Article by George Norman

On 19 Mar 2009

Now that Apple has unveiled the iPhone OS 3.0 to the public, showcasing a whole bunch of interesting new features, the experts (and jailbreakers) have had plenty of time to mull things over and come up with a verdict – and that verdict is that iPhone OS 3.0 is a great improvement compared to previous OS versions. Users have finally got what they were asking for, take the much awaited Copy/Cut and Paste option for example.

“It's a pretty impressive release. It further extends [Apple's] lead in terms of the kind of things the platform can do. Apple filled a lot of holes with things like copy and paste” said Research Vice President with Gartner, Van Baker in an interview for Macworld.


With the iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is not only trying to make the users happy, it is also trying to please software developers as well. Third party apps are supposed to get things like push notification (for example, you will get a notification that you have a new message even though your IM client is not currently running) and in-app purchases (the option to buy items from within an open app).

VP of Strategy and Analysis with Interpret, company that specializes in media and technology research, Michael Gartenberg comments: “Apple just gave developers another good set of reasons to get on the platform. Apple is making sure that the only platform you are going to get this type of functionality on is the iPhone. With in-app purchases, Apple has opened up a whole slew of business models. There's a war going on for the hearts and minds of developers, and now Apple has made it easier for developers to make and sell apps. The extensibility of the device through software is going to be the story in 2009.”

Since we are on the topic of developers, the ones that matter the most (at least from an entertainment value point of view) are the game developers. Alongside the numerous iPhone OS 3.0 features released for the day-to-day iPhone user, Apple also showcased the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK (Software Development Kit) with more than 1000 new APIs (Application Programming Interface) and game developers are hyped up about the in-app purchases and push notification potential.

“Players will also be able to purchase content packs using In-app Commerce. If you’ve played a lot of first-person shooters over the years, you’ve probably played an expansion pack at some point. It’s not a particularly new idea, but it is new for the iPhone and SDK 3.0 makes it possible. As the development of LiveFire continues, we’ll be fine-tuning the creative, experiential and business decisions affected by In-app Commerce. The SDK is still in Beta, but the potential is already there,” said Ngmoco’s Chris Plummer.

Regarding the push notification feature, Chris Plummer describes it in one of the simplest manners possible: when you are getting clobbered in a multiplayer match and would very much like to have one of your skilled friends play alongside you, simply send that friend a push notification from within the game. He will receive an invite, and when he accepts the game will launch automatically – now the both of you can fight it out as a team.

There is one more iPhone OS 3.0 feature that could impact mobile gaming, and that feature is P2P Bluetooth connectivity. What it means is that you could play multiplayer, network games without having to access a 3G network or use Wi-Fi. Colin Lynch Smith from Freeverse Software compares the experience to Facebook Connect.

"Facebook Connect is powerful because so many people already have Facebook accounts that it leverages that whole ecosystem more from a marketing than a gameplay experience at the moment, but that will change over time. From a pure gaming experience, I think the proximity and networking stuff will be more useful for us in the short run. It definitely opens up new ways for us to create more social game experiences,” said Smith.



Tags: Apple, iPhone OS 3.0, SDK 3.0

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