Is This The Future of the iPhone? Push, Background, Bundles
Version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system is in beta testing among developers and if all the actual and rumored changes come to fruition, the iPhone user experience is likely to be very different soon.
In this post we'll take a brief look at three of the biggest changes being talked about: push notifications, background apps and bundled software. Some of these changes are much more likely than others. We've also got a few fantasies about what we wish was coming soon to the iPhone.
Push Notification System
Know how your iPhone displays SMS messages whether you're using the phone or not? Any application you download to your phone will soon be able to display messages like that. This will make the iPhone a much more interactive machine, all throughout the day. Imagine to-do apps sending you push notices when a deadline nears, or location aware social networks when you approach a relevant location or even Twitter when you get a reply or direct message. Users can do some of these things by integrating SMS with other applications now, but it's complicated, costly and unrealistic. Native push notifications could make the iPhone as addictive as the Blackberry - but with a much more compelling interface.
Status: Pretty definite, in testing now. Engadget covered this yesterday with a gallery of screenshots.
Background Apps
One of the most frustrating things about the iPhone is that you can only run one app at a time. That makes extended instant messaging conversations, or even availability, unrealistic. It also makes it hard to switch quickly between apps, let's say you get a Twitter message asking for a photo to be uploaded to Flickr - right now you have to close and open two apps to do that, instead of just switching between them. It's like functional or mental cut and paste, we really ought to be able to switch between apps. Unfortunately it's very processor intensive for the little iPhone to do that. If processing limitations can be overcome then there's battery life, already a huge problem, to consider.
Status: Probable but probably a ways off still. Some people say that the push notification system discussed above is a way to get around the desire to run apps simultaneously. TechCrunch has good coverage of this discussion.
Software Bundles
The UK Register published a post this morning quoting an analyst who says he's heard that future iPhone product plans revolve around differentiation through software packages - not new hardware. This is little more than an analyst-level rumor right now, but it does make a lot of sense.
The Register: "For example, Apple could market one 'YouTube' iPhone model with applications that provide video capture, editing and sharing features. Other iPhones might only offer basic video capture - or perhaps no video at all."
Business, sports and family focused software bundles would also make sense. Though Apple has had a lot of success in selling applications, most people don't look around a lot at ways to expand any system they purchase. One complication in this scenario is that Apple could risk angering developers by playing favorites between default apps or competing with its own developer community.
Further, while jailbreaking your phone is just cute right now - it could look a whole lot more like stealing if you bought one type of iPhone and jailbroke it to gain functionality reserved for other kinds. Such are the problems you get when you combine a development platform with world-changing potency with an environment of pre-packaged control.
Status: Rumor. Doesn't seem unlikely, but doesn't seem that appealing either.
What Would You Like to See?
There's a long list of widespread complaints/requests concerning the iPhone: battery life, video, no MMS, copy and paste, background apps, etc. But is there anything else out there that intrepid developers in our reader community would like to contribute to the list?
My fantasy wish list would include a cross-application news feed like the Yelp iPhone app's "nearby feed" that displays reviews written most recently of businesses near your current location. It's so much fun! Why not give me an iPhone capability to view recent content from any of my apps that was geotagged as nearby my location? Tweets, news, music, Yelp, images. That would be awesome.
I would also love to see some local syncing with my online activity streams. Imagine if the App store could recommend apps to me based on what I've been bookmarking in Delicious, giving thumbs up on FriendFeed, etc.
What other ideas do you have?
Here at ReadWriteWeb we both love and hate our iPhones. You'd better believe we're excited for the future of this and other mobile platforms, though.
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Why would you even write about background apps!???
In all public statements and at the March 17th developer's presentation, Apple has stated that there won't be backround app capability in the iPhone 3.0 software. It's simply just too heavy on battery usage. Even though the iPhone's battery drain was only 40% compared to 75% on the Blackberry and other smartphones, it's still not something Apple's going to pursue right now.
Love your stories, but can't stand reading about maybes and suppositions.
TS
Okay, it's time to stop buying Apple's excuse that "background apps" means lower battery life. It's not that it's wrong -- it's just an oversimplification of the argument. For one thing, presumably if an app is doing something in the background, it may be something YOU asked it to do - meaning waiting for it as a foreground process doesn't necessarily save you battery life.
Also, it's not necessarily even that a background process will look the way it looks on the desktop. I think Google Android is proof of this. I mean, it's great - really exciting - that this is the future of iPhone, potentially, but we are talking the *present* of Android.
That's not a Google vs. Apple diss, but let's recognize that we have different platforms that are evolving at different speeds to do some of the same things. They may not ultimately choose exactly the same solution (hell, let's hope they *don't*), but there is this parallel evolution.
Battery life has a lot more to do with radio use and the screen than whether or not you allow background processes. There are ways to make it work, and there are advantages. And hopefully, rather than just taking Apple -- or Google, or Palm, or anyone else -- at their word, we can compare the tradeoffs objectively.
Thanks to you both for your thoughts on back ground apps. Will consider them for sure.
"[...] location aware social networks when you approach a relevant location [...]"
If this is available, I'm not sure this is Push-based notification.
The idea behind push-based notification is that rather than your phone connecting to a server and waiting for messages, you send a message to a server saying, "Tell me when this happens" and the server acts as a Proxy for you. Your phone can then disconnect from the network and save some battery life. When that happens, the phone network will communicate with your phone and deliver the message.
The only way for a server to know your location is if you keep telling it. And that means keeping a connection open and killing battery life.
If this is available, it's more likely that you would tell the phone something like, "Notify me when I'm within 1 mile of 33 degrees, 21 minutes, 5 seconds North latitude and 93 degrees, 17 minutes, 45 seconds West latitude."
The issue with background apps is that background apps use resources mostly to do nothing. Take an AIM client for example. I connect to my AIM server and sit around waiting for messages. It's just sitting around, right? How can that be a drain on the battery?
Well, because in order to remain connected to the AIM server, the iPhone must keep it's 3G radio running. That means your battery-life will probably be about 5 hours--the talk time of your iPhone. And since you don't have a way to just plug in a new battery to the iPhone, after 5 hours you're SOL.
I would like to see the ability to stream live video from the iPhone's camera to the web via something along the lines of CoverIt Live. This could give anyone the ability to create on the fly, live video newscasting!
Im not sure if is only my Iphone but Id definitely like to see a major improvement in service. More of a relationship between ATT/Apple so one cannot blame the other.
The reason why people a bragging about background processing is because they want the ability to do so if the need it, i.e. copy and pasting info into from email into notes, calendar entries etc.
Apple is right in saying that it drains the battery and people will very quickly realise that the trade-off between twitter updates and battery life will be in favor of the latter, yet, there are times when it is just utterly frustrating not to have the ability to run two apps at the time. Since apple is all about removing frustrations, they will eventually come up with some solution that will prevent some non-techie to call them that their phone only lasts 4 hrs but enable it when you need it.
It's again a matter of the implementation not the fact that it is more than desirable.
Just my 2 cent
Quite honestly I can't wait for video recording on the iPhone. It can't come fast enough, and the creative potential for both filmmakers and for application makers can very well be a game changer if it becomes easy to broadcast and publicize live web streams.
The software bundle idea doesn't sound like something Apple would do or even consider doing. That's a MS technique. Silly analysts.
Posted by: Jonathan Brown
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May 19, 2009 8:17 PM
I don't think this is how they will work. I have been testing out the firmware 3.0 at http://interactiveiphone.com and I didn't see anything like this there. So maybe they will be doing the push another way, but I don't know.
Better battery life would be my #1 wish for the iPhone, because that would enable other things: background apps, video capture, etc. Cut and paste has become less important to me over time.
you cannot runt two apps at a time on an iphone? god, this is ridiculous. i can do it on a super-thin simple j2me sony-ericsson.
Posted by: Kirill Bolgarov
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May 19, 2009 11:33 PM
have designed a very nice price in fact appropriate
Why the speculation/complaints about MMS, copy and paste or push notification? Apple has already been clear that this will be part of iPhone 3.0. this summer.
In addition they've publicly announced Stereo Bluetooth, Turn by turn GPS, better PIM sync to Web, Commercial Wifi Hotspot support, Automatic Peer to Peer Bluetooth networking, Apps for connected hardware accessories, Voice Memos, Device-wide Search, full Landscape support in native apps, new (revolutionary) ways to Purchase and Organize App Store content, and it's all a free upgrade for current iPhone users this summer.
Sure, we can always wish for more. Video is important. App Store recommendations and gifting would be nice. Some form of inter-application communication and smart suspend/resume features would be an ideal addition to Push Notification, in lieu of Background processing.
Really though, iPhone 3.0 is sounding pretty magnificent as-is. Yeah I have plenty of ideas, but very few complaints.
Will people ever stop pushing version numbers on the web!
http://www.hiphopalemi.net/Sohbet.asp
These types of push applications are extremely easy for an iphone developer to create, an plus, Blackberry has had these for such a long time I can't imagine why its taking the iPhone so long to have these on their phone. It will definitely be a solid feature addition though. Can't wait to use em myself, ESPN would be the first i'd download.