On Friday, my iPhone 3G S was scheduled to be delivered. I was very anxious that, should it require a signature, I’d be spending the weekend awaiting its Monday arrival. So I took a shot and wrote a little note. I now love our Fed-Ex dude (dudette?).

So here’s the day: WWDC 2009 keynote, and we’re discussing iPhone OS 3.0.  But there are still some major things I think are missing from the iPhone.  Here they are, in no particular order:

Wireless Sync

Apple is the king of “no wires.”  They did everything wireless first.  But the iPhone still needs a wire to sync.  They have the perfect syncing technology already: Bluetooth.  Why not permit syncing over Bluetooth? I don’t any limitations on why you can’t sync over wifi, let alone Bluetooth.  This seems like a no-brainer.

New Springboard

How we’ve made it to 3.0 without a better way to manage our apps, without even folders, is a mystery. It’s imperative, especially as iPhone owners install more and more apps, that there is a better way to manage and access apps. It’s time for a re-thought Springboard.

File Management

Seems awfully odd that I carry 8GB of disk space on my hip but can’t carry a single document without emailing it to myself.  It’s time to permit some storage of files on the device.  Older iPods allowed “disk use,” why can’t the iPhone? And if not, at least a manner of loading the files through iTunes would be appreciated.

Background Apps

The chants have been loud and plentiful. We want to run apps in the background. It’s not fair to say it will chip into battery life: we understand that. Let us run down our own devices as we wish, okay?

Slashgear, and many other sites, are today posting a story about “Jibbler,” the alleged code-name of the voice control subsystem present in iPhone OS 3.0.  If this is the case, let me gently and professionally say “HALLE-FRICKIN-LUJAH!”

It’s about time the most amazing and groundbreaking mobile device ever had a proper hands-free solution.

I called iPhone OS 3.0 a few months ago.  I said we should expect the next release of iPhone firmware to be a revamped version 3.0.  I still feel fairly confident in my predictions: I still think we’ll see cut-copy-and-paste, better app management, and better enterprise management.

I’m still convinced that we will not see MMS, bluetooth sync, or video, although I’ll be very happy to be wrong on all three fronts.  I’d also like to see wifi and bluetooth sync, voice dial, and — here’s a novel idea — a faster phone app, but I’m cautiously optimistic.  I’m not expecting any of those, but again, would welcome them warmly.

I don’t expect to actually see firmware 3.0 until late spring or early summer, but I suspect we’ll have a nice overview of what to expect by the end of next Tuesday.

Someone is going to sue Apple in the not-too-distant future for their inconsistent and subjective App Store approval process.   I think they violate many anti-competitive practices.  It’s crazy to think that Apple has gone this long selectively allowing certain apps, all the while only defining guidelines for inclusion nebulously, and only considering applications after the work is done.  Furthermore, rejections are often without any explanation whatsoever. 

Someone, sometime, is going to sue.  And they should.  Apple is best of breed in most markets they have their toes, but they are really starting to behave pretty badly.

I was stuck in pretty terrible traffic last night, as a result, the 5 mile commute home took well over an hour forty five, during which time, I had to entertain a 15 month old. To pass the time, my daughter and I conducted an experiment: to find out which of the 16 fart noises that come in the iPhone’s “Fart for Free” application is funniest.

Fart for Free

I can now report the results.

I find fart #6 to be funniest. Each time I listen to it, I continue to laugh, unlike some of the others, which are funny the first time but no longer surprising or funny thereafter. 1 is good, a simple pop, but 6 continues to make everyone laugh.

But the science part of it is thus: will a 15 month old, who doesn’t speak any real English, whose comprehension is limited to just a few short syllables, find any fart funny at all?

The answer is an enthusiastic yes! Jillian found fart #13 to the funniest, if her reaction is to be believed. She did not laugh at all at fart #1, however, she gave a good smile for #6. She cried during farts 10 and 11, which either means she didn’t find the herald blast variety funny or she was fed up with her car seat, but I’m inclined to believe the former, given that 13 led to fantastic laughter.

There you go: the most objective viewpoint, someone who, thus far is ambivalent towards farts as a whole, someone who has no preference for any particular brand of fart humor, someone who has no sense of embarrassment in this arena, a blank slate, totally unmarred by experience or shame laughed hardest at fart #13. Another great human mystery has been solved: the funniest variety of fart sound effect.

I haven’t heard much about what to expect in iPhone OS 2.3. A quick Googling of the term, as of today, yields nothing of value, other than speculation. iPhone 2.2 came out in November, almost 2 months ago. Since we haven’t heard anything about 2.3, that leaves just a few possibilities.

First, it’s possible that Apple simply stopped development on the iPhone. I think the likelihood of this is practically null.

The other possibility is that Apple has been working on things, but nothing is ready. In two months, we haven’t heard anything at all – there’s been no SDK update, no betas. That means either they are working slowly, or they are working on things that are taking some time.

Rewind to iPhone OS 2.0. There was supposed to be a “push” mechanism by which applications would report to Apple, and a single iPhone tether to Apple would act as the pusher for all background services. That was delayed until “October” timeframe, and has since been ignored. Or has it?

My prediction: the next version of the iPhone OS to see light of day will be iPhone OS 3.0. It will feature background notifications via Apple’s push services (which I further suspect will take between 2 and 3 months to work properly). It will feature some sort of tool for better applications management, maybe folders, as the current springboard is inelegant and cannot handle large numbers of applications. It will include copy & paste, if only to shut up the online crowds, but also because it’s necessary for a true smartphone-type device.

I think the biggest changes will be at enterprise level. The fact is, the iPhone is getting a lot of play in executive settings, and I think better management tools and business integration is a mound of cash waiting for Apple. They’ve conquered the home market, everyone I know has a damned 3G now. The business world is ripe for the taking, as Blackberries are so far behind the iPhone in features and style it’s not even funny.

What won’t be a 3.0 iPhone OS? Wi-fi and bluetooth syncing, unfortunately. There will be no voice dialing, no MMS, no Flash, no video recording.

Why? Wi-fi and Bluetooth sync seems unlikely to me. Apple did not want to allow Time Machine over Airport for some time either, possibly because of data corruption. I think the holdup here is that the SQLite databases on the phone may not be atomically updated, and therefore, an interruption in signal availability could damage the phone. Of course, this could happen with the cable too, but I think the fact that the battery would be in use may also be of concern. This is, of course, pure speculation.

Voice dial and MMS seem unlikely, because if Apple wanted to ever include these standard phone features, it seems they would have done so by now.

Flash is a third party app. It won’t be in the OS. If Apple wants to bless it, they can and would do so for 2.x.

Video recording would be unlikely largely because the camera on the iPhone sucks. So why bother, if every iPhone filmed video would be poor quality, 100% of the time? Perhaps if new hardware came out that wasn’t camera-shorted, it would be more likely, but current models, with the terrible 2mpx camera, will not produce video worth watching.

This is entirely assumption, I have no inside information. However, I think the major gap in time is suggestive of big things to come.

Apple needs to stop dicking around with these updates. Stop adding in things that are completely superfluous, and focus on the core functions: phone, SMS, email. Give us individual SMS timestamps and deleting, a unified email inbox, lock screen email notifications, more reliable email fetch, user profiles (for sounds and network settings), etc.

CrzyCanuck72, on forums.macrumors.com, discussing iPhone firmware version 2.2

I posted an article recently called “Apple’s Jobs Gives iPhone Customers What They Don’t Want” that discussed the upcoming 2.2 firmware and its new features.  iPhone firmware appears to give us Google Maps’ “Street view” and several other “features.”  It does not, however, make available any of the most requested features: MMS, copy & paste, Flash, voice dialing, bluetooth/wifi syncing, A2DP (stero bluetooth), landscape Mail view, video recording, text-message forwarding, or any of the over 1800 issues listed over at pleasefixtheiphone.com.  So what gives? Why is Apple not giving us these things? 

I should start by saying that MMS, or lack thereof, is the one things that bugs the crap out of me on the iPhone.  I’ve detailed before how useless and silly viewmymessage.com is. I can’t believe it’s not even something that can be accessed via a clicked URL.   But I don’t think the iPhone will ever have true MMS.  If Steve Jobs wanted MMS on the iPhone, it would be here by now.  No, they are phasing it out, which is arguably good in the long run, but at the expense of its usefulness today.  I don’t mind paying the extra few pennies each month for MMS.  Even just to receive the messages, but not send them.  But stop making the decision for me. 

I hate to say that the iPhone, a device that literally converted me from a mobile phone carrier to a smart phone carrier, as someone who sold more of these puppies in the last year than most Apple employees, is doing more to turn me off to Apple than anything else.  The iPhone and AppleTV both have let me down.  A lot.  So much so that even though I recently bought a new iMac (the 24″), I considered a nice new PC at a fraction of the cost, as prep for Windows 7, which looks to be really cool.  

Apple’s arrogance and inability to listen to its customers didn’t matter nearly as much when they were a tiny niche company.  But they play in the big leagues now, and I suspect that now that they have serious market share in the laptop and education market, they will find a mass defection in a few years as people start to get wise to their control tactics.  

I find the new iPhone firmware, even before I get my hands on it, a let down.  My iPhone can’t do what phones from 3 years before the iPhone existed does without sweating.   If Apple doesn’t start delivering, I suspect that the odds are very high that by the end of 2010 I’ll be carry an Android powered phone.

Yesterday, Facebook released Facebook for iPhone 2.0. I have to say, this is one of the best app updates I can ever recall. I’m incredibly impressed.

First of all, it introduced what appears to be a pretty decent speed boost. Interacting with the app is significantly faster for me on both Wifi and 3G.

Facebook for iPhone 2.0

Secondly, and more importantly, the app is much more robust and complete. Whereas before, the Facebook experience was very limited, the new app is almost a wholesale replacement while on your iPhone. The old version was so limited that you’d have to go to the browser for most operations such as adding a friend, viewing a photo tag, viewing requests, etc. And going to the browser directed you to m.facebook.com, which meant you had to login and go to the full site – a multi-step process to be sure. Also, the iPhone optimized Facebook site, iphone.facebook.com, was woefully underpowered. Both served as great platforms for basic browsing, but severely handicapped when it came to truly using the site.

So it’s that much more of a welcome treat that the new app is a full on competitor. As Apple continues to let me down, Facebook continues to do right by me.