iPhone Software 3.0 shipped a mere two weeks ago today, but version 3.1 is already in the hands of developers in beta form.
According to reports from PC World and AppleInsider, as well as on forums and blogs, version 3.1 was distributed to developers on Tuesday.
Included in the beta are not only the bug fixes that dot-X updates …
... that releasing 3.0 when they did was more about the launch time of the 3GS than it actually being ready?
That said, it already has video trimming. The addition is that you can trim one video and save it as a different video, rather than losing the trimmings forever.
"Dialer-interface improvements will add the ability to paste in phone numbers and the conversion of alphanumeric phone "numbers" into actual dial-able numeric strings."
Hmm interesting concept and rather surprised more phones don't have that feature. And if it does exist then I've missed it for the last 5 years.
And I have to ask this, is Apple going to charge for this upgrade?
"Pressing and holding a home-screen icon to allow for wiggling-icon rearrangement will be accompanied by vibration feedback - an odd addition that will do little more than reduce battery life, in our opinion."
I am glad you are not taking any bullshit from those Apple bullies who force their short sighted product specs on us power users. So how much will this my battery on an average day if I rearrange my icons once a week?
... sounds like an edge-case feature for those who have trouble seeing the small 'jiggly icons' animation. Some people can the iPhone's display just fine, but find it difficult to see small movements.
I would hope that there'll be an additional setting to disable the feature for those who don't want or need it.
" - an odd addition that will do little more than reduce battery life, in our opinion."
It doesn't seem to make sense to offer such a directed opinion on this without seeing how it's implemented. If there's a slight feedback when the switch to "wiggly icon" mode happens, then I doubt you'd ever be able to tell the difference in battery life. It wouldn't make an awful lot of sense to have it vibrating constantly as it would be an awful distraction and fairly "un-Apple" like.
In other words, this particular piece of text could be removed from your article and would only strengthen your writing.
You beat me to it. Is a journo really worrying about 0.00001% battery charge? That's bleedin' awesome -- up there in Greenpeace Hero of the Decade territory.
You mean pasting phone numbers...? Actually ALL phones can do it EXCEPT THE iCrap.
Even the latest iteration - 3GS, that is - isn't even on-pair with most smartphones out there, let's face it, when it comes to average "advanced" features - AT&T is indeed the PATHETIC and GREEDIEST PoS COMPANY with the SLOWEST fake-3G network it's also true that iPhone truly lags behind MANY smartphones (SonyEricsson, HTC.)
If you have no interest in the iPhone SDK, why did you bother to open up an article on it and place a comment saying so? That's like tweeting on twitter that you don't like twitter. Twat.
Many people have said the voice dialling is a gimmick... actually, when you have 500+ contacts, being able to just say a name and have it dial it immediately is actually pretty handy. Doing so without having to unlock the handset, as the iPhone does - even better. And now... doing so without even taking the phone from your pocket, 'cos you're wearing a headset... priceless!
I used to have MS Voice Command on my WM6 mobile, and it was similarly useful; not just for dialling names for me, but also for it speaking back: having it suddenly blurt out from my desk/pocket "[Urgent email] from John Smith; Subject: Need new report now" ... or "Conference Call with John, in 15 minutes" was actually pretty useful. Like having a PA popping her head round the office door to remind you. Now I'm back to actually having to /reach for the phone/ (gasp!) when an alarm goes off.
So, Apple... how about it? Reckon you'll catch up with M$'s (optional) voice features in another version or two? (The rest is already better, BTW). How long before I can hold a button and just say "Start Evernote", or "Toodledo; New Task - Remember to call John" ?
Ahhh, I must admit I also didn't have the foggiest idea what the new "feature" was in the original article was supposed to do too..
In the UK, the spelling of phone numbers is pretty much non-existent, so to a non US resident it's not really obvious what the feature actually does. It just sounded like they had missed out on the ability to copy/paste a phone number when they recently implemented copy/paste.
The vibrate feature would be useful in cases where, in the past, I have seen the jiggling icons and did not realize that while holding the phone I had held an icon too long and set it into edit mode. Getting out of the car while holding an active phone is a time that I have encountered this issue myself.
In all likelihood this is a Universal Access feature for those with poor vision, who would otherwise have no feedback that they had activated the mode.
He probably bothered because - like many of us - he knows that you're pretty much guaranteed an amusing diatribe between the trolling and the ifan commentards.
"You mean pasting phone numbers...? Actually ALL phones can do it EXCEPT THE iCrap."
Well, none of the phones I have ever owned or used have had this. They certainly can't turn something like 0141-999-9999 into a dialable number either (because of the - chars).
My suggestion is don't make any comments until you're really sure that you've read the article and understood those strange squiggly things called letters and worked out the words that they represent. It might then be sensible to ponder the meaning of the words too...
Sorry, I've had a succession of HTC phones (MDA Vario II, III, played with the IV, played with the G1 and Hero) and I thought they were great...until my wife got an iPhone 3Gs. Now using my Vario III is painful, even with Opera Mobile, browsing the web is slow and I realise how rubbish the resistive screen really is.
I'm getting my iPhone tomorrow and I'll be able to do almost all the same things on it as on my Vario III (SSH client, emailing, web browsing, some light gaming, and some tethering).
As for charging for the upgrade, Apple do not charge for the software for the iPhone, by law they have to charge a nominal fee for the same upgrade for the iPod Touch - which is a shame, but nowt they can do about it!
Check out the address bar of this site. I'd be surprised if a very large percentage of people here are on AT&T, even amongst the iPhone owners. If you don't understand how that can be, try buying a map.
"that seems a bit silly unless you are clumsy with the trimming op"
Why? You may want to trim it differently at a later date, especially if you can do more accurate trimming on a computer. Haven't you ever cropped a photo and kept the original in case you want to crop differently, or apply some effect?
Fascinating how Apple add these useful features but people go and moan about them. Having a tough day at work or what?
But we are talking about crappy mobile phone video here. if you want to professionally edit video, i doubt you would start with such a poor source. Trimming a video on the iphone gets rid of the crappy bits you never wanted. This new service may help to make lots of small video bits out of a large one. I would prefer the option to add lots of small bits together into one large file, which would be more helpful.
So, after using some joined up thinking, I deduced that if I had already paid for OS 3.0 then the 3.1 update would indeed be free. If however, I had not already upgraded to 3.0 then 3.1 would have to be paid for. Simples.
Cool. I've been watching the iPhone gradually (painfully) gathering features I've been using in smartphones for the last 4 years, and now the 3GS has finally overtaken the 2-year-old P990i I've been using (which has done pretty well).
Voice dialling will mean it'll work with my car kit (which masquerades, usefully, as a bluetooth headset handsfree).
I'll be over in Italy getting one come October as I'm buggered if I want to deal with O2s crappy data network...
"Well, none of the phones I have ever owned or used have had this. They certainly can't turn something like 0141-999-9999 into a dialable number either (because of the - chars)."
Works OK on a WinMo6.1 HTC Touch Pro. Doesn't translate text into numbers though, so on that point iPhone3.1 is ahead (though as someone else pointed out above, on this side of the puddle it's not all that often you'd need to be able to do this...).
The alarm on my iPhone has woken me up at 7:30 every weekday morning for the past year without fail. I've set other alarms too and have never had an issue. There is no alarm bug that I'm aware of.
@M7S: err, Oh No They Don't. As Simon Banyard already pointed out, if you already have 3.0 on your iPod Touch then you won't get charged for upgrading to 3.1. Obviously if you're still on 2.x then you'll have to pay for the upgrade.
It's nice that you'll have voice control via bluetooth, but it really bothers me that this is only available via the 3GS. They ungimped the stereo bluetooth with a software update; why isn't voice control available simply through the 3.0 update for everyone? What kind of special hardware could you possibly need to make this work?
The last time I looked, voice control on anything is just a piece of software and the only hardware requirement is a microphone. HEY APPLE, my iPhone 3G has a microphone on it; where's my voice control? Please make this available ASAP... KTHXBYE
Register
iPhone 3.1 code goes beta
iPhone Software 3.0 shipped a mere two weeks ago today, but version 3.1 is already in the hands of developers in beta form. According to reports from PC World and AppleInsider, as well as on forums and blogs, version 3.1 was distributed to developers on Tuesday. Included in the beta are not only the bug fixes that dot-X updates …
This topic is closed for new posts.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 21:33 GMT
John 104
And in Other News... #
My dog farted. Back to you, Jim.
Paris, because she could give a rats ass about the new iPhone SDK too.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 21:33 GMT
ThomH
So you have to assume... #
... that releasing 3.0 when they did was more about the launch time of the 3GS than it actually being ready?
That said, it already has video trimming. The addition is that you can trim one video and save it as a different video, rather than losing the trimmings forever.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 21:33 GMT
James O'Brien
Cool? #
"Dialer-interface improvements will add the ability to paste in phone numbers and the conversion of alphanumeric phone "numbers" into actual dial-able numeric strings."
Hmm interesting concept and rather surprised more phones don't have that feature. And if it does exist then I've missed it for the last 5 years.
And I have to ask this, is Apple going to charge for this upgrade?
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 21:33 GMT
Anonymous Coward
your opinion is valuable to us #
"Pressing and holding a home-screen icon to allow for wiggling-icon rearrangement will be accompanied by vibration feedback - an odd addition that will do little more than reduce battery life, in our opinion."
I am glad you are not taking any bullshit from those Apple bullies who force their short sighted product specs on us power users. So how much will this my battery on an average day if I rearrange my icons once a week?
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 21:33 GMT
Sean Timarco Baggaley
The added vibration feature... #
... sounds like an edge-case feature for those who have trouble seeing the small 'jiggly icons' animation. Some people can the iPhone's display just fine, but find it difficult to see small movements.
I would hope that there'll be an additional setting to disable the feature for those who don't want or need it.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 22:32 GMT
Matthew Barker
Suggestion for a slight change... #
" - an odd addition that will do little more than reduce battery life, in our opinion."
It doesn't seem to make sense to offer such a directed opinion on this without seeing how it's implemented. If there's a slight feedback when the switch to "wiggly icon" mode happens, then I doubt you'd ever be able to tell the difference in battery life. It wouldn't make an awful lot of sense to have it vibrating constantly as it would be an awful distraction and fairly "un-Apple" like.
In other words, this particular piece of text could be removed from your article and would only strengthen your writing.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 22:32 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Re: Cool? #
Apple doesn't charge for point releases to its operating systems.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 22:32 GMT
Aha!
Oh dear, the battery's gone! #
Anonymous Coward @ 20:10
You beat me to it. Is a journo really worrying about 0.00001% battery charge? That's bleedin' awesome -- up there in Greenpeace Hero of the Decade territory.
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 22:32 GMT
Levente Szileszky
RE: Cool? #
"surprised more phones don't have that feature"
You mean pasting phone numbers...? Actually ALL phones can do it EXCEPT THE iCrap.
Even the latest iteration - 3GS, that is - isn't even on-pair with most smartphones out there, let's face it, when it comes to average "advanced" features - AT&T is indeed the PATHETIC and GREEDIEST PoS COMPANY with the SLOWEST fake-3G network it's also true that iPhone truly lags behind MANY smartphones (SonyEricsson, HTC.)
Posted Wednesday 1st July 2009 22:53 GMT
Antidisestablishmentarianist
@And in other news #
If you have no interest in the iPhone SDK, why did you bother to open up an article on it and place a comment saying so? That's like tweeting on twitter that you don't like twitter. Twat.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 00:16 GMT
Anonymous Coward
@Levente Szileszky #
Didn't read the article properly, did you? They mean that when you paste something like 0800-IAMATROLL it converts it to the equivalent numbers.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
Damian Skeeles
Bluetooth Voice Dialling - finally! #
That's good.
Many people have said the voice dialling is a gimmick... actually, when you have 500+ contacts, being able to just say a name and have it dial it immediately is actually pretty handy. Doing so without having to unlock the handset, as the iPhone does - even better. And now... doing so without even taking the phone from your pocket, 'cos you're wearing a headset... priceless!
I used to have MS Voice Command on my WM6 mobile, and it was similarly useful; not just for dialling names for me, but also for it speaking back: having it suddenly blurt out from my desk/pocket "[Urgent email] from John Smith; Subject: Need new report now" ... or "Conference Call with John, in 15 minutes" was actually pretty useful. Like having a PA popping her head round the office door to remind you. Now I'm back to actually having to /reach for the phone/ (gasp!) when an alarm goes off.
So, Apple... how about it? Reckon you'll catch up with M$'s (optional) voice features in another version or two? (The rest is already better, BTW). How long before I can hold a button and just say "Start Evernote", or "Toodledo; New Task - Remember to call John" ?
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
Neoc
Number dialling #
Anonymous Coward @00:10GMT
"They mean that when you paste something like 0800-IAMATROLL it converts it to the equivalent numbers."
Actually, I'd be more impressed if they allowed you to store it as "0800-IAMATROLL" but converted it behind the scenes when asked to dial it.
And no, I do not use an iPhone. Personal choice.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
Steve Evans
@A/C 2nd July 00:10GMT #
Ahhh, I must admit I also didn't have the foggiest idea what the new "feature" was in the original article was supposed to do too..
In the UK, the spelling of phone numbers is pretty much non-existent, so to a non US resident it's not really obvious what the feature actually does. It just sounded like they had missed out on the ability to copy/paste a phone number when they recently implemented copy/paste.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
danickstr
vibrate good for me #
The vibrate feature would be useful in cases where, in the past, I have seen the jiggling icons and did not realize that while holding the phone I had held an icon too long and set it into edit mode. Getting out of the car while holding an active phone is a time that I have encountered this issue myself.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
Jonathan 6
Wiggle vibration #
In all likelihood this is a Universal Access feature for those with poor vision, who would otherwise have no feedback that they had activated the mode.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
imposter
Antidisestablishmentarianist #
Surely you mean "twit"?
I often read apple articles just to see the flaming that goes on in the comments.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
mccp
@ Antidisestablishmentarianist #
He probably bothered because - like many of us - he knows that you're pretty much guaranteed an amusing diatribe between the trolling and the ifan commentards.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
Anonymous Coward
@Levente Szileszky #
"You mean pasting phone numbers...? Actually ALL phones can do it EXCEPT THE iCrap."
Well, none of the phones I have ever owned or used have had this. They certainly can't turn something like 0141-999-9999 into a dialable number either (because of the - chars).
My suggestion is don't make any comments until you're really sure that you've read the article and understood those strange squiggly things called letters and worked out the words that they represent. It might then be sensible to ponder the meaning of the words too...
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
Phil 33
@Levente Szileszky #
Sorry, I've had a succession of HTC phones (MDA Vario II, III, played with the IV, played with the G1 and Hero) and I thought they were great...until my wife got an iPhone 3Gs. Now using my Vario III is painful, even with Opera Mobile, browsing the web is slow and I realise how rubbish the resistive screen really is.
I'm getting my iPhone tomorrow and I'll be able to do almost all the same things on it as on my Vario III (SSH client, emailing, web browsing, some light gaming, and some tethering).
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:28 GMT
SuperTim
video trimming? #
It already does that. This improvement will just allow to keep the original? that seems a bit silly unless you are clumsy with the trimming op.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 09:29 GMT
Scott Mckenzie
@Antidisestablishmentarianist #
Brilliant!
Thank you for that.....
As for charging for the upgrade, Apple do not charge for the software for the iPhone, by law they have to charge a nominal fee for the same upgrade for the iPod Touch - which is a shame, but nowt they can do about it!
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 10:02 GMT
ThomH
@Levente Szileszky [2] #
Check out the address bar of this site. I'd be surprised if a very large percentage of people here are on AT&T, even amongst the iPhone owners. If you don't understand how that can be, try buying a map.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 10:02 GMT
magnetik
Re: video trimming? #
"that seems a bit silly unless you are clumsy with the trimming op"
Why? You may want to trim it differently at a later date, especially if you can do more accurate trimming on a computer. Haven't you ever cropped a photo and kept the original in case you want to crop differently, or apply some effect?
Fascinating how Apple add these useful features but people go and moan about them. Having a tough day at work or what?
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 10:02 GMT
Michael Brown
@imposter #
No, I'm pretty sure he meant "twat" :-) It's rather stronger than "twit" (and wholly appropriate in the circumstances):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twat
@Scott Mckenzie:
Apple don't charge for point upgrades for iPhone OR iPod Touch.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 11:02 GMT
Tony Chandler
re: Levente Szileszky #
I HAD no IDEA that CAPITALISING words in your ARGUMENT made it such a STRONG case. It DOESN'T make you LOOK like a DICK at all.
THANKS, you've IMPROVED my arguing skills IMMEASURABLY!
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 11:02 GMT
Scott Mckenzie
@Michael Brown #
Thanks for clarifying that bit about the point release bits!
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 11:02 GMT
SuperTim
@magnetik.... I suppose you have a case #
But we are talking about crappy mobile phone video here. if you want to professionally edit video, i doubt you would start with such a poor source. Trimming a video on the iphone gets rid of the crappy bits you never wanted. This new service may help to make lots of small video bits out of a large one. I would prefer the option to add lots of small bits together into one large file, which would be more helpful.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 11:02 GMT
M7S
@Michael Brown - "Oh yes they do" #
If your touch is a previous software generation there is a charge, £ 5.99 in blighty.
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipodtouch/softwareupdate.html
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 11:17 GMT
Anonymous Coward
@M7S #
So, after using some joined up thinking, I deduced that if I had already paid for OS 3.0 then the 3.1 update would indeed be free. If however, I had not already upgraded to 3.0 then 3.1 would have to be paid for. Simples.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 12:08 GMT
Andy Watt
Voice dial - excellent. #
Cool. I've been watching the iPhone gradually (painfully) gathering features I've been using in smartphones for the last 4 years, and now the 3GS has finally overtaken the 2-year-old P990i I've been using (which has done pretty well).
Voice dialling will mean it'll work with my car kit (which masquerades, usefully, as a bluetooth headset handsfree).
I'll be over in Italy getting one come October as I'm buggered if I want to deal with O2s crappy data network...
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 13:03 GMT
Chris 72
@AC 08:37 #
"Well, none of the phones I have ever owned or used have had this. They certainly can't turn something like 0141-999-9999 into a dialable number either (because of the - chars)."
Works OK on a WinMo6.1 HTC Touch Pro. Doesn't translate text into numbers though, so on that point iPhone3.1 is ahead (though as someone else pointed out above, on this side of the puddle it's not all that often you'd need to be able to do this...).
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 13:30 GMT
jsp
@ Levente Szileszky #
As well as FOTW I think El Reg should have ICOTW (Idiotic Comment of the Week). This has to be a contender. Made my day. Thank you.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 14:07 GMT
UkForest
This will sound mad... #
But, as much as I love my iPhone, why not fix the bug in the Clock App that means the alarm doesn't always go off!?
Sounds daft, but setting your alarm doesn't mean it'll wake you up in time for work!!!
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 17:52 GMT
Michael Brown
@UkForest #
The alarm on my iPhone has woken me up at 7:30 every weekday morning for the past year without fail. I've set other alarms too and have never had an issue. There is no alarm bug that I'm aware of.
@M7S: err, Oh No They Don't. As Simon Banyard already pointed out, if you already have 3.0 on your iPod Touch then you won't get charged for upgrading to 3.1. Obviously if you're still on 2.x then you'll have to pay for the upgrade.
Posted Thursday 2nd July 2009 17:52 GMT
slider5634
Voice Control :( #
It's nice that you'll have voice control via bluetooth, but it really bothers me that this is only available via the 3GS. They ungimped the stereo bluetooth with a software update; why isn't voice control available simply through the 3.0 update for everyone? What kind of special hardware could you possibly need to make this work?
The last time I looked, voice control on anything is just a piece of software and the only hardware requirement is a microphone. HEY APPLE, my iPhone 3G has a microphone on it; where's my voice control? Please make this available ASAP... KTHXBYE
This topic is closed for new posts.