Apple iPhone OS 3.0 announcement

Yesterday at 1:00 Apple had a special meeting for the press to announce the new iPhone OS 3.0. I was reading the highlights live on blogs and twitter, which was really exciting. Here are some of the announcements they made.

· Available in June

· iPhone in 80 countries with 13.7 million sold in 2008 (projected 10 million units sold). I wonder if this will do anything for the stock?

· 800,000 downloads of the iPhone SDK

· 96% of apps built by 3^rd parties are approved. 98% are approved within 7 days.

· 100 new features and 1000 new APIs

· Maps app for iPhone done with Google (go figure). Provides public API for embedded maps in applications. TBT capable, but something goofy about bringing your own maps.

· Push notifications done all server side. Claims that when tested with processing all on phone the battery and cpu were drained.

· Social Media and Networking. New app with Meebo (social network aggregator)

· Touch pet: social pet simulator

· Lots of new games through EA.

· Global game playing

· Buying into games at $1 a piece.

· Mention of Oracle Mobile as a way to contact CRM backends from the phone. Not sure what the app was here.

· New app with Lifescan for simplified diabetes management and realtime communication of health data to doctors so as to alter dosage and med strategies on the fly. Also, used to keep others informed of the health of the diabetic. Interesting “notification” type app.

· Peer to Peer support by using Bonjour for discovery. Location based music. iTunes sharing with nearby iPhone users

· MMS messaging

· Calendaring

· Search multiple apps at once

· Stereo Bluetooth

· Cut, Paste, and undo by shaking the phone (how cool is that! Etch-a-sketch style)

That about covers it. Most bloggers and tweeters were impressed, a lot of them said there is much here that is simply expected with a smart phone.