Hi, I’m Sam and i’ll be ranting about all things Apple. I thought i’d start with a hot topic right now…

iPhone 3.0 software has been released to developers, and was showcased in typical Apple fashion on March 17th 2009 despite a distinct lack of Steve Jobs! This software promises iPhone and iPod Touch users over 100 new features and is due to be released this summer.

Some of the new features Apple are introducing have been common place in other devices for a long time. You can now search your iPhone, this will be via a separate home screen as well as within certain apps like Mail, SMS, and Music. As well as searching you will soon be able to cut, copy, and paste from any app on your iPhone or iPod Touch. A feature which many will agree has been missing for far too long, but it has always been Apples way. Give the users a product which lacks certain basic functionality, then market it as a fantastic new feature a few years down the line!

All apps available from the app store can now use push notifications via Apples 3rd party server. This will allow apps such as ‘IM+’ chat and ‘Twitterfon’ to notify you if you receive a message without having the program running in the background. Apple claim this is a better solution than the much requested background tasks, which they say will drastically reduce the battery life of your device.

iPhone users have a few more new features in this update, most significant is the ability to send and receive MMS messages, again something which has been common place in many mobile phones for many years! Email and text messages can now be composed in landscape mode, something users have been requesting since the iPhone was first introduced. 3G iPhone users can now tether their iPhone to their laptop so they can use their iPhones data plan to surf the internet on their laptop or netbook.

Missing from this update are a few significant features that users have been requesting. Video recording on the iPhone has not been mentioned as well as the much requested Background tasks which would allow users to truly multitask. Other than this, the update will be a welcome refresh that is free to iPhone users, but will cost $10 for iPod Touch users. It will be interesting to see how many iPod touch users pay out for this, considering the iPod Touch 2G can now be fully jailbroken, and all of the 3.0 software features have been available to jailbroken users for quite some time.