Twitter It!

The reason for me to write this has to do with all the articles I’ve read on the matter.  One in particular, written by  Scott Mortiz of TheStreet.com located here.  From what I’ve read, apparently people were expecting hardware updates,  and newer flashier features for the system software.

To get started, I’d like to say that the flyers sent out for the event clearly stated this was for software only,  Apple appears to update the iPhone in early summer, and the iPod in fall.  Secondly, the major portions of Apple’s products are about the software (”…The big secret about Apple, of course–not-so-big secret maybe–is that Apple views itself as a software company…”- Steve Jobs).  I’ve seen many articles wondering about hardware for the next generation iPhone, people that are saying other companies, like Palm, are beating Apple in that devision.  This is what I’ve been wanting to know, has any of these people seen an iPhone before?  Have they noticed how simplistic the shell of it is?  How virtually every control is software base rather than hardware?  The iPhone has bluetooth, Wifi, an accelerometer, 24 bit full colored 163 DPI screen (I still see many phones with 16it screens), GPS, 3G, and camera, so what else does it need?  At the most, it seems many features only need a few minor updates in the next version.

Other “review” like “news” articles pointed out how few new features are in the iPhone OS 3.0 update.  Apparently to them, 100 new user based features isn’t enough.  As for me,  I’ve been waiting a long time for Spotlight and to be able to use Apple’s own set of applications in landscape mode, like Mail and Notes.  Copy and Paste is a hyped up feature that many people wanted, however it’s not that big a deal to me.

What is a big deal to me is something that most writers ignored.  The 1000 new APIs in the iPhone OS 3.0 update.  I guess it doesn’t mean to much to people that don’t quite understand what it means to a developer.  However 1000 new APIs doesn’t just effect us, it effects the user as well.  It’s hard to put in so little words how important this is for the user.  Imagine all the new applications or new updated ones that you already own.  All the features that will be added, making them much more useful.  Who cares about user system software features, when most people are using 50+ 3rd party applications instead.  As a user, I’d much rather have the programs I bought from the App Store become more useful, than getting copy and paste.  In my own opinion, most apps right now are basic and mediocre.  Apple didn’t originally give enough APIs for small developers to do much.  Larger corporations did what they did through their own custom code, something many indie developers don’t know how to do or don’t have the man power to do so (Like in app emailing or multiplayer games with bluetooth).

All in all,  I think this new update is huge.  Before this, I felt that Palm’s Pre had a good chance of becoming a major competitor to the iPhone,  I was actually hoping for it.  However, do to the new version of the iPhone OS and what Palm gives to 3rd party developers, I doubt the Pre will hurt the iPhone market at all.  I give the same argument to Android.  They are great efforts and I hope they continue to improve, but they still don’t seem to be close in proximity to the level of the iPhone… yet.

At this time, there are many new APIs I have been hoping for, which allow me to make the applications I’ve had in my head for some time.