iPhone OS 3.0 hands-on!

We're not saying how, but we got hooked up with the beta of iPhone OS 3.0. Overall, things feel about the same until you flick left that extra time and hit the Spotlight screen, which works just as advertised. It's definitely a beta, though: it's laggy all around and some things don't work, like taking a photo directly in the MMS app. We took some quick snaps, check 'em out below and let us know what you want to see in the video!

Update: Added a few snaps of the landscape keyboard in Messages and Mail, anything else?

iPhone 3.0 hands-on

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 18th 2009 10:50AM]

I would be interested in seeing a shot of the homepage. I'm just curious as to what the new SMS icon looks like, and I'm guessing spotlight is just a magnifying glass, but it would still be interesting to see nonetheless.

[Soniquev8 Posted Mar 18th 2009 11:12AM]

Ok, maybe I just skipped over it (234 comments is a lot to read), but can Spotlight take advantage of the landscape keyboard? It seems pretty stupid if Apple's forgotten to add it to one of the most useful new features for customers.

[jimmylittle Posted Mar 19th 2009 4:34PM]

no, spotlight doesn't do landscape, AFAIK. it wouldn't help if it did. the keyboard and search box would take up too much of the screen, making you list of found items only 1 line long, not very usable...

[Soniquev8 Posted Mar 19th 2009 6:46PM]

Have to disagree with you there Jimmy. The search field and keyboard could disappear as soon as you press 'Search', giving the developers the entire screen to display results in some type of CoverFlow variation. Not saying results would have to be presented that way (or even that they should be), I'm just saying that it's not impossible to do for the creative minds at Apple.

I imagine that Spotlight's lack of a Landscape layout and subsequent keyboard stems from the fact that the landscape keyboard was an afterthought from the beginning and has only now been added to the main apps (after two years of popular demand). It also stems from the fact that Spotlight has been built into the home/main 'app' and providing a landscape layout for Spotlight would seemingly require a landscape layout for the home screen; and Apple has been less than apt to make any change to their base UI.

[rmanke Posted Mar 18th 2009 11:05AM]

I have an idea for Apple - this will silence the naysayers, and it's 90% of the way to what the Pre will offer...not to mention will take a lot less battery life than the Pre...

When an app is being closed... Just save the state, and take a screenshot of its current state... then... have a really cool animation that looks like it is being moved aside in order to come back to it in a blink of an eye... then when someone swipes back to it, continues where it left off...

Cha-Ching... multitasking!!

[What do people need multitasking for anyways??? They want to do database indexing or spreadsheet recalculations when they make a phone call or check their calendar??]

[Silverfox2000 Posted Mar 19th 2009 4:14AM]

A lot of the already existing apps do that already. For example when I'm playing an othello game I can pause the game by clicking the top button twice and moving the unlock slider to get back to my springboard. From there I usually launch w/e app I need and when I get back to Othello, the game is there right where I left it.

[rmanke Posted Mar 18th 2009 11:07AM]

I would agree though, that saving state would be nice when a person receives a phone call... :)

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 18th 2009 2:45PM]

So, Ive just updated through dev program, and I like the new features a lot. I wont get into too much detail here, but I have found 1 problem so far. My battery only lasts 3 hours. Ive tried restarting it, and not firing up any apps, and its still only lasts 3 hrs. I also noticed that holding down the home button doesnt force quit applications anymore. It does nothing. Has anyone else, who has installed the new 3.0, experienced this?
Thanks

[cescobar2 Posted Mar 18th 2009 4:13PM]

i can't wait for this to get released

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 18th 2009 4:37PM]

So with that SMS preview option, do texts not pop up on the screen? Or, what does in fact happen when you have the preview off?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 18th 2009 5:56PM]

No micro SD card huh?

Jason

http://www.vacaconnect.com

[Silverfox2000 Posted Mar 18th 2009 11:54PM]

This is a software update. There will be a separate hardware announcement, hopefully around Summer. But don't hold your hopes high, I doubt there will be any card support.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 18th 2009 6:03PM]

how many pages of apps can you have? is it still only 9?

[goseki Posted Mar 18th 2009 10:13PM]

Bluetooth does impact fairly heavily on battery life.
eg iPod Touch normally sits in idle state for a week has lost half its battery power in a day.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 19th 2009 8:46AM]

Hey guys i have got one question about this amazing new firmware any one has an idea, does the firmware OS 3.0 support Arabic language? i wish to hear soon..............Thanks

[cardfan Posted Mar 19th 2009 9:20AM]

Hard to believe that there's this many stupid people who seem to think the iphone is worth having. Oooohh MMS? Copy n paste? I loves my little aolphone. It talks to me and sends me popups every 5 min wanting me to buy more. Such willing sheep. Apple loves you...

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 21st 2009 1:26AM]

http://3amdev.synthasite.com/ iPhone 3.0 beta access for $15.00

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 29th 2009 4:46PM]

If you want a tutorial on how to get this in the next 10 minutes, go to my youtube video tutorial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oItPuGiDzgA

I promise.
Im running os 3.0 now and i love it~!

Compatible with:
ipod touch 1g
ipod touch 2g
Iphone 1g
iphone 3g


Download links in the description.