Apple iPhone 3.0 Beta
Today, I downloaded the Apple iPhone 3.0 Beta to my iPod Touch through the Apple Developer Program that a colleague and I collaborate on. It was a great birthday present from Apple, and yes: it includes the cut and paste technology. Despite nearly-nonsensical yammerings from Apple on the reason cut and paste took so long to roll out (and why it’ll cost iPod Touch users $9.95), I have to say that the tech itself works quite well, and is apparently predictable enough to use consistently. It doesn’t seem likely that I’ll accidentally paste a steamy message to my wife onto my mother-in-law’s Facebook wall.
Another neat feature is the “shake to shuffle” technology that does exactly what it sounds like. Typing messages in landscape mode is a hoot as well, and it really makes me wonder why these features weren’t in from the beginning. Oh, right: it’s Apple.
The “spotlight” feature of Mac OSX has finally made it to the iPhone and iPod touch. By flicking the device one screen “left” of the home page, you can convince your iPhone or iPod Touch to search through e-mails, applications, and whatever else to find the keyword you’re searching for. No more fumbling (hopefully!) through page after page of application screens searching for that elusive add-on.
All-in-all, a lot of the “features” in the update ranks feel more like “things that should have come with my device when I bought it.” When the bloom is off of the rose for this update, it will certainly be interesting to see how the fanboys react.
As long as we’re talking Apple, I should mention that I am looking at the Mac Pro as an exclusive development platform for all future projects. The eight-core machine can be stacked with enough RAM to handle the forseeable future, and the ability to run OSX alongside Windows without resorting to Hackintosh methods is appealing. Also, the iPhone development SDK only runs in OSX, but I try not to let that shade my decision. Much.
Apple has a long history of making me feel worthless as a customer, so I’m going to sit on my decision for a little while to let things percolate.