iPhone 3.0 – new software could mean new devices


13 Mar 2009

Apple will next week unveil new software for the iPhone. The new software will be instrumental in the ongoing development of the iPhone apps market, which has already seen 500 million applications downloaded in almost a year.

Apple has issued journalists with an email invitation for a sneak peak at the iPhone 3.0 firmware.

This suggests that the company is also preparing to launch new members of the iPhone family. The last version, the iPhone 3G, was launched in July last year, so an upgrade is due.

The event will take place at Apple’s corporate campus in Cupertino, California on Tuesday, 17 March.

Throughout 2008, more than 13.7 million iPhones have been sold worldwide – exceeding Apple’s initial 10 million target.

In the December quarter, some 4.3 million iPhone 3G devices were sold worldwide.

As well as the iPhone 3.0 firmware, Apple will also be launching a new software development kit (SDK) for developers.

There is speculation that the new iPhone 3.0 software will support video-recording, turn-by-turn navigation and Flash.

The news comes just days after Google announced that a new version of its Android operating system will be released in the coming weeks.

By John Kennedy