Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Mandatory predictions

With now less than two hours to go before the iPhone OS 3.0 event, I think it is time for me to join the geek creed and make a couple of (clueless) predictions. Still I don't have John Gruber's writing style, nor insight, I'll keep these shorts and to the point.

So what to expect? Well since there is now a real challenger to the iPhone (that'll be the Palm Pre), Apple has to play catch-up and show that 3.0 will have all the goodies (and more, hopefully) than the Pre. Sounds pretty obvious isn' it? Well yeah it is. CNNMoney has a little write-up of the details of what to expect, here.

So then, what is/are my prediction(s)? Well here they are:

  • The multitasking (don't really like to use that term, 'cause technically the iPhone OS is already multitasking) will not be available unless you are using the new iPhone to come out in June (or it will be available on older HW, but with a limitation of said 2 users launched applications and you will have to enable it via some hidden setting). The reason for this isn't much about hardware limitation, but giving you reason to upgrade to the new iPhone, which will come with a faster CPU/GPU (just stating the obvious here) and 256Mb of RAM (instead of 128Mb currently).
  • Background application will be supported, but wont be based on UIApplication (let's call it UITask) and will have limitations on what they can do.
  • The OS will allow applications to exchange data (by using files in a common area and/or IPC
  • The new SDK will support building app with web technologies (a la Mojo)
Wishes list or predictions? Only 90 minutes to go before we found out!

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