars and constellations to look at, with better and more precise images, more reliability and more speed.
The app makes stunning use of the iPhone accelerometer to change your perspective or point of view with just a swipe of the screen and provides zooming capabilities to allow you to travel in to deep space to find out the state of our knowledge of the outer universe.
New Features in the current version include:
♦ constellations on & off setting
♦ sounds on & off setting – but don’t turn them off; they are way cool!
♦ magnitude selection (allows you to show only stars with chosen brightness)
♦ spatio-temporal bookmarks – must admit to still learning about this one
♦ pictures of all constellations (from 10 upgraded to 110)
I’ve been playing with Star Walk for a couple weeks now and it’s definitely become a favorite app to use for stargazing as well as to show off some of my iPhone’s capabilities to friends and curious strangers.
Apple moved quickly to remove an embarrassing listing on the iPhone web app directory which promoted the notorious QuickPWN software, which jailbreaks iPhones and iPod touches to allow unfettered application installation. Apple removed it tonight around 11 p.m. after coverage around the Mac blogosphere, including here at CoM. The link still comes up on Google, but the page is blank.
Why does this snafu matter? Because this little slip-up is yet another sign that Apple is completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content it needs to curate these days: Music, TV, Movies, and Podcasts in the iTunes Store; thousands upon thousands of apps for iPhone and many more that never make the cut; and an equally huge collection of web apps for iPhone on the website.
In a lot of ways, Apple has become one of the world’s biggest content gatekeepers. And the approval of Baby Shaker and the rejection of the Nine Inch Nails app are pretty clear evidence that the company still has a lot of work ahead to grow into the role.
Myst, once upon a time the world’s most popular graphic adventure video game, has arrived at the App Store. The $6, 730MB piece of mobile bloatware, requiring a whopping 1.5GB of free space on Apple’s iPhone or iPod Touch, isn’t likely to revive the title’s popularity, in this reviewer’s opinion.
Even the trailer demands nearly an egregious seven minutes of a curious person’s time to sit through, an eternity in our fast-paced modern world. Over a minute and a half to get past the credits?
This is a group of developers who must think very highly of themselves indeed.
A vocal cadre of iPhone app developers is none too pleased with the treatment they receive from Apple and may be considering a suit for breach of contract, according to a report at TechCrunch.
Examples of complaints on developer forums indicate that some developers remain unpaid for sales of their products on the App Store dating back to last fall and the report cites email exchanges between at least one developer and and the finance department at Apple in which the developer is informed his complaints about not being paid “border on harassment.”
Whether any actual lawsuits are in the offing is purely speculative at this point, but the discord is curious in the light of Apple’s recent recession-beating revenue performance and the stunning, widely publicized success of the App Store.
Chalk up one more exhibit for the case that Apple and its ecosystem refuse to participate in the global economic meltdown.
WWDC sold out Tuesday, the earliest date on record for which the annual conference devoted to Apple’s development community has reached capacity. Tickets went on sale just a month ago, and were no bargain — even the early-bird special was well over $1,000.
Interest in this year’s event is great for a number of reasons. Developers and presumably the audience at the keynote will get the first public glimpse of OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard.” The new OS has been in testing with developers for a while now, but many of the expected user interface changes remain under wraps. WWDC may be the first time anyone gets a real look at those.
Even bigger than Snow Leopard, however is the possibility that Apple could unveil a new version of the iPhone, even a touchscreen netbook or tablet. The rumor mill on all of these ideas has been active for months.
And of course there is the ever present shadow of Steve Jobs. Will he make an appearance, even tough he’s not scheduled to return from his sabbatical until the end of June? Could he possibly bear – health permitting – to let someone else introduce a major OS upgrade and potentially game-changing hardware?
The Jobs factor aside, the real takeaway from WWDC’s full house next month is the clear evidence that interest in Apple’s technology remains very strong. The idea that someone could found a career or hit the jackpot on the strength of learning how to develop applications that work with Apple technology seems to be one of the few – and one of the brightest – lights of hope on the economic horizon.
What it is: Think social media is a kick in the pants? Big twitter and Facebook fan, are you? Well, you may want to consider upping your game with Foursquare, a newish social media app/game for iPhone and iPod Touch.
Foursquare feeds the social, yet competitive spirit in users, who leverage the location-aware functionality of Apple’s mobile devices to let friends and others on the network know where they go, what they do and what they dig in 12 major US metropolitan areas (so far).
Why it’s good: The built-in gaming aspect of Foursquare lets users earn points for checking in at different places around the city and giving tips on what makes those places so cool (get the curry duck at Thep Phanom, for example). By hitting different spots and making combinations of recommendations, players can unlock “badges” and become a “Mayor” of their city.
By keeping up with and adding friends, users get to leverage the collective knowledge about a city into lists of cool things they have done and cool things they want to do.
Users can check in by logging on to accounts through a mobile browser, directly from within the app itself or by texting their location from a mobile phone.
In computer software circles, there’s a lot of discussion about the “10-foot UI,” designed for interactions from across a living room. Now that streaming video has truly come into its own, the space has exploded. Apple’s Front Row is a 10-foot app, as is Boxee.
But if you’re a Mac user, especially a Mac mini owner who keeps it hooked up to an HDTV, there’s only one choice: Plex Media Center, a Mac-only offshoot of the Xbox Media Center software. Basically, Plex pulls all of your content — whether on your hard drive, your network, your Tivo — and blends it with everything on the entire Internet, including Hulu, Pandora, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, and The Daily Show, then wraps it in a stunningly beautiful interface that makes it a snap to navigate all of the world’s video and music with arrow keys are a simple remote control. Better still, it’s an open architecture, and people are adding to it like crazy.
It’s been around as Plex since last July, but many of the best features, like the Netflix plug-in, are recent arriving in the last two weeks. What’s maybe most exciting is that Plex has plug-ins that the original XBMC application lacks. The Mac development community is passionate enough to dramatically improve their offering beyond other versions. Heck, it has its own App Store. And it’s 100 percent free, running on all Intel hardware running Leopard.
This is the media operating system of the future. Now, if they’d just release a companion remote application for iPhone, this thing would really take over the planet.
If you’ve ever wondered why some developers can’t stand Apple, perhaps Marco Arment can help.
Arment makes useful websites in New York, according to his bio. He’s the lead developer of Tumblr, the Web 2.0 sharing sensation, and creator of the very popular iPhone application Instapaper, which allows users to save web pages on their devices for reading later.
Arment penned a revealing blog post Monday that serves to highlight the frustration even established developers must endure in navigating the uncharted, fickle waters of Apple’s approval process for third-party iPhone and iPod Touch applications.
After submitting an update to Instapaper that included the mobile phone icon shown in the screen capture above, Arment was informed his update could not be accepted because it ran afoul of SDK guidelines that prevent “use [of] the Apple Logo or any other Apple-owned graphic symbol, logo, or icon … except pursuant to an express written trademark license from Apple.”
A friend of Arment’s had designed the icon and offered it to him for use with Instapaper.
Arment concedes the App Store is “an amazing deal for independent developers” but laments the fact that “problems seem so arbitrary, avoidable, and developer-hostile.”
In the end, the frustrated developer must resolve to “make a different icon from scratch that doesn’t contain any depictions of any Apple products,” with Arment asking, “can I use arrows, or does that violate the arrow key on Apple’s keyboards?”
And the bottom line, something with which even Apple is undoubtedly familiar, is that a developer in Arment’s position is forced to resubmit, wait another 7 -14 days, hope to be accepted, and lose a few weeks of the increased sales that the new version will generate, all the while chalking it up to “another annoying cost of doing business on the App Store that [you] can’t do a thing about.”
I get asked a lot why I prefer Macs to PCs. Sometimes it’s from a Windows fan trying to pick a fight, sometimes it’s from a platform agnostic who’s interested why I care enough to choose. But the intent is the same — what makes you so passionate?
And after citing obvious reasons like the elegance of Apple’s hardware and software design or the way everything just works out of the box, I almost inevitably bring up something that seems to dull to get excited about: OS upgrades. Not that they happen, but that it’s always easy for me to know which edition of OS X to buy, and I never feel like Apple is needlessly squeezing pennies out of me by charging more for the features that make it worthwhile to upgrade. Leopard was Leopard. Snow Leopard will be Snow Leopard. Easy.
This is the opposite of the Windows experience, in which there will be seven (!) versions of Windows 7 to choose from, some of which are hopelessly crippled. The worst of these is Windows Starter, designed just for Netbooks.
We all know that the vast majority of personal computers run Windows, with a significant but smaller number using Linux and Mac OS X, and then teeny slices using other operating systems like Solaris and Amiga OS. What might not be so obvious is that Microsoft has become equally dominant in the new Netbook market, with Windows XP or Vista shipping on 95 percent of the tiny lappies compared to just five percent for Linux.
And Microsoft, sitting on top of a dominant market position in netbooks, is quickly formulating a plan to actively screw over their potential customers. In the fall (if they’re lucky) MS will roll out Windows 7, which, from my testing of it, is a lot like Vista without all of the most glaring problems. Alongside Windows 7 will be a version custom-designed for netbooks called “Windows 7 Starter,” which will, I swear to you, only be allowed to run three simultaneous applications and won’t feature the same UI as more expensive flavors of the OS. Those features are present — you’ll just need to pay Microsoft for an upgrade code to access them. So forget about running Word, Firefox, iTunes, and Outlook at the same time if you’re on Windows Starter.
Here’s why this is a brain-dead strategy. The only reason to get a Windows netbook is to run Windows applications. If you’re limited to only three apps at a time, it’s actually saner to use Cloud apps in a Web browser. And if you’re going to do that, it makes more sense to just go with Linux or another alternative. Starter is intended to make people want to buy the nicer versions of Windows 7. I think it’s net effect is more likely to be that people seriously consider alternatives.
And that’s why Apple’s dedication to making OS X available in just normal and server versions is one of the best decisions Steve Jobs has ever made. Apple has ignored the netbook market up until now, but it’s safe to say if Apple did release a netbook, it would be a premium offering at the high-end of the market and run a full version of Mac OS X. That’s just how Apple rolls.
For the most part, iPhone app marketing comes down to getting listed on the App Store and maybe creating a YouTube video in hopes that a Mac blogger will pick it up. But some software makers take it to the next level. Take Jason Jacobs, the man behind Run Keeper, a pretty nifty app that tracks running, cycling, and walking using iPhone 3G GPS. It’s a lot like the Nike+ software, but with more features, such as mapping.
Anyway, in order to get the app a big boost, Jacobs didn’t stick with a typical viral media campaign or an e-mail blast to bloggers. He’s taking it upon himself to prove the utility of his application, Which is why he’ll run the Boston Marathon today dressed as an iPhone. The costume, which he worked on with a social media marketing class at Emerson College, includes a lot of black lycra, so we can only hope it isn’t too warm in Beantown tomorrow. The video above goes through their process.
And hey — the New York Times wrote about it. That’s a successful campaign already. So long as he finishes.
Shaan Hurley, technology platform evangelist for AutoDesk, has thrown down a hint about a major software development for Mac OS X. The company’s AutoCAD software is a last of the “I have to use Windows, because I need Program X” applications, and moving it to Mac OS X could have major impacts for people working in industrial design, engineering, and architecture.
Hurley says he’s now using both Windows and a Mac, and he would love feedback in a survey to “help shape the future of the next generation of AutoCAD products for the Apple Mac OS X Operating System and hardware.” That’s promising. Even though this was posted on April 1, Hurley assures that this is no April Fool’s joke.
Any hardcore AutoCAD folks who would make the switch out there?
Sean Kovacs brings word of GV Mobile, his new iPhone and iPod Touch client for the Google Mobile service, which should be available early next week. Google Voice is a remarkable service built on an old start-up called GrandCentral that Le Goog acquired a few years back. Basically, it allows you to consolidate all of your phone numbers to a single number, control who can call you, screen calls, listen in to voice mail as it records, send free text messages, and transcribe your voicemail. It can even allow people to dial your phone by clicking on a link on a web page. And since it initiates calls, not just placing them, iPod touch users can create a phone call to a different device!
And GV Mobile packs most of that into a handy-dandy iPhone OS app. The video’s pretty slick, and it seems to carry over most of what makes Google Voice so much fun. For now, it’s available only to those who had GrandCentral accounts and those who know folks at Google, but this should be a great companionreplacement to the main iPhone dialer once the service goes more mainstream. Now, if only the free SMS was two-way… no one would ever pay for AT&T’s overpriced SMS plans again… 9to5Mac via Gizmodo
Well, who doesn’t like a little Michael Jackson, dancing babies and quick, snappy edits in a smartphone commercial?
But does anyone think Apple’s legal department won’t soon notice the uncanny similarities between the UI for LG’s Arena and Apple’s own iPhone?
It’s no secret that Apple loves LG displays, but whether that love extends to a willingness to overlook LG’s ripping-off the iPhone’s UI remains to be seen. On the other hand, it’s possible LG licensed the UI. Neither Apple nor LG representatives were available for comment at press time.
It might have helped a few folks if Debt Snowball Pro, a new app coming to the iTunes app store, had been released sooner, but who can really argue with the timeliness of a tool to help eliminate debt using the “debt snowball” method endorsed by finance guru Dave Ramsey and other professionals?
You can choose to pay off debts with higher interest rates first (to save money), or those with the lowest balances (for small, motivating successes along the way). Debt Snowball Pro shows you just how much money you’ll save by choosing these methods over making minimum payments. And it keeps you up do date on how much interest you’ve saved, when your payoff dates are, and when you’ll be debt-free.
Due to be priced at $2.99, Debt Snowball Pro is similar to the Parallel Focus app Pay Off Debt (opens iTunes), which it follows into the AppStore by just two weeks.
Skype for iPhone is due to be announced at CTIA 2009 on Tuesday morning.
The world’s busiest long distance service provider and its new partner Apple helpfully made the free Skype for iPhone app available for download via the iTunes AppStore (opens iTunes) Monday night, and a quick lap around the track implies quite an upgrade to iPhone’s voice functionality.
Simply logging in with a user’s current Skype username and password automatically populates the mobile apps’ database with contacts, recent call history, and account information including avatar image, profile information, Skype Credit account balances, Online number information and voicemail history.
Making a call to a Skype friend is as easy and intuitive as it is from the familiar PC interface, and the sound quality on a connected call is equal to that using a headset on a PC, especially when using a headset with mic attached to the iPhone or iPod Touch.
It should be noted that Skype voice calls are dependent on the initiating caller having a strong and stable WiFi connection to place and maintain the call. Weak or intermittent WiFi connectivity will downgrade call quality and easily lead to dropped calls, and Skype will not in any way access or rely on the cell network to complete or maintain voice calls.
Another issue some may have yet to consider in championing the arrival of Skype as a watershed in mobile VoIP calling is the limitation imposed by Apple’s mobile OS that prevents more than one app from running at a time.
Should an iPhone user be engaged in a Skype call when a normal cell phone call comes in, the WiFi connection will be broken, and the Skype call automatically dropped as the cell call rings in. Absent the ability to place an iPhone in “Do Not Disturb” mode, this will remain a persistent potential problem for those relying on the iPhone’s ability to deliver voice over WiFi.
Otherwise, at first blush, Skype appears to have delivered a seamless integration of its PC-based application for making calls over IP networks.
More details will come to light as hundreds of millions of Skype users begin to make and receive calls using iPhone and iPod Touch.
It will be interesting, as well, to see how the introduction of iPhone 3.0 operating software, due this coming summer with its promise of push notification may affect Skype for iPhone’s usability.
Skype’s much-anticipated VoIP application for iPhone and iPod Touch will launch in the iTunes AppStore on Tuesday, according to a report at Cnet, which published Sunday evening a pre-launch review.
Set to go live in the AppStore in concert with its introduction at CTIA 2009, Skype’s Apple product is said to leverage a couple of nice iPhone-centric features such as being able to take a photo from within Skype to serve as your avatar image, or pulling a picture in from the camera roll — and the look and feel is less heavy on Skype branding, more attuned to other apps for Apple’s mobile platform.
The Cnet review found lack of SMS, file transfer and conference calling set-up disappointing but those features may well be forthcoming in a post iPhone 3.0 update.
The big question is whether Skype will get the VoIP ball rolling on iPhone and iPod Touch, where other apps such as Truphone, Fring and Nimbuzz, which have offered different levels of VoIP capability on the iPhone for a while already, but have yet to take off.
Apple must have the sweetest distribution deal in the entire retail universe, if a report published Wednesday at TechCrunch is to be believed.
The AppStore refund policy allows purchasers a full refund up to 90 days from the date of download of any application purchased in the iTunes AppStore. Which seems questionable enough in the light of, say, the Android Market’s 24 hour return policy.
But a clause in the developer’s contract all iPhone developers must sign in order to have their apps sold in the AppStore indicates that in addition to a three month return policy, “Apple will have the right to retain its commission on the sale of that Licensed Application, notwithstanding the refund of the price to the end user.”
In effect this means Apple will charge 100% of the sale price to a developer for every refund given, even though the developer only got 70% of the price of the sale in the first place.
Many iPhone app developers are on the record as having no problem with Apple’s 30% sales commission for applications sold through the iTunes AppStore. The thinking goes that independent developers gain access to many more potential customers by having their products in the widely visited venue, save tons of money on marketing and transaction costs and generally benefit from being associated with the legitimacy of the Apple brand.
When consumers get wind of this policy, which may be a new development, according to the TechCrunch report, developers of some widely purchased though basically useless apps could be in for a rude awakening.
UPDATE: No developer is likely to go bankrupt in the real world, according to a level-headed explanation posted Thursday by Erica Sadun, a developer/blogger for ArsTechnica.
The reason, which makes perfect sense when you think about it, is that Apple never gives refunds, except in extreme circumstances and then, only after causing the customer many headaches.
Nearly 900 people RSVPd for the boxee meetup Tuesday at Webster Hall in NYC, where the “bleeding edge” media center platform is announcing brand new partnerships with Pandora, Radio Time and PBS, as well as a more robust API and a new XUL-based framework for the boxee browser that will enable easier interaction with any web-based video (translation: Hulu web pages).
With the new Pandora station, boxee users can listen to their personal quickmix and favorite stations, as well as create new stations, making music in the living room more accessible than ever.
BoxeeHQ is also releasing a new PBS app today, and the company promises its new API will allow developers to build apps using XML pages and Python scripts, giving them control over everything they want from a UI perspective.
They offer as an example the new implementation of Radio Time, an application built using the new API that will allow users to stream over 100k terrestrial radio stations from around the world.
By adding new access to more music and continuing to add to and refine access to video content, boxee is definitely pressing its case as a force to be reckoned with in the breaking down of barriers between internet and traditional media content.
After a decade of being the clear leader driving market trends in computing, Apple’s influence could wane in the post-Steve Jobs era, according to a thoughtful piece posted Tuesday at TG Daily.
Industry analyst Rob Enderle describes Apple’s amazingly diverse impact on wider market trends:
* The iPhone immediately became the gold standard for mobile phone manufacturers, resulting in an explosion of new devices and innovation across every mobile software platform;
* Apple created integration between power and graphics in computer processors that would not have been possible without the company’s commitment to OpenCL, a framework for writing programs that execute across CPUs and GPUs;
* Apple’s focus on design and higher margins resulted in the introduction of products such as the recently released Dell Adamo, a PC notebook designed and marketed to emulate Apple’s attention to every detail from the packaging inward, down to the absence of stickers promoting Microsoft Windows and Intel;
* The elegance of the user experience in Mac OS X virtually doomed OEMs’ embrace of Linux to a competition not with Apple but with Windows, an outcome which will affect the introduction of Google’s Android when it comes to market next year as well.
In short, Enderle writes, “Apple is at the core” of all recent change in the computer industry, that “as a result Apple’s efforts, the products we will see from a variety of vendors will be vastly more amazing than they otherwise would have been.”
None of the above is really subject to debate. Enderle goes on to question whether Apple can keep it up in the post-Jobs era, however, and this writer disagrees. Follow the jump to find out why.
UPDATE: This post corrects a post written and originally published on 4/18 that contained incorrectly attributed information.
The single most talked about and demonstrated feature of iPhone 3.0 software at Tuesday’s launch event — push notification — remains absent from the beta release distributed to developers, with no indication thus far forthcoming from Apple when it will become available.
Scott Forstall, Apple’s Senior VP for iPhone software spent over half an hour Tuesday extolling the virtues of push notification and explaining why — although promised by the company over a year ago — it has taken so long to roll out. Developer “demand we didn’t anticipate” caused Apple to “completely re-architect the server infrastructure for push notification,” he said.
Developer representatives from a half dozen companies were trotted out for a dog and pony show to demonstrate how amazing push notification is going to be in the next version of iPhone software, and yet, despite distributing documentation of how the service is intended to work, Apple has yet to provide developers a method for implementing and testing push notification in their apps.
Forstall spoke plainly in his presentation Tuesday (see 26:45 into the video) “It is now really scalable, and we’re ready to go.”
Apparently not.
Calls to Apple for explanation were not returned as of press time, but we’ll be sure to keep readers apprised as this story develops.
Registered iPhone developers began playing around with the beta release of iPhone 3.0 late Tuesday, and initial reaction to the enhancements announced earlier in the day are quite favorable, according to a report at AppleInsider.
The beta release includes an updated Software Development Kit (SDK) with over 1,000 new Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) including In-App Purchases; Peer-to-Peer connections (tethering); an app interface for accessories; access to the iPod music library; a new Maps API and Push Notifications.
Apple also announced over 100 new features that will be hotly anticipated by iPhone and iPod touch users when the public software is released this summer, including cut, copy and paste; MMS functionality for 3G iPhones; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; syncing Notes to the Mac and PC; shake to shuffle; parental controls for TV shows, movies and apps from the App Store; and automatic login at Wi-Fi hot spots.
The iPhone OS 3.0 beta also showed off a new Voice Memo app and expanded search capability for all key iPhone apps, as well as Spotlight search across the entire device. Spotlight is said to be very responsive and functions just as you would expect having used the feature previously on a Mac. Copy & paste is also being well received, according to the report.
Any Cult readers who are also iPhone developers are invited to share your impressions in comments and let us know if you have any great screen shots we need to feature.
