IPhone 3.0 has copy/paste, subscriptions, micropayments, P2P, maps, push, MMS, etc | Hacker News Reader

IPhone 3.0 has copy/paste, subscriptions, micropayments, P2P, maps, push, MMS, etc

engadget.com

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In-app sales will create huge new opportunities.

From the talk: "Would you like to purchase one rocket launcher for $0.99?"

Oh yeah, that sounds like fun. Clearly a great way to be nickle and dimed to death in every application and game.

Clippy resurrects himself from the grave and pops up in the lower right-hand corner

It looks like you're trying to copy and paste. Would you like to pay $0.05 in order to continue? (Continue/Cancel)

It looks like you're trying to exit the application. Would you like to pay $0.10 in order to continue? (Exit and pay $0.10/Stay for free)

It looks like you're shocked to see one of Microsoft's worst creations pwn your smartphone. Would you like to buy a copy of iLithium(R), iXanax(TM), or iProzac(TM) to soften the blow for $14.99? (Yes/No)

I have no idea why this is getting downmodded. I think it's funny. Maybe I'm just the right age for this joke.

Obviously, this in-app payment feature was deliberately designed to be irritating and intrusive. Apple understands that, to most paying customers, the word micropayment carries a connotation of being slowly and imperceptibly bled to death by vampires. So perhaps Apple is going to provide an API which turns in-app charges into such an ugly, flow-shattering experience that nobody could possibly miss it -- which will also compel app designers to avoid using this feature unless they really have to.

It's possible to abuse any feature. I can see this being a win-win for apps that provide layers of value (depth).

This is an extremely myopic perspective of a feature that opens up possibilities. Like somebody said, everything can be abused. But then people have the supreme authority to reject those who do.

to most paying customers, the word micropayment carries a connotation of being slowly and imperceptibly bled to death by vampires

"Most paying customers" are unlikely to have even heard the term "micropayment", let alone to have strong views on the subject.

Funny, though it would be funnier if applied to Windows Mobile and not an Apple product... I mean, Apple products are kind of the anti-clippy, or at least that's how they're known, no?

Every good tech implementation will be abused. I'm sure games will come out that don't leech away on their users, just as some will make lots of money by suckering out lots of micropayments.

I'm sure that was just for demonstration purposes. EA tried that in a bunch of games when Xbox LIVE first offered these features. Customers FREAKED and things have been much more reasonable since.

I was surprised to see in-app sales were only for paid apps. I imagine a big market where apps "hook" a user by being free, then make money from in-app sales.

Offering in-app sales in free apps would be bad for user experience. When you download a free app you do so without intention to spend any money-only to try it out.

A lot of developers may try to abuse this by creating tons of free apps with paid content. Then it will be impossible to know whether the apps your downloading are really free.

This was my initial response as well, and I agree it could be abused by developers.

But I still think there's value in a free app that has paid upgrades, even if Apple has to classify them as "Mixed" instead of Free or Paid.

I am guessing that the in-app upsell feature will lead to a lot of apps dropping prices to the lowest level possible and using the incremental purchase options to increase revenue based on what the users what to get out of the app and what features they want to enable. It could basically lead to a-la carte feature & content selection for some apps.

Don't worry, Apple specifically said you can't do this. (Create a free app with paid content.)

and pay is better? I pay the $4.99 for your app and then you nickel and dime me to death?

In fact for paid apps its even worse because the developer has already gotten the $4.99 from me(which used to be their sole source of revenue up to this point), so any additional money I'd pay would just be bonus, so they have no incentives not to abuse the nickel and dime option

Why would you (or any customer) pay the initial $4.99 if you knew about and objected to the in-app purchases? Or if you didn't know, why would you pay the initial $4.99 unless you thought the product was worth it as-is?

A simple solution would be to place some sort of obvious badge on the App Store page if the app has in-game sales.

I suspect we may see an influx of 'demo' games costing $0.01c, where you can buy the additional levels. At the moment there are a host of free 'Lite' games with paid-for versions.

The minimum cost for a paid app is $0.99 if I'm not mistaken.

This would create a million apps far more horrible than even what's there now. Think the Windows "freeware" market.

It will definitely be nickle and dime theater.. and HUGE. The push notifications will be a test on whether or not we all start to hate iphones.

"Now as I said before, 3.0 brings a lot of new features for devs, but for customers as well... starting... with cut, copy, and paste."

Freaking finally!

> Q: Why did copy paste take so long?

> A: Scott: It's not that easy. There were security issues.

What does this mean? Could it be that with the iPhone, letting the user extract his own data from the device and sending it elsewhere is a "security" issue?

I wonder if the buffer is outside the normal application sandbox.

I think perhaps it is more "bypassing of security" issues. On the iPhone applications don't get to interact with each other, so a breach must be made in that protection, and once breached it must be guarded.

Who cares about how big a step it is conceptually. The real question is why it was so hard technically.

You download a game. You play it once. It sucks. Meanwhile, it has stolen your mail and phoned it back home to a server in Uzbekistan.

What does this have to do with copy and paste?

Copy and paste is a form of IPC. IPC needs to be secure, or (see above).

If you don't trust the free game you just downloaded, you might not want it to be able to see what's on the clipboard. Some number of people will copy their passwords, credit card numbers, etc. If an app phoned home the contents of the clipboard every time it ran, eventually it would pick up some private information.

And that's assuming that all the bug gives you is the cut buffer. Who knows how they were actually led to implement the feature?

I've just used it for the first time running the 3.0 beta. I copied a URL from an email into Safari. It Just Works, as you would expect. It is very intuitive - I deliberatly tried prior to reading a detailed review or watching the video of the presentation.

"So, copy/paste in iPhone 3.0." Applause. Applause for a feature that every other device in the world has. Odd.

I like the iPhone, but this sums up what I usually feel about Apple products.

Don't you think the genius is that they created an interface where it wasn't absolutely essential from the get-go?

I often found myself wanting to copy stuff from my to-do list to an email message. Or a URL from Safari.

But you still enjoy the phone.

Companies that create products that people enjoy tend to benefit from loyalists who will applaud your every move. It's an advantage that entrepreneurs covet as long as they're not blinded by it.

They take time to get it perfect :/

Applause because the iPhone went from being the best mobile phone despite lacking major features, to the best mobile phone which lacks no major features.

Except for video recordings, a decent camera, and built-in TV. Those are standard features in high-end phones in Europe and Japan.

and Flash

which, to be fair, isn't supported on any other iPhone-caliber device either.

Built-in TV is a joke.

Why?

Have you ever seen an OTAHD antenna? That's why.

N95 has TV in some countries. The phones look like ordinary N95s. So do lots of Telstra phones in Australia (which have Foxtel content) and KDDI phones in Japan. They just look like ordinary phones.

The Telstra phones stream the Foxtel content digitally over NextG if I'm not mistaken?

Yup, and good point: there's no need for a giant antennae, anything capable of 3G can do it fine.

Yeah built-in TV will never happen on the iPhone because it competes directly with iTunes store purchases.

oh ffs. Do you people exhibit this constant bitchiness in real life too?

I live in "Europe" and I've never seen anyone watch TV on their phone before, despite it being free with most contracts. Also, no phone has a decent camera; even the Sony C905 (which is probably the best camera phone available in Europe) is mediocre as a camera, providing very noisy 8MP JPGs with horrible colors.

In a few years, a company is going to release a CCD that can shoot high-quality 720p video and decent-quality images and is small enough to fit in a phone. When this happens, I guarantee you that the iPhone will have it just like all other cameraphones.

I saw a guy a few weeks ago on an evening train in Tokyo watching a ballgame split-screen with his email app, where he was writing a reply. He sent the mail, and then the TV app went back to full-screen. I don't watch TV, but that was just amazingly cool.

A year ago or so at a mid-scale sushi restaurant some guys sitting nearby were watching the ballgame on their phone, though thankfully they had the sound off.

I just got back from lunch, where the guy next to me was watching the Japan-Korea baseball game on his cell phone.

And the ability to use a phone outside the country your purchased it in. Hey Apple, early adopters travel! Stop raping your customers with stupid activation procedures!

(I purchased an AT&T iPhone, using it with an Apple agreed carrier in the UK, the phone won't activate anyway)

SDK access to bluetooth? Awesome, I have a client who is dying for this...

Lovely. This was a good platform choice for me to specialize in. I'm going to start consulting almost exclusively for the iPhone, I think it's a platform that will be here for a good number of years.

Apple really nailed it with version 3.0, and this is going to be great for us. I suspect you'll start seeing app acquisitions as companies look to acquire an 'install' base to leverage.

Time to get crankin' on more apps before gold rush 3.0!

Actually, hmm.. I wonder how the subscription will work for apps that were formerly free. I assume users will be able to 'opt-in' for subscription payment, otherwise the application is deleted.

In-application payments are not available for free applications.

96% of apps are approved? I thought the percentage was much lower. Vocal minority, I guess.

That doesn't say how many times the app had to be resubmitted before approval. I'd like to see the rate of first time rejections.

A lot of first time rejections are for things like version numbers not matching. I'm not sure why that stat would be meaningful.

Well obviously we want to know more about the procedure and why apps get rejected. We want to know what Apple's "moral" objections are and what values they're trying to impose. Its more a fear of some agenda (beyond no apps that don't work or do harm) that we may not agree with then stats.

It also doesn't hurt to know what your chances are to have trouble.

Misleading statistic - developers are probably just getting better at self-censorship. They don't bother submitting non "politically correct" apps anymore.

They should have reported to wait time too. It's been 3 months and counting for my first app.

3.0 SDK beta is available today. Can't wait to try it out.

Is the new OS just for registered developers? How hard would it be for a non-developer to obtain and install it?

It's just the normal $99 developers. Originally the betas were limited to whoever Apple liked.

Downloading now! wheee

If I upgrade to the developer's 3.0 (I'm in the program), can I restore my 2.0 OS?

edit: just checked, you cannot restore the old version.

30% cut to Apple isn't a micropayment, which I define as tolerating small amounts without getting killed on overhead. You could just charge their credit card and get better rates. I wonder if they'll block services like http://tipjoy.com from working on the iphone.

This sounds like an awesome release though.

I agree. If I wanted to sell an ebook or mp3 or something at a competitive price it would be impossible!

Search mail on the server!

I'm pretty pissed about MMS not being available on the 2G, but at least now with copy & paste I can finally copy those fucking username/password combinations that AT&T sends me.

If I understand correctly, MMS will be available on all iPhones once they are updated to iPhone OS 3.0. It was never a hardware issue.

Nope.

---- Engadget ----

11:27AM "What about the rest of us? iPhone OS 3.0 will be available this Summer. A free update to all of our iPhone 3G customers. And it works on the original iPhone. Now the hardware has changed between these two devices. For instance, A2DP and MMS won't be available on the iPhone 1st gen. It's also available for the iPod touch... for $9.95."

---- gdgt ----

11:27AM - “As a bonus, we’ve enabled it to work on the original iPhone. The hardware’s changed though: MMS and A2DP won’t be available on the original iPhone.” iPod touch users: $10.

11:27AM - App Store will be in 77 countries. 3.0 ships this summer for free.

This sounds like bullshit to me: maybe I'm just naive, but I can't for the life of me figure out how a cell radio could be unable to transmit MMS. Especially the radio in a phone released after 2002.

Oops, I stand corrected. All the news I read skipped that part. But I too can't imagine how the original hardware would not be able to handle it...

I tried to go to the URL from those but it always says the server is down :-( does that thing work for anyone?

Shouldn't we wait until this conference is done before posting?

too exciting

Lots of great updates, but still missing voice-activated dialing, which -especially with a bluetooth headset- is very useful when driving.

Why does apple not just release new features once they finish working on them? Why do they have to do these we-got-new-features press conferences and only release new features on those dates?

Not suprisingly, Apple releases the SDK ahead of the OS release, so that developers get some lead time. When the SDK is released it also announces the new features.

Can someone tell me why cut and paste is so much in demand? I've been using my iPhone for months and never once needed it. Are folks editing documents on their iPhone?

What I need it for the most is when someone sends me the details of a social event via mail/facebook (location/time/phone number) and I need to SMS it to my friends. Currently, the only way to do so is to flip back and forth between the apps and rely on your short term memory.

It's also a pain the other way: When you receive an SMS and you need to facebook/e-mail/SMS others (although SMS forwarding solves 1/3 of this problem).

What I would use it for is to log in to my my school's wireless network. Not the actual network itself, which is open, but the gateway afterwards that requires you to enter your student email address and password. It's quite long and I usually end up turning wifi off when I'm on campus so I can still get emails. If I could save even just the email address in a note I could copy-paste it and save at least 30 seconds of time (which is surprisingly long when you need to want to catch something before the professor enters and starts lecturing).

I wonder how the dock accessoires will influence the app review process.. Will you be required to ship your accessoire to Apple before they can review your app?

Does the MMS and voice notes support mean you could record a voice message and 'text' it to someone?

Like the best bits of voicemail and SMS combined? Because that would be brilliant.

Yes, it does exactly that!

Wow. How very revolutionary! You have been able do that with any standard Sony Ericcson phone, for the last 2-3 years, and probably Nokia, HTC, Samsung too. My phone has a button that says "reply with voice-message" and then using some sort of black voodoo it gets sent over mms.

I like it when apple make a new product, strip it of most basic features and then when they finally add the long missing features... It's like the second coming of Jesus.

I never said it was revolutionary. It's a feature that seems useful, is new to the iPhone, and will be a free upgrade. As a very happy iPhone owner (and yes I've had Sony Ericcsons, Motorolas, Nokias, HTCs, etc...) this upcoming feature (and the others) are something to look forward to.

If Sony Ericcson offered a software upgrade that did over the air sync of all my MobileMe data, that would be great, and I can't imagine saying "well I've been able to do that for ages with my iPhone" to a happy Sony Ericcson owner. Why does it have to be a battle?

Yes revolutionary - and end to typing and interpreing txt spk.

What's really funny though is all the people saying "but my Sony motorola windows mobile bzjqrrZzz73000 has had this for ages" as if that mattered.

Isn't this evidence that it's not the list of features that sells, but the quality of the device and the user interface to the features that matters? Not proof that the iPhone is crap because it lacks these features, but proof that it's extra good for thriving even without these features because the rest of it is so good.

Sent from my iPhone. Written awkwardly on an annoying keyboard in a too small space. But I don't mind!

What was the report on streaming video? if it's what i think it is, this is a huge win for qik and others.

Wait - the iPhone didn't have bluetooth before this update right? Which means it was enabled entirely through a software update. Is that right? I know it operates on the same frequency as wifi but still, that's pretty impressive, isn't it?

the iphone had bluetooth before this update, but it was very limited in scope.

The app store upgrades look like they might be useful for many devs, but to be honest it's pretty hard to get excited over features other smartphones have had for many years.

And of course, users still don't have access to their own data.

As a serial app developer (though not yet on that platform) here's what I heard from Apple's announcement:

crap, crap, crap, IN GAME PAYMENTS!!!, crap, crap, crap.

P.S. background notifications

I guess that list would probably be a little less bland were I an iPhone user.

How good the micropayments feature is depends on what their cut on it is. 30% off of 10 cents hurts a lot more than 30% off of $10.00

um... in what way does it hurt more?

That was a stupid comment made in haste that makes no sense as written. Paying apple 30% of repeated micropayments would hurt me more than the alternative, but it's only true in my context - which is probably not the context Apple designed their system for.

I am building a web based service which can also be accessed via an iPhone app. I get paid via micropayments which I aggregate till they reach a certain dollar amount and then process via a payment processor that charges me in single digit percentages. I have the option of using iPhone's own micropayment service but that would hurt me more.

Thanks for the decent response.

So for payments received from other sources (non iPhone), you get the full amount, but if you were to make use of the new micropayments in OS 3,0, you'd be down 30%? I can see how that would hurt

The advantage of using the app store micropayments is that users don't have to create a new account somewhere and put their account info in your app. They can use an existing system and have a one-click buy option.

It'd be interesting to see what will result in more profits. My guess would be that the increased sales on the iPhone outweigh the higher profit margin with the alternatives. This depends on your costs too of course (e.g. copyright fees for eBooks)

is iphone 3.0 only for the iphone, or is it supported on the ipod touch too?

There is a fee for Touch users to upgrade.

So you can embed Google maps in your app, but you can't use their maps? Isn't that kind of worthless?

You can use their maps just not for turn-by-turn. Read the article. :)

yay for turn by turn apps in the future

It will be interesting to see what happens with the pricing for those apps. On other phone platforms, they usually cost over $100 per year. A very bad deal, IMO.

I came across http://sygic.com/press/press_12.3.09.html which says it'll release its software for the 3G for $79

Soooo ... how long until people pull the SDK apart looking for indications of a new iphone with new hardware in June?

Software streaming video support, the recent release of an Apple patent on a front facing camera behind the screen - are we likely to see a videophone iPhone?

What would a new iPhone be like? Slightly smaller? Better battery life? Better camera? It would be hard for many people to justify dropping $600+ for just those features. And, Apple has demonstrated with these major firmware revisions that they can upgrade the device substantially; I think consumers will get angry if they start withholding firmware updates as an incentive to buy more hardware. That is exactly what Nokia does, and I don't think Nokia's customers are going to take it anymore after seeing what Apple's doing here.

Very soon the typical smartphone lifespan will be close to 5 years and the average computer lifespan will be close to 10 years. The Nokia N95 was released in 2006 and there are still tons of people rocking that device. There will probably be millions of people using the iPhone 3G and the Nokia N97 in 2014 (maybe as hand-me-downs).

Apple released new iPods year on year pretty much just for storage space upgrades for a while.

What could it have that couldn't be done in software? How about:

More storage (always more storage), more RAM, maybe a faster CPU if they could do it without ruining existing software by running it too fast, the new more precise more responsive multi touch screen design that was demo'd on recently, a front facing camera, new radio support (e.g. 4G), reduced power consuming components (3G/bluetooth/gps processors), improved internal speaker for music/handsfree use, new WiFi standard support, more CPU features, camera flash.

What about manufacturing changes? If they apply what they've done to the Macbook range to the iPhone, could they get a casing with fewer seams? Better looking? Cheaper to make? With more room for components inside?

And these are just basic predictable potential improvements without going as far as a projector or an nVidia 3D card or a physical keyboard or some new never seen before innovative change.

Good point ---- altough somewhat exagerated ---- but all points to that software development, after years, might finally catch up the hardware development a little bit.

Probably incremental update such as more RAM (many apps have a hard time because the OS uses most of the RAM, leaving very little for apps) and faster CPU (more responsive, faster web browser).

The preview of the new turn-by-turn API suggests that they may add a digital compass to the phone, just like the G1.

the average computer lifespan will be close to 10 years

Is anyone here using a computer they purchased in 1999?

Come on.

I'm using a 2nd-hand Omnibook 6100 which is from 2000-2001. It still works, and it's pretty powerful, so I use it.

The main reason is the CPU fan almost never comes on, so it's a quietbook.

Other than that, software development on it is a good idea, because if it runs adequately on this, it'll run blazingly faster on a new machine!

> It would be hard for many people to justify dropping $600+ for just those features.

Depending on your contract, the last iPhone hardware update was a "free" upgrade.

Of course there will be new hardware in June.

June 29 will be 2 years since the original went on sale, meaning the end of contract for all the early adapters. Does anyone think Apple will not have some nice new device waiting to help them decide to sign for another two years?

From the report:

No backgrounding, no multitasking, no unobtrusive notifications. No copy and paste (yet), no MMS, no video. Really pretty minor stuff thus far.

Ah well. So we have push notification, better hardware access and the maps API opened up for apps. Not totally shit but not revolutionary either.

Peer to peer communication and device apis are nice too.

Device API is what interests me the most! (even if I'm nowhere close to be a hardware engineer) I feel like it really opens a new field for the iPhone.

I'm not quite sure what would be a great application for this yet (the examples were ok but not ground-breaking), but I really like the idea of the iPhone being able to control a bunch of stuff...

We just got copy & paste.

Added support for MMS!

They've also added copy & paste, landscape view in Mail and other key apps, CalDAV support and MMS so far. Looks like they've made an effort to address most of the criticisms of the phone while laying the foundation for a huge amount of additional functionality from apps, especially with the p2p API. I'm quite pleased with what's been unveiled.

You really should watch the live coverage by someone other than engadget. I get the impression their person is only there because someone threatened to fire him if he didn't go.

If you are looking for information the Grumpy Mystery Science Theater version of the live cast is the wrong place to be.

I recommend watching the video on apple.com

MMS and C&P are a go.

Backgrounding and video would be nice, but when I think "phone features" they're not what come to mind.

Micropayments: death by a thousand cuts. Mark my words.

Well, that's kind of the nice thing about capitalism. If you don't like it, vote (or rather don't vote) with your wallet.

This would be true in a market driven by competition between near-equals.

The iPhone does not live in such a market. It has no competition. It is a qualitatively different product from other mobile phones. The cell phone market is divided into two categories: the iPhone, and inferior crud. If Apple were to begin charging $0.05 per "click", you would have to cough up the dough or switch to a vastly inferior product. Therefore, your ability to "vote" with your money is academic in this case.

Don't you think that a decision to begin charging 5 cents per click would significantly reduce the perceived quality of the iPhone?

I know it may be hard to believe, but we're just talking about cellphones here; I'm sure Apple is aware of the fact that doing something like that would be suicide in a very competitive market.

You're conflating the third party iPhone application market (which can now use micropayments) with the cell phone market as a whole. That's very odd.

Micropayments could easily become a standard, expected part of iPhone use. In that case, there will be no escape.

I suspect that this is the reason why Apple users complain about (even potential!) misfeatures to the extent they do. In the product categories where Apple is a player, from the standpoint of a dedicated Apple user, they have zero competition. All of the supposedly competing products are far below the quality-of-user-experience Apple users are accustomed to. Hence the perception that there is nowhere to run to.

Micropayments could easily become a standard, expected part of iPhone use.

Given how everything else you've said hinges on this assumption, you'd have done well to explain why you think it is true. Like I said before, you're conflating two markets.

As it depends on all players in a highly competitive market suddenly colluding to degrade the user experience upon which they all depend without anyone realizing that they might stand to make more money by not doing so, I find it hard to believe.

> degrade the user experience upon which they all depend... I find it hard to believe.

Try this on for size:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/11/apple-brings-hdcp-...

That doesn't relate at all to anything I've said, nor does it reinforce your point in the slightest. Your powers of misinterpretation are astounding and I hope that in the future you will refrain from commenting anywhere on anything.

The linked article shows an instance of Apple unambiguously, deliberately degrading user experience. It is highly relevant to this discussion.

That's not a discussion that any of my posts in this thread have been about.

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