Taking “this”:http://twitter.com/StarHubCares/statuses/1345865134 with a huge pinch of salt, just so that my hopes aren’t raised too high.
Ever since the iPhone was launched, there are many features that people wants to see on the phone, for it to be justify its tag as the Jesus Phone.
With the recent “preview of iPhone 3.0″:/2009/03/iphone-30-on-twitter/, some of these much wanted features will be added to the phone come this summer. Cut-n-Paste, MMS, SMS-forwarding, Bluetooth Stereo support etc.
However, there are still many features that people wanted that were not announced. Video capturing and streaming, Flash, background apps, just to name a few.
I can’t claim to have any inside knowledge nor technical know-how to say whether these features could be done at this current juncture. But looking at what Apple have done for the Macs, it definitely is not beyond their abilities to put them in. The iPhone OS and the Mac OS X share much of the same platform which theoretically, means what you can do on the Mac, you probably can do on the iPhone.
But yet, we don’t. Of course there are million and one reasons they are not there. Steve Jobs don’t like how it looks on the iPhone? Marketing wants to keep feature XXX to be for the next version, so that consumers are “trapped”? AT&T can’t afford to have that feature XXX because it will kill their cell network? Too many but one, that is some simple, might just be the simplest reason why we don’t see all these in there.
Batteries. A look around all major phones now show that battery life per charge go between 5-8 hours talk time. Note that is just an estimate based on just talking.
So what happens when you add videos, Flash, music etc. Plus most of the newer phones have bigger and brighter screens. Will you still get that 5-8 hours?
The hardware and software for phones out in the market are getting better and better. Besides the iPhone, there are still the Nokias, the Sony Ericssons, the Palms and add to that you have the Google Android phones. Their interface are getting better, screens look brighter and sharper, their OS gets smarter and apps do more than just calculate tips.
BUT it seems battery technology isn’t matching the rest of the advances. Yes it is much better than phones years ago. But it isn’t outpacing or at least, match the needs of consumers.
Yes we would want our phones to not just be able to call our family and friends, we want to be able to do video conferencing, on bigger screens, take photos and mail it to everyone on my twitter network, and at the same time IM my colleagues back at work, while downloading the last album from iTunes Music Store. We want to do EVERYTHING with our phone. But based on current battery capacity, our phone will probably lasts 5 minutes before we need to charge it.
Which brings me to why I think we won’t see everything we want now on our iPhone. The operating system or the hardware might support it, but the battery won’t. Not until there is a break through in technology which can give us at least twice or more of current capacity after one charge cycle.
Or they make it nuclear powered. What do you think?
A moment by moment recap of what I posted on “Twitter”:http://twitter.com/iheartapple as I watched the live (text) streaming of the “iPhone 3.0 preview”:/2009/03/iphone-30-preview-17-march/. Do join us on Twitter by following us at “http://twitter.com/iheartapple”:http://twitter.com/iheartapple
- Palm Pre, Android can kiss iPhones sweet behind. w00t half a minute ago from twhirl
- damn. must pay for the iPod Touch. to get iPhone 3.0 .. US$9.95 … 2 minutes ago from twhirl
- Apple FTW – #iPhone 3.0 is freaking FREE upgrade for all 3G phones, INCLUDING original iPhones! w00t 3 minutes ago from twhirl
- How much for #iPhone 3.0? 4 minutes ago from twhirl
- Mobile Safari remembers username/passwords too! Can #1Password be updated to support this? 6 minutes ago from twhirl
- yes there’s Stereo Bluetooth for the #iPhone too … 6 minutes ago from twhirl
- WiFi hotspot auto-login, covers Wireless@SG? #iPhone 7 minutes ago from twhirl
- More reason for possible #iPhone damages – “Shake to shuffle” music 7 minutes ago from twhirl
- Note syncing … took them long enough. How bout To-Dos? #iPhone 8 minutes ago from twhirl
- all these upgrades for #iPhone 3.0 begs one big question – HOW Much is the Upgrade?! $$$ 10 minutes ago from twhirl
- Spotlight UI on the #iPhone … across most major apps … 10 minutes ago from twhirl
- search FROM, TO, SUBJECT but not Mail content. Search all over. Will it kill my batteries? 11 minutes ago from twhirl
- iCal subscriptions … does it mean Birthday Calendar will end up in the iPhone? 13 minutes ago from twhirl
- damn the never-claim-to-be-smart #iPhone suddenly become THE SMART phone to rule them all. who’s gonna bitch about no SMS fowarding, MMS … 13 minutes ago from twhirl
- voice memos … 15 minutes ago from twhirl
- for messaging updates – Forward, Delete individual msgs, MMS support … Voice Memos #iphone 16 minutes ago from twhirl
- system wide LANDSCAPE keyboard access … woopee doo…#iphone 16 minutes ago from twhirl
- next #iphone common complain iPhones flying in the air as ppl try to undo their cut and paste 17 minutes ago from twhirl
- multiple photos mailing … perfect for the cam whores #iphone 20 minutes ago from twhirl
- “Shakes to undo” … sounds sexy #iPhone 24 minutes ago from twhirl
- cut and paste screen -> http://is.gd/nK6a via arstechnica 25 minutes ago from twhirl
- @kevinrose FTW … re: #iPhone Cut/Paste on the money! 27 minutes ago from twhirl
- and the Jesus Phone rises again! Copy & Paste is here. #iphone 28 minutes ago from twhirl
- finally… Copy and Paste … 29 minutes ago from twhirl
- @mrbunglez the night/day is still young. they probably milk the tension since almost every mother son wants it. its all show biz ;)about 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to @mrbunglez
- wonders how many score alerts will be sent out in each NBA game? ping ping ping every 24 seconds…#iphone about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- another possible use for TEXT SELECTION api … SMS Forwarding?!? #iphone about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- @shahib hey :) wassup? hahah watching from a far … the iPhone 3.0 preview about 1 hour ago from twhirl in reply to shahib
- Proximity Sensor in #iPhone 3.0 – shd built-in gender detection – “HOT BABE alert on iPhone!” beep vibrate beep… about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- if Starhub and M1 don’t bring iPhone in, will Push Notifications work for those who are using them? #iPhone #singapore … pray it will about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- consolidated push notifcations thru apple server . saves batt life? customising push notifcations w networks. so in SG it is SingTel. StarHub/M1? about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- push with bkg process kills both Apple and consumers…server die, batteries die…lose lose. what’s their solution? #iphone about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- oh… PUSH notifications … thought it was LOST! #iPhone … about 1 hour ago from twhirl
- 1000 new APIs … can my new iPhone 3.0 finally make coffee for me?! about 1 hour ago from twhirl
Though there is much dislike about “Starhub”:/2008/08/an-open-letter-to-starhub-dear-sparky/ over the Jesus phone, their TV offerings on Starhub TV is still something I enjoy, especially their Sports channels… at least until they lose out on English Premier League hosting rights.
Besides watching it on TV, if you are a “MaxOnline”:http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/Online user, you can also watch selected channels on your computer with their “Starhub TV Online”:http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/iView. They also offer “TV on Demand”:http://play.starhub.com/starhubtv/video.do where you can download certain shows they are screening on TV now, but unfortunately, that’s “Windows ONLY”:http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/CableTV/menuitem.b0b0f265fac5dfb3f75eb1109b1000a0/?vgnextoid=f3692a0a19134010VgnVCM100000b901000aRCRD&vgnextfmt=ItemCMId%3Acf4293f7ee45c110VgnVCM100000464114acRCRD#2.
Anyway, not to be disheartened, there are still seven channels which you can watch online – Football Channel, Goal TV 1 and 2, CTI TV, Fashion TV, National Geographic and Nat Geo Adventure. However, you cannot watch it off the “StarHub TV Online website”:http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/iView but requires the Windows Media Player (“download here”:http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/flip4mac.mspx) to do so.
Once downloaded, you have to manually input the URL to watch the channels of your choice:
- Football Channel: http://www.starhub.com/config/FC.asx
- Goal TV 1: http://www.starhub.com/config/GTV1.asx
- Goal TV 2: http://www.starhub.com/config/GTV2.asx
- CTI TV: http://www.starhub.com/config/CTI.asx
- Fashion TV: http://www.starhub.com/config/FTV.asx
- NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: http://www.starhub.com/config/NGC.asx
- NAT GEO ADVENTURE: http://www.starhub.com/config/NGA.asx
As these are streamed through cable, there is a slight time lapse. So don’t be surprised if you hear your neighbour shout GOAL and all you see is the ball being passed around.
Also, if you are behind a router, make sure you enable Multicast Streaming if you have issues connecting to the Starhub server.
Update – Have just swopped my Dlink router to the Airport Extreme Base Station and just like that, TV Online stopped working for me. Anyone had it work with this router, please let me know.
Copy/Cut and Paste is finally coming to iPhone 3.0, according to Kelvin Rose from “Digg”:http://digg.com/.
According to him, to activate copy/paste, you double tap on the screen to invoke a pop-up, similar to the Magnifying glass when you zoom in. There will be two double-qoute marks ” ” which you can drag around the sections you want to select, then choose copy, cut or paste. I suppose for pasting, you can choose the point to insert like how you move the cursor when you zoom in.
He revealed this during a “live recording”:http://www.viddler.com/explore/djsteen/videos/762/ of Diggnation #194 which will be released on 17 March (subscribe to Diggnation via “iTunes”:http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=76140881) which incidentally, is when the special preview of “iPhone 3.0″:/2009/03/iphone-30-preview-17-march/ will be held at Cupertino.
In that segment, he also mentioned that there will be no MMS, no background apps running and no video, with the last due to constant read/write of the internal memory during video which will screw the iPhone…(beats me). In summary, he said that these changes will match what “Palm Pre”:http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/ has.
Whatever it is, we will know in a few days when the iPhone 3.0 Operating System is revealed. Hold your horses.
Watch the video shot by one of the audience. They sounded like a horde with torches and pitch forks…
