iPhone OS 3.0

During today's keynote address at WWDC 2009, Scott Forstall - head of Apple iPhone software development - gave the audience a detailed overview of many of the new features in OS 3.0, including copy & paste, shake-to-undo, spotlight searching, and more. Two of the "more" were the highly anticipated support for MMS (multimedia messaging) and tethering (the ability to share your iPhone wireless connection with your PC).

Last chance people! The WWDC keynote speech is tomorrow, but that hasn't stopped more spy photos from leaking out. This blurry image from iSpazio shows the iPhone in an active iChat videoconference.

We see a dark bezel and green light matching some other spy photos that have been released. The quality of the image is poor... this wouldn't be a difficult image to fake. Is it a requirement that "leaked" photos are always out of focus or motion-blurred?

Photos are worth a thousand words. The iPhone V3 looks better and better every day. More evidence has surfaced that Apple's killer app for the next generation iPhone is not only video recording and editing, but full videoconferencing using iChat.

Note in this photo from FSMdotCOM what appears to be a green light in the upper right hand corner of the iPhone. This looks just like the light on built-in iMac webcams.

Developers have found new header files in a directory labeled "compass" under iPhone OS 3.0 beta 5. These files point to Japanese company Asahi Kasei’s azimuth sensor No. AK8973. The reference describes a chip otherwise known as a digital compass, or a magnetometer, that comes bundled with a master clock oscillator.

The confirmation of this additional hardware on the next-generation iPhone is exciting, to say the least. Applications that would take advantage of an azimuth sensor have only begun to develop and make a multitude of new functionality possible.

Apple has posted two job opportunities that could give further insight into the hardware and advanced capabilities coming our way on the next generation iPhone. Video recording and an improved 3.2 megapixel camera have been confirmed.

It seems Apple is ready to develop some exciting ways to take advantage of the new hardware. The following is an excerpt from a job description from Apple: