As you undoubtedly know by now, Apple did in fact announced the long-rumored next generation iPhone 3GS at the Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday. The company discussed some of the new geo-enhancements the iPhone 3.0 operating system will bring to the table, a topic that Brady Forrest covers in-depth on the O’Reilly Radar blog.
Several of the new features are very significant. With Mapkit or Google Maps View, developers will be able to take advantage of Google’s mapping platform rather than having to build their own from scratch. This has to be somewhat irritating to some of the early developers who spend tons of money and time building a platform from scratch, but as Forrest points out, the change will now give those companies an opportunity to switch over to Google Maps and eliminate the need to constantly perform costly maintenance.
Dynamic map markers will also allow real-time marker updates based on immediate information. While this is great for some applications, it still doesn’t eliminate the need for push notification or background application processing. Location-based apps like Loopt or Whrrl are of no use if they’re not running on the iPhone because you can’t receive updates. And, surprisingly, there was no mention of push notification support at WWDC yesterday. Apple’s Safari browser will support HTML 5 though, including the specifications geolocation APIs and offline content. One step closer, but not quite a perfect fix.
New features like in-application purchases, the video-capable 3 megapixel autofocus camera, the compass, GameKit and the accessories API will probably bring some new business models to the forefront.
In-application purchases will allow developers to sell updates to their location-based apps or, for example, sell virtual goods (see here, here and here for earlier discussions). The addition of a compass and autofocus camera will enable interesting augmented reality applications and the ability to recognize barcodes and QR codes. And GameKit, which allows iPhone’s to communicate over Bluetooth, and the accessories API, which supports interaction with third-party hardware, immediately brings to mind the creation of location-based games.
There is plenty of good coverage on the major tech blogs regarding some of the finer points of the iPhone 3GS, so I won’t cover that here. I will mention though, that the iPhone 3.0 software update will be available June 17. Also, the iPhone 3GS will come in 16 GB and 32 GB models, colored either black or white, and cost $199 and $299, respectively, with the signing of a 2-year AT&T contract. The 3GS will be available June 19. The old iPhone 3G will now cost $99 for new customers who sign a data plan.