Signal to Noise

Those of us who rely heavily on the iPhone have been consistently frustrated by the laggard manner in which Apple has delivered important updates for the device–notwithstanding security updates of course.  There are some consipicuously missing features with the iPhone, and every time an update is looming, I start to gather information in anticipation that some of these features will show up in the new update and save me some hassle.

The Good, The Bad, The Unknown, and The When

The Good: Apple has already confirmed the addition of MMS messaging (photo and audio messaging). Unfortunately, it’s only for 3G iPhone users and only, apparently, for subscribers to AT&T. I’d like to see this combined with visual voicemail so that I can forward messages to contacts without having to make a context-halting stop in iPhone Mail (which doesn’t let me forward voicemail anyway, so I digress).

It also appears that the new iPhone will sport a search function.  How in the world you can carry 16 GB of data in your pocket without a search function is perhaps only attributable to Apple’s useability ethic, I suppose.  But a cross-app search function is definitely a welcome addition.  So is cut and paste.

Another notable newcomer to the iPhone’s feature list will be landscape orientation compatibility for typing-related apps such as SMS and Mail.  It’s hard to type in portrait orientation–though not unusably so.  The spot on my iPhone where the backspace key appears is beginning to wear out.  Landscape typing will allow for larger keys and, hopefully, fewer typing errors, at the expense of some message body real estate.

Finally, a largely unhyped feature that Apple has confirmed is RSS updates to iCal feeds over 3G.  Huge for me and I can’t wait.

The Bad:

Apple has not confirmed that apps acquired from sources other than the iTunes store will run on iPhone 3.0. This is hugely disappointing, though not unique among smartphone makers.  A proliferation of open (particularly open-source) applications would bode well for Apple’s efforts in the business arena.

It also appears that the iPhone camera improvements, demonstrated in software, may in fact be disabled on 3G iPhones, so that they only work on the new 32 GB models when they arrive.  If this is the case, features like blur prevention and light control will be artificial bait to foster new device sales.  Ho-hum.

The Unknown:

Last we checked, the camcorder app for the iPhone was more or less proven by the existence of evidence within some developer seeds of iPhone 3.0 that appeared a few months ago.  However, we remain skeptical as the iPhone still doesn’t have enough storage to be the leaps-and-bounds improvement in cell phone video recording Apple probably desires.  I would not be surprised if this feature ends up 32 GB-only as well.

The When:

My guess is WWDC.