I’m sure you have already heard, Apple is going to present iphone 3.0 OS on March 17.  And ho yea, I will be watching.  Since its only the 12th now, we have some time to think about what we might see in 3.0. There are plenty of things that need to be fixed or improved; cannot attach from an email, not cut and paste, safari that crashes a bit too much, GPS that does not have turn by turn, umm.  FLASH VIDEO!.. the list goes on and on.  There are plenty of sites that have great wish/complaint lists, but I thought I would look at some of the best jailbreak apps (at least according to me) and see what are the odds we might see something like them in Apples next release.

So I’m going to start with my own 10 ten list.  (link to the top 10 list here)

10. WinterBoard

iPhone pimping made easy. The is normally the first thing people install and spends HOURS playing with. I think we could see something like this from Apple.  All they have to do is give access to some of the files (basically open a permission setting) and many of the winterboard designs could be used.  Now I’m not saying ALL of the winter nor summer board plugins will work, because some of them need to make OS calls that Apple is keeping locked down.  But I think we will see some sort of customizing. Also, think of the money Apple will make when people sell these in the stores.

9. Unix Tools Mobile Terminal, openSSH

Will not happen.  Dont even think about it

8. Cycoder (Video Recording)

I think we see an opening of the SKD to allow video, but I do not think video itself will be part of the new OS.  There is simply way too much money to be made letting 3rd party programmers see video apps in the store.

7. Qik (realtime video)

Remember USTREAM?  Video broadcasting NOT through jailbreak?  I do.  I was not too impressed with it.  First impressions here, so they could have improved things. But as far as I know, they never made it into the app store.  So will this change?  Doubtit. I think if you want to broadcast video, you are still going to have to jailbreak for a bit.

6. ClearCam

I really like ClearCam. I do not use it for everything, but in combination with my Griffin Macro lens, it really opens up the ability to shoot text, labels, catch nice close ups, etc. Will we see some improvements with the iphone camera through software? We just might. I can see a 3 shot, save the best shot, option for the iphone. It would be pretty easy to put in place and would be a nice addition. I’ve giving this looooong odds though.

5. Clippy

Ahhh.  Cut and paste.  The holy grail of iphone FAILS.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say….. yes, there will be ‘some sort’ of cut and paste.  It will be limited, but the demand is just too strong despite the fact there is no money reward for this feature.  How will it work?  I would look at Clippy.  They have been improving and improving every month.  They are getting it down to a science.  Apple can learn from them.

4. IntelliScreen

I do not think we will see anything like this with 3.0.  Perhaps with push notifications, which I think WILL be there, they might put a simple ‘intelliScreen’ like display up.  It really would not be all that hard.  But, I’m going 51% that we will not see it.

3. PdaNet (tethering)
I have been thinking about this and I’m really on the fence if we can hope to see tethering in 3.0.  I’m going to go 51% that no, it will not be there.  The reason is ATT makes money selling usb 3G connectors.  To allow iphone users to accomplish the same thing would take a chunk out of ATT’s business.  The reason I’m going 49% that they might, is business users really want tethering, and attracting more business users to your product is always a good thing.

2. Categories
I just cannot see a reason why not.  It’s proven, it works, and with the number of icons people are building up on their iphones, it only makes sense.  Of course, just because something makes sense does not make it so.

1. SBSetting

Like I’ve said many times over.  This is my favorite app. However, I do not see it happening. Apple does not like people messing around with too many settings, HOWEVER, I can see them using the swipe at the top as a shortcut it an improved settings tab. As for me, I hope they do NOT do it.  I do not want to see SBSettings messed up in any way. 🙂