Here's why 3.0's phat SDK matters to consumers.
iPhone OS 3.0 comes with tons of new tools for developers. What does that mean for us humble consumers? More sophisticated behavior from your iPhone or iPod touch, that’s what.
Push notifications allow developers to send alerts to your device even if the apps in question aren’t running. AIM, an early example, can notify you of new IMs with a sound, a pop-up message, and a number badge on the AIM icon--or any combination of those. Better yet, users can configure these notifications on an app-by-app basis in Settings > Notifications. Using push notifications does drain your battery faster than leaving them turned off, however.
In-app purchasing is a new revenue model that allows developers to offer a basic paid app and then sell additional add-on content to users from right inside the application. For example, Freeverse’s popular Flick Fishing lets users pay for a new fish, an extra fishing spot, and multiplayer mode. Pangea’s Enigmo 3.0 offers two level packs aimed at kids for 99 cents each. Developers aren’t allowed to sell add-on content for a free application, though, so don’t worry about falling in love with a free app only to be nickle-and-dimed later on.
Developers can even write iPhone apps that control a separate accessory connected to the iPhone’s dock port or paired with the phone via Bluetooth. At press time, no accessories had yet hit the market, but both iPhone 3.0 preview events (in Cupertino this past March, and again at WWDC in June) showed glimpses of some of the cool things we can expect.
LifeScan demoed an app that logs data from a connected glucose meter and includes tools to help diabetics track and manage their disease. Line 6’s MIDI Mobilizer app will let guitarists control their attached Variax guitar, switching between instrument models, amplifier profiles, and effects on the phone to radically change the sound of the connected, physical guitar.
Peer-to-peer connectivity allows developers to write apps so that multiple iPhones can interact with each other over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. It’s seamless for the user--automatic discovery, no pairing required. This will allow us to play multiplayer games without the benefit of a Wi-Fi hotspot. Smule’s Leaf Trombone: World Stage uses peer-to-peer to facilitate trombone duets, for example, and Flight Control includes a cooperative two-player mode. First-gen iPhones and iPod touches can use peer-to-peer apps over Wi-Fi, but not Bluetooth.
Developers can use a lot of iPhone 3.0’s other bells and whistles in their applications too, including the landscape keyboard, the cut-and-paste function, and the same Google maps already found in Apple’s native Maps application. Apps written for iPhone 3.0 can access the iPod app’s music library, so users can enjoy (and control) their own music while using a third-party app. Apps can even use the proximity sensor--an early example of this is reminder app reQall (more on this app in “iPhone, Take a Memo,” above), which automatically starts recording your voice memo when you hold the iPhone to your ear.
All in all, Apple added more than 1,000 new APIs (application programming interfaces) to the iPhone 3.0 SDK, giving third-party developers access to the same tools Apple’s own programmers use to build the company’s native iPhone apps. What sorts of magic the developers will come up with remains to be seen, but if the early examples are any indication, we’re in for a wild ride.
