Existing users, 
iPhone 2.1 Beta 4: a step backward
Posted 18 August 2008 @ 8am in Applications, News
Apple has released a fourth beta of iPhone OS 2.1 that, according to to sources, removes some or all of the groundwork laid for push services. Apparent GPS directional features have also been removed. Apple has provided no reasoning, though speculation posits that, given numerous issues with iPhone OS 2.0 and 2.0.1, the company may have decided to concentrate on bug fixes rather than introduce new features in the incremental update.
The forthcoming push notification service is a workaround for the lack of background process capabilities on the iPhone that will also purportedly enhance performance and battery life for the device. Actual push testing cannot yet occur, however, since no live, public push server has been established.
Why is Push so important? Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software at Apple, has said that implementations of background applications on other mobile operating systems are flawed since users think that the applications they have closed are closed but are actually still open in the background. Running these applications in the background results in a significant reduction of battery life. With battery life already dismal when 3G and GPS services are available, push is an important alternative.
Developers will be provided with APIs that provide access to these services. These services will be available in September 2008. The service uses a central Apple server that developer servers would use to push information, messages, updates, etc. to the iPhone. However, given the current omission, it’s possible that Apple might miss the September deadline.
Apple’s reliability with regard to push has been called in question because of widespread issues with MobileMe. If any portion of the push server infrastructure fails, the user may end up with an application that does not work as intended.
Previous versions of the iPhone OS 2.1 contained the following API changes that most thought indicated the addition of turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps or third-party applications. Previously added the following have been removed in Beta 4 from the CLLocation (CoreLocation) library include:
- CLLocation.heading
- CLLocation.speed
- CLLocation.speedAvailable
- CLLocationDirection
- CLLocationSpeed
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s Vice President of Marketing, has refuted early assertions that GPS-based driving directions on the iPhone 3G are impossible because of the GPS receivers’ size. The iPhone’s GPS is “just like the GPS in other phones, many of which do provide driving directions,” but there are some “complicated issues” preventing driving directions at present “It will evolve. I think our developers will amaze us,” Joswiak said.
It remains to be seen whether or not iPhone OS 2.1 will bring relief to iPhone OS 2.0 users who have struggled with a bevy of bugs and performance issues under the current iteration.
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2 Comments
Posted by sriggins
18 August 2008 @ 10am
How can this be a step backward? if people would stop BREAKING THE NDA and reporting on unreleased beta builds, then there is no backward step for Apple, the firmware will be a forward step from 2.0.1
And people wonder why Apple is so pissy about NDAs and the SDK.
Posted by kiltbear--2008
18 August 2008 @ 10am
“push notification service is a workaround”
Maybe just picking nits here, but a “workaround” tends to indicate trying to make up for something that is missing. I would tend to word it “push notification service is the Apple provided solution to getting updates… yadda yadda yadda”
What is the reason I am picking this nit? I have both ActiveSync and MobileMe running on my iPhone with email/contact/calendar pushes enabled. I do NOT get an inordinate amount of email, but for work a work day I am getting several an hour, and for home email, about one per hour. The effects on my battery life is often quite consequential.
I am guessing if I had spurious programs connecting to the net as they please my battery life would be even shorter. That would be a really bad user experience. It’s one thing not to be able to do something, its another thing when the whole device becomes unusable because the battery is always dead. Apple is more focused on engineering a positive user experience for what it DOES do, than it is about giving everyone everything they want. I think us geeks often disagree on what they think is most important to implement next…