Today Apple announced the details of the upcoming iPhone 3.0 OS release; and it has made me happy. I love my iPhone, and I use it daily as much more than just a simple phone. I use it to communicate: check and write emails, send out tweets, text friends and family continuously, write blog posts – you know, just the basics. I use it to shop eBay, Craig’s List, and Amazon all of the time. In fact, I almost never buy a big ticket item without making sure it is a good deal on my iPhone. I use it to listen to podcasts, watch TED.com videos, and even play some games to relax too. But until today I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to do some real work on it.

Apple has announced that soon we will have access to one of the most missed abilities on the iPhone: cut and paste. I was shocked when the iPhone debuted two summers ago without the ability to copy and paste information at all. It has taken a long time for Apple to correct this issue, but now it seems that we will be able to cut, copy, and paste information between applications soon.

Add to that the ability to search the entire iPhone like the computer it actually is, and I am super happy now. Yeah!

Here is a short list of what the iPhone is getting in this upcoming release:

  • Search your iPhone with Spotlight (Cool, usable, and geek-sheik)
  • New home screen to the left of the first screen
  • Cut, copy, and paste (Gimme now!)
  • Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS
  • Push notifications/background running applications (FINALLY!)
  • Read and compose email and text messages in landscape
  • Tethering your iPhone to a computer to offer Internet connectivity from the phone (Scott can buy an iPhone now.)

This is a list of some items I want for iPhone 3.1:

  • I need to store documents on the iPhone using iTunes, not an application.
  • Ability to us a full keyboard if I want.
  • I want to be able to rearrange the applications in iTunes. This is a no-brainer!

Like I said before, I really don’t see it as a phone… I know, Apple went to all this effort to convince us that it is a phone, but so what? I mean, a Mercedes Benz is a car, but, more than a car, right?

While the iPhone has been in the boardroom for a long time, this release will take the it into the hallways of corporate America. Next we need to see Apple spread the iPhone love to a few other carriers to break the AT&T tax that we all have to pay today.

Matt Williamson
@mattwilliamson