Want to quickly tell someone else where you are? Perhaps you and a friend are trying to meet up and you are having trouble describing your location. There are two free apps that do little more after you launch them than create an e-mail with the subject line “I am here” along with a link to Google Maps with a marker on your exact latitude and longitude so that the recipient can just click the link and see where you are. 

To confuse matters somewhat, both apps are called the same thing: Here I am. One of them comes from Arboretum Software, and was recently reviewed by Macworld. The other one comes from Gareth Townsend. The core features are the same, but they have some slight differences. For example, the Arboretum app lets you set a default “to” address and subject line, useful if you will often be sending to the same person, plus it actually tells you your latitude and longitude before the e-mail is sent. But whichever you choose, both are fast and easy.

As noted, these apps can be useful to show someone else where you are.  They might also be useful if you are at a location that you want to remember at a later date — just send the e-mail to yourself.

Click here to get Arboretum’s Here I am (free): 

Click here to get Townsend’s Here I am (free): 

Given the law focus of this website, it is pretty rare for me to discuss games, let alone link to sites like Joystiq (a leading videogame website).  But something interesting caught my eye there last night regarding the popularity of the iPhone.

The growth in iPhone sales has, of course, been pretty astonishing.  When Greg Joswiak of Apple discussed iPhone Software 3.0 last week, he noted that the iPhone is now in 80 countries and has sold 17 million units, using graphs like this one to show the increase in sales.  (Note the huge increase in June of 2008 when the iPhone 3G was introduced.)

The success of the iPhone is often compared to other smartphones.  For example, RIM currently sells more Blackberry smartphones (combining all the various models) than Apple sells iPhones, although of course RIM has been making Blackberries for a long time whereas Apple’s share of the smartphone market has already gone from zero to around 25% in a very short period of time. 

Yesterday, however, the growth of the iPhone was put in a different context — gaming devices.  This week is the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and the keynote address on Monday was given by Neil Young. No, not that one, but the one who used to work at gaming behemoth Electronic Arts and then left to start iPhone game developer ngmoco.  That company has released numerous popular iPhone games including Topple, Rolando and Word Fu, and Neil Young was one of the developers showcased by Apple last week at the iPhone Software 3.0 announcement.  Wired reports that in his keynote address, titled “Why iPhone Just Changed Everything,” Young said that the iPhone is “the beginning of something very special” and that the introduction of the iPhone was as “important a moment in the game industry as the introduction of the
(Atari) VCS, or the NES, or the Game Boy, or Xbox Live, or massively
multiplayer games” in part because “Apple has trained 30 million people to download and install
applications on their phone, wherever they are.”  A Joystiq article about the presentation includes a slide that Young displayed containing data from Morgan Stanley
showing how the growth curve of the iPhone is more impressive than the
growth curves of the popular Nintendo DS and Sony Play Station Portable:

(Image from Joystiq)

I know that a lot of people love the iPhone for the games, and Young noted that 60% of the top 100 apps on the iTunes app store are games.  Even so, it is not often that I think of the iPhone’s success juxtaposed with the success of popular game systems, so I find this slide and Young’s remarks interesting.  Check out the Wired and Joystiq articles for more details.

If your law practice involves dealing with the U.S. Congress, you will want to read two recent reviews of the Congress in Your Pocket apps by Cohen Research Group.  The company sells three apps.  Congress is $0.99 and gives you basic information about every member of Congress.  Congress+ is $9.99 and adds staff information, committee assignments and one free update of the database in 2010.  CongressPro is $99.99 and the database in that version is updated throughout the year.  (And if you practice in California, the developer also has California in Your Pocket apps.)

Congress+ was recently reviewed by Macworld.  The reviewer liked the app, giving it a 4 out of 5 mouse rating and saying that the app is “indispensable” for those interested in Congress because of its “extensive database packed with information on congressional leaders,
their staffers, committee activities and the minutiae of the
legislative process.”

The website Apple iPhone Apps also recently reviewed Congress+ and also gave it a 4 out of 5 review, concluding that the app is “very well done app in function and form, contains loads of information
(contact or otherwise), and appears to has a responsive development
team (based on user comments) and my own experience.”

Older reviews of Congress+ can be found at AppCraver and AppleStoreApps.

I haven’t tested the app myself as I don’t do governmental relations work, but it might be worth checking out if you do.  Here are a few screenshots from the app provided by the developer, and if you want more you should look at this page from the developer’s web site containing 45 screen shots.

Click here to get Congress ($0.99): 

Click here to get Congress+ ($9.99):  

Click here to get CongressPro ($99.99): 

There have been quite a few articles this week about the implications of iPhones and similar devices in the courtroom. 

The story that has perhaps gotten the most attention ran in the New York Times a few days ago:  As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up.  The article describes a Florida criminal trial in which a mistrial was declared after it was discovered that eight jurors had been researching the case on the Internet, a criminal trial in Pennsylvania in which a judge declared a mistrial after a juror posted updates on Twitter, and a civil case in Arkansas in which another juror posted updates on Twitter such as this one:  “So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”  MSNBC picked up on the story as did countless other news outlets.

Also this week, the National Law Journal posted a story about judges letting reporters use services like Twitter to live-blog the events at a trial.  Some judges prohibit electronic devices in the courtroom, while other judges see no problem with it.

My initial reaction to these stories is that they were sensationalist.  As Macworld joked when describing the New York Times article, when a journalist finds three cases of something — it must be a trend!!!

Upon reflection, however, I think there is something here.  Jurors getting information from, or communicating with, the outside world is nothing new, nor are journalistic attempts to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of trials.  (We all remember the O.J. Simpson trial.)  But what is different is that small but powerful technology like the iPhone makes it so easy to get and send information that people don’t think twice about doing it.  People are already using iPhones to broadcast all of the minutia about their lives, even what they had for lunch.  Having something of true significance to share, like a trial, can somehow seem even more appropriate.  And if you are used to using your iPhone to look up information whenever you have a question, wouldn’t it be easy to use your iPhone just to get a quick picture of the area where a crime took place, or to look up a legal concept, or to research a person or a company?

Last month, I had jury service in criminal court in New Orleans for six full days.  Along with the feeling of civic responsibility came a lot of down time and boredom, and I found myself making extensive use of my iPhone.  At one point, I was voir dired in a high-profile murder case, and I thought about how I could do a quick search on my iPhone and find out what the case was all about.  I had to exercise quite a bit of self-control to not do so when I knew how easy it would be.  (No, I wasn’t selected for that jury or any others … lawyers love to strike other lawyers from juries!)  When the iPhone makes accessing the world to get or send information so darn easy, the temptation to do so can be hard to resist.  Perhaps Macworld is right and this isn’t a “trend” per se, but surely an increasing number of courts will be forced to confront questions arising from the use of iPhones in court.

[UPDATE on 3-24-09: Here is a cute cartoon from Courtoons on this subject:]

When Apple revealed the upcoming iPhone Software 3.0 on Tuesday, they said that they only had time to discuss some of the over 100 new features.  Since then, even more new features in 3.0 have come to light.  Here are a few of them being discussed on other sites that look particularly interesting:  [UPDATE 4/1/09:  Added Nos. 8 through 10.]

1. Find my iPhone.  There is a new option in the Settings for MobileMe called “Find my iPhone” that you can turn on or off.  AppleInsider describes this feature, as does Engadget, and MobileCrunch has a picture of that screen on their website.  The best guess is that this is a feature for those who subscribe to Apple’s $100 a year MobileMe service whereby if you ever lose your iPhone, you can log into your MobileMe account from a computer and MobileMe will tell you where your iPhone is located (using the GPS or Wi-Fi triangulation on your iPhone) and then show you the location on a map.  It would be great if Apple could also add this feature to my keys.
2. 
   
   Voice Memos app runs in the background.  I mentioned the new Voice Memo app yesterday and wondered what it would offer that is different from the numerous voice recorder apps currently sold by third parties.  Now we know the answer.  Unlike third party apps, which are not allowed to run in the background, the Apple Voice Memo app can.  Thus, you can exit the app and check your e-mail, calendar, etc. and the app will continue to record.  A red bar appears at the top of the screen when you are recording.  MobileCrunch has a picture of that, as does iLounge.  iLounge reports that this new app cannot be used to record phone calls.
3. Text messages send in the background.  MacRumors reports that when you hit send, you can start typing your next new message while previous message is being sent.  This is not much of a feature for text messages, which send quickly, but is more important when you use the Messages app to send photos via the newly enabled MMS.
4. Encryption of backups.  Your iPhone is backed up on your computer whenever you sync in iTunes.  iLounge discloses
   
   a new feature that allows you to encrypt that backup file, presumably so
   
   that someone else using your computer cannot access any confidential
   
   information backed up from your iPhone — something that, frankly, never even occurred to me as being possible.
5. More home button shortcuts.  Currently, you can double-click the home button to either go to the
   
   Home screen, your Phone Favorites, or the iPod.  In 3.0, you can also make a
   
   double-click bring up Search or the Camera.
6. 
   
   Shake to undo.  When Apple revealed cut, copy and paste on Tuesday, they pointed out that if you make a mistake, you can shake the iPhone to bring up a dialog box that lets you undo the cut, copy or paste.  But apparently the shake to undo feature can be used elsewhere.  For example, if you type a few words in an e-mail, Notes, etc., apparently you can shake the iPhone to undo the last thing you typed — similar to using the undo command in a word processor.  Engadget shows this in a video posted here (at around the 9 minute mark).
7. Media scrubber.  On a slide quickly displayed during Apple’s presentation on Tuesday, one of the phrases that appears as a new feature is “Media scrubber.”  Apple didn’t reveal what this means, but MobileCrunch reveals that there are new high-speed and low-speed scrubbing modes to make it easy to quickly find a specific point in a podcast.  There is also a new button that appears when you are listening to a podcast that you can tap to quickly rewind 30 seconds, which would be useful any time you find yourself thinking “wait, what did he just say?”
8. These go to 11.  Spinal tap would be proud; 3.0 adds two more screens to the home screen, so instead of 9 screens you get 11.  That’s space for another 32 apps.
9. New Safari link options.  Currently if you hold your finger down on a link in Safari, the URL appears below your fingertip.  In 3.0, you get options to open the link, open in a new window and copy the link (so you can paste it into something like an e-mail).
10. Load remote image.  Like many desktop e-mail programs, Mail on the iPhone adds a “load remote image ” option to help you guard against spam.

Here’s one more link:  Andy Ihnatko published this article on the Chicago Sun Times site describing 3.0.  It is both informative and, as is the norm for Ihnatko, humorous.

Finally, here are the two slides Apple displayed during its Tuesday presentation listing new features for users and for app developers, some of which were discussed on Tuesday, some of which were not:

Yesterday, Apple previewed the next version of the iPhone operating software, version 3.0, which is due out this summer.  I hope that means June, not August.  Apple says that there are over 100 new features, and they announced a bunch of them yesterday.  Harry McCracken counted 81 different announcements yesterday, although he was purposefully being quite generous in the way he counted.  Here are the announcements that I think will be of the most interest for attorneys (any many others!) who use iPhones.  [UPDATE:  This follow up post lists even more new features.]

1. 
   
   Cut, copy and paste.  Finally!  Double-tap a word to bring up a menu, easily adjust how much text you are selecting, and if you make a mistake you can just shake the iPhone to undo.  It will be great to be able to paste text into an e-mail that you have copied from another e-mail, a court’s website, a legal reference app on your iPhone, etc.  We’ve waited a long time for this, and it looks like Apple has a great implementation.  For many lawyers, this will be the best new feature.
2. Spotlight and search.  I have thousands of e-mails and calendar entries and dozens of notes on my iPhone, and it is sometimes difficult to find the specific item that I need.  Apple is adding robust search features, both within an app and across all of your apps.  It is unclear whether you can search the body of an e-mail — yesterday, Apple only talked about searching the From, To, Subject and Header fields.  You can use Spotlight not only to find an e-mail, contact, song, etc. but also to find apps by name.  Type “tim” and you will see a link to the New York Times app — saving you the trouble of flicking across multiple screens to find the app.
3. 
   
   Notes.  The Notes app will sync with your computer using iTunes.  This is fine, but even better would be
   
   for Notes to sync with the notes in Microsoft Exchange, for those of us
   
   at a law firm that uses Outlook.  I’m sure that Apple (or a third party) will let you sync notes on your computer with Exchange.  It would be easier if the Notes app just synced wirelessly with Exchange, as the Mail and Contacts and Calendar apps do.  (And what about syncing of To Do items?)
4. Subscriptions and updates within apps.  Right now, when you buy an app, updates are free.  While this sounds good, it reduces the incentive for a developer to add new content and features, and forces some developers to create multiple apps with somewhat different features to get paid again.  Apple will allow a developer to sell an app on a subscription basis, and will also allow developers to charge for updates within the app itself.  A publication like the Wall Street Journal could sell a WSJ app along with a monthly subscription charge.  I am sure that legal reference app developers will use this to charge users for regular updates to these apps so that the reference apps can always be kept up to date.  And this is a good thing.  Lawyers always want to have the latest information, and now developers have the incentive to provide it within an app.  I can easily see Westlaw and Lexis using this feature to create apps in which you pay a small fee to pull a case or statute.  I could also see a developer like Cliff Maier create a single legal reference app that contains whatever sources you want to purchase — I want Fed. R. Civ. Pro. and Fed. R. App. Pro., but I don’t need to buy the criminal rules.  And of course, a game developer could sell you a game with levels 1 through 10 and you have the option to later purchase levels 11 through 20.  This one change in 3.0 will forever change iPhone apps.
5. 
   
   Push notification service.  Speaking of staying up to date, Apple will now allow apps to get alerts, even if the app is not running.  Notifications can be text, audible alerts, or a numbered badge on the app icon (much like the Mail icon always shows you the number of unread messages).  Yesterday, ESPN showed off getting updated scores automatically pushed to the iPhone, which would be nice.  But Oracle also showed business apps getting updated information, such as updated information from a customer relationship manager (CRM) app.  I look forward to seeing what creative developers dream up.
6. Tethering.  You will be able to use your iPhone to give
   
   Internet access to your laptop.  Details of this are up to the carrier,
   
   so we will have to see what AT&T announces.  I’m sure there will be
   
   a monthly fee, but considering that many hotels charge $10 or more a
   
   day for Internet access, frequent travelers may find it
   
   easier and cheaper to just use the 3G connection on the iPhone as a
   
   modem for their laptop.
7. 
   
   Peer to Peer Connectivity.  I am always amazed how often I see other people around me with an iPhone.  With the 3.0 software, iPhones that are close to each other will be able to talk to each other.  We’ll have to see what Apple and other developers do with this.  Game developers will love this for multiplayer games, but I expect we will also see an easy way to send your contact information to another nearby iPhone — the digital version of sharing business cards. 
8. Share contacts via MMS and e-mail.  Speaking of which, you will be able to share the information contained in one of your Contacts entries over MMS using the vCard standard.  You can also attach a vCard to an e-mail.
9. Performance improvements.  The iPhone should be faster and even more stable, which is always good.
10. Safari improvements.  Improvements include auto-fill of forms on a webpage,
    
    enhanced phishing protection, VPN on demand for secure websites, Safari will remember your log-in information for websites, etc.  Safari is one of the most useful apps on the iPhone, so any
    
    improvements are welcome.
11. 
    
    Maps and turn-by-turn directions.  I frequently use the Maps app to find out where I am and where I need to go.  Apple will allow developers to integrate maps directly into apps, which means that we will see even more sophisticated use of maps in future apps.  Developers can even sell a turn-by-turn GPS system, although because of Google license requirements the developer has to provide its own maps.  This is actually a good thing; as Alex Lindsay pointed out in this week’s MacBreak Weekly podcast, even though a map of the U.S. can take up a full gigabyte on your iPhone, this is worth it because a GPS app works much faster if the maps are local on your iPhone, plus you want to store maps locally for those times when your iPhone doesn’t have 3G or Edge access.  I’m sure it is just a matter of time before a well-known company like Tom Tom or Garmin sells a turn-by-turn GPS app for the iPhone.
12. 
    
    Landscape keyboard.  I prefer to use my iPhone in the normal portrait mode when I type, but I always hear from lawyers who say that it is easier to type when they turn their iPhone on its side and use it in landscape mode.  You can currently only use this in a few apps, such as Safari.  With 3.0, you can use the landscape mode keyboard in all of the Apple apps, including most importantly, Mail.  If you prefer a little more elbow room in your iPhone keyboard, then you will like this feature.
13. iPhone app interaction with accessories.  This is another neat one that I am sure has ramifications that I haven’t even begun to imagine.  The iPhone will be able to talk to and control accessories, either wirelessly (using Bluetooth) or by connecting the accessory to the port on the bottom of the iPhone.  Apple gave an example of connecting the iPhone to a speaker and using the iPhone to control levels on the speaker.  A medical company showed off a glucose monitor that can communicate with the iPhone wirelessly so that a diabetic can log and monitor blood sugar using the iPhone.  I can see the iPhone communicating with document scanners, bar code readers, printers, etc.  And it would be nice to be able to connect the iPhone to a small external keyboard to type longer e-mails, messages, etc.  (Apple was specifically asked yesterday if this would work, and simply answered that they had nothing to announce.  But I presume this will be possible.)  Like many of the other improvements announced today, I’m sure we can’t even begin to predict what imaginative developers will do with this feature.
14. 
    
    Voice memo.  There are already lots of nice third party voice recorder apps, but Apple has developed its own that will be included for free with 3.0.  It includes the ability to trim the start or end of the recording and e-mail the recording.  It will work either with the iPhone’s built-in microphone or with an external microphone.
15. Stereo bluetooth.  You will be able to use the iPhone with wireless headphones to listen to your music (or, presumably, talk on the phone).  I haven’t yet had the occasion to use wireless bluetooth headphones to listen to music or a bluetooth stereo in a car, but this sounds like a useful feature.
16. Wi-Fi auto login.  Useful if you travel frequently and use Wi-Fi at waypoints that require a username and password.
17. Select multiple photos.  Currently, you can only e-mail one photo at a time.  With 3.0, you can select multiple photos and then e-mail all of them at the same time.
18. Improved call log.  Apple hasn’t provided details on what is improved, but any improvements could help with billable time and client management.  [UPDATE:  It appears that improved log lists you who you talked to and when, whether it was incoming or outgoing, and the duration of the call.]
19. Create meeting invitations.  Presumably this will work with Exchange, but again Apple has not yet provided full details.

And of course, there are a whole bunch of other features that might not be useful as you use your iPhone to practice law, but will be fun or useful:  shake the iPhone to shuffle songs on the iPod, send photos using MMS, subscribe to YouTube videos, better support for live streaming of video and audio, improved parental controls, etc.

Harry McCracken makes an interesting observation in a post he calls “The Curious Case of iPhone 3.0” — the iPhone was originally revealed in 2007 with advanced features and a breakthrough interface that forever changed the cell phone market, but now two years later, some of the features being added to the iPhone are features that other smartphones have had for a long time, such as copy-and-paste, tethering, share pictures via MMS, etc., so it is sort of like the iPhone is going back in time.  It’s a good point, but whether these features are new or old, I can’t wait until my iPhone is updated with the new 3.0 software, not just because of the immediately useful improvements, but also because of the features that third party developers will use to create amazing new apps and hardware accessories for the iPhone.

And remember, all we know about now is the new software.  Apple will surely have new hardware this summer, and I can’t wait to find out what currently undisclosed features in 3.0 will take advantage of the next generation iPhone.  And it might not just be a new iPhone announced this Summer — perhaps the reason that Apple was so tight-lipped on whether an iPhone with 3.0 could work with an external keyboard is that Apple plans to start selling such a keyboard this summer.

I also find it interesting how many new features are packed into this
software update.  I have previously used a Palm Treo, a Blackberry, a Sony Ericsson,
and other phones.  Updates on those phones were rare to nonexistant,
and NEVER would include the types and variety of improvements we are seeing with
3.0 (or for that matter, last year’s 2.0).  Apple is constantly adding great features to the iPhone, making the phone more and more valuable.  Thus, as amazing as the iPhone is today, we know that it will only get better with time.  We may not know all of the improvements coming with 3.0, but even with just the sneak peak we got this week, any lawyer who uses an iPhone has a lot to be excited about.

Apple is announcing details on the new iPhone Software 3.0 today at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern.  The following sites are providing live coverage of the announcements as they take place.  I
will update this list as more links become available:

• Ryan Block’s coverage at GDGT
• Macworld
• Engadget
• Technologizer
• CNET
• Gizmodo
• Ars Technica
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (see here; live chat not active yet)
• Fortune
• SlashGear
• Computerworld
• iPhone, Therefore iBlog (iPTIB) (link to Twitter coverage as noted here in blog)
• Mac|Life
• 9to5Mac provides a single screen with four panels from other sites (Gizmodo, Engadget, Computerworld and SlashGear)
• TWIT Live (I presume Leo Laporte will be discussing this live as it happens on his streaming video channel)
• AppleGazette

The big iPhone news this week (month? year?) will be whatever Apple has to say about iPhone Software 3.0 tomorrow, Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 12 Noon Central / 1:00 p.m. Eastern.  So rather than a product review or other major post today, I’m just posting a few small items including links to interesting iPhone tidbits I’ve recently come across.

Load Up On Apps.  You can (currently) only have 148 apps on your iPhone at one time.  But you can have as many as you want on your computer and swap them in and out to your iPhone.  MG Siegler at VentureBeat computes that you can download all of the approximately 25,000 apps currently available for the low low price of $71,442.69.  He also notes some interesting statistics on iPhone apps.  (Example:  The largest number of apps are in the “Games” and “Entertainment” categories, but did you know that the #3 category is actually “Books”?  Look out, Kindle!)  His article is a good read.

The Gray Lady Goes 2.0.  The New York Times has long had an excellent iPhone app (not to mention great iPhone-formatted web pages when you use Safari), but it recently updated its app to version 2.0.  I was going to write a post about all of the improvements, but Alan at Art of the iPhone has already done such a great job that I’ll just provide this link to Alan’s review.  The app is free, and it is a must-have if you are a news junkie.

Panoramic Photos with the iPhone.  I’ve used the camera on my iPhone to make panoramic photos before — I’ve just taken a few photos and then used Photoshop Elements on my Mac to turn them into a panorama.  But Macworld reviews a $2.99 app called Pano that walks you through the process of creating a panorama on your iPhone and then lets you save the finished product to your iPhone’s photo album.  I haven’t tried the app yet myself, but the review intrigues me because I like panoramic pictures.  For example, here are two that I quickly created (excuse the stitching errors) from pictures that I took on May 19, 2006 during the grand opening of the flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York.  Note that I said 2006 — these were not taken with an iPhone

Boxee Remote.  If you don’t know what Boxee is, ignore this.  But if you use Boxee on your computer or other device, the new Boxee remote app allows you to use your iPhone to control Boxee, much like Apple’s Remote app allows you to control an AppleTV.  I have used the hack to run Boxee on my AppleTV, and this free app has no trouble controlling Boxee on the AppleTV.  Here is a link to a YouTube video from TapCritic showing the app in action.

Click here to get NYTimes (free): 

Click here to get Pano (2.99): 

Click here to get Boxee Remote (free): 

Apple has decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s day this year by revealing the plans for iPhone Software 3.0, the next generation of the operating system for the iPhone, on March 17, 2008 at an invitation-only event at its Cupertino, California headquarters. 

This approach parallels last year, when Apple announced iPhone Software 2.0 on March 6, 2008, discussing (as expected) plans for third party development of applications and discussing (in a surprise) support for Microsoft Exchange.  The March, 2008 announcement gave developers time to prepare for the final release of Software 2.0 four months later on July 12, 2008.  I presume that the March 17, 2009 announcement will once again be a preview and that the new software will be available in June or July of 2009, perhaps at the same time that a new iPhone is released.

Last year, the invitation for the March event was a map with a clear indication that the third party software development kit (SDK) and Enterprise support was coming.  This year, the invitation is less revealing, simply indicating that a blueprint for 3.0 will be unveiled:

Macworld reports that the words on the invitation don’t reveal any of the new features, instead simply stating “Get an advance preview of what we’re building.”  Thus, we are
now in that magical time — not unlike Christmas Eve — when
the mind starts to wonder about what exciting toys might be in store. 
What is on your wishlist for 3.0?

Presumably, Apple won’t disclose any software improvements that are dependent upon new hardware.  For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next hardware upgrade to the iPhone includes multiple processors that a future iPhone operating system could use to perform multiple tasks at the same time, but I would be surprised if Apple disclosed this next week.  However, Apple could announce support for background processes.  Apple said in June of 2008 that push notifications would be available for all iPhone apps in September of 2008, but here we are six months later and push notification only exists for Apple apps such as Mail and SMS.  Push notifications were considered a substitute for background processes:  instead of having an app running the background all of the time just in case it needed to alert you to something new, a message could be pushed to the app from a server on the Internet to tell the app to display a badge, play a sound, display a message, etc.  Does the failure to deliver push notifications when promised mean that this feature is still coming and just late?  Or does it mean that Apple has instead decided to just give apps the ability to run in the background?  Perhaps we will find out on St. Paddy’s Day.

The iPhone runs a version of Mac OS X, and Apple is currently working on the next version of Mac OS X, called Snow Leopard.  Will some of Snow Leopard’s features be ported to the iPhone OS, and if so, which ones?  The main feature of Snow Leopard is simply that the OS runs more efficiently.  On a device with limited horsepower like the iPhone, increased efficiency would be welcome.  Snow Leopard also has enhanced support for multi-core processors, which is why I think that this might be a part of the hardware changes in the next iPhone.

Like John Gruber, I hope that we see a new feature for managing apps on the iPhone.  I have around 100 apps on my iPhone, and while that is more than many people simply because I am constantly testing apps to review on iPhone J.D., I am far from the only iPhone owner to have a large number of apps — with good reason, because there are so many good ones out there.  It would be nice to have a better way to manage the apps, either on the iPhone itself or in iTunes.

Also on my wishlist are some of the features added this week to the new 3G iPhone shuffle.  At the very least, it would be nice for the iPhone to gain support for the volume up and down buttons on Apple’s new three-button headphone remotes, such as the one on the Apple In-Ear Headphones.  It would also be nice to have some of the VoiceOver features added to the iPhone so that the iPhone could tell you what you are listening to and let you choose playlists without having to use the touchscreen.  [UPDATE:  Paul Meyerson shares a good idea in the Comments to this post — use of VoiceOver to announce the Caller ID when a call comes in and headphones are attached.]

How about the ability to record video — something that we know the iPhone hardware can handle, but Apple currently doesn’t allow.  Support for Adobe Flash in Safari.  Syncing of Notes with the computer and with Exchange, and a To Do / Tasks app that syncs with Exchange.  Voice dialing. [UPDATE on 3/16/09:  Here is Macworld’s wishlist.  Here is one from The iPhone Blog.]

The Boy Genius Report, which often makes correct predictions on new cell phone features, predicts we will see support for MMS (multimedia messages) and tethering via Bluetooth and USB (the ability to share the iPhone’s 3G Internet with your laptop).  Tethering would be nice, and while MMS isn’t all that important to me, I know it has been on the wishlists of others for a long time.  AppleInsider has its own wishlist which includes support for stereo bluetooth headsets, user-creatable widgets, and the ability to access remote files.

And finally, do I really need to add how much I want to see copy-and-paste on the iPhone?  Please, Apple?

I’d love to hear what is on your wishlist!

I love having a remote on my iPhone headphones, so much so that I recently upgraded my Apple in-ear headphones so that I could have the comfort of in-ear headphones plus the useful Apple remote.  Apparently, even Apple considers its remote pretty inspiring.  Yesterday, Apple announced the $79 third generation of its iPod shuffle.  Once again, this generation is even smaller than the last, and this time the miniaturization was made possible once Apple realized that it could rely on the headphone remote instead of making space for buttons on the iPod shuffle.  Greg Joswiak, Apple’s VP of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, explained to Macworld:

“The concept for doing this came from the iPhone, specifically the
iPhone headset,” said Joswiak. “After we expanded on it in the fall by
adding volume control, we looked at it and realized that would work for
the shuffle too.”  Joswiak explained that by removing the buttons Apple was able to make
the shuffle smaller, without compromising on other features.

I own three iPods.  First, there is the iPod app on the iPhone, which is what I use most of the time.  Second, I have a 5th generation 60 GB iPod which had been my primary iPod before I got the iPhone; now it mostly lives in my Bose SoundDock Portable.  Third, I have a second generation 1GB iPod shuffle.  I love my shuffle.  It weighs nothing and easily clips on clothes, which makes it the perfect iPod to listen to podcasts or songs when I am working out or doing chores around the house.  When I got the shuffle, I thought it would just be a little toy, but I am amazed how often it is the iPod that I most want to use.

The new iPod shuffle improves on the old shuffle in many ways.  First, it is smaller and lighter, which reminds me of the famous Saturday Night Live skit in which Fred Armisen plays Steve Jobs introducing progressively smaller iPods — the iPod Micro, followed by the iPod Piqueño, followed by the iPod invisa which held “eight million songs, every photo ever taken and Pong.”  (Here is the best link I could find to that video, although if you are so inclined you can purchase it in HD from iTunes for $2.99 as a part of 22 minutes of sketches from the November 19, 2005 show.)  Second, the capacity is increased to 4 GB.  Third, it includes a synthesized voice that can tell you what you are listening to or even announce your playlists and let you choose one.  Apple’s website includes some samples if you want to hear what it sounds like.

Of course, because there are no buttons on the new iPod shuffle, you pretty much need to use headphones that have a remote.  Jason Snell, the editor of Macworld, noted on Twitter that that makes him unhappy — “it requires you to use Apple’s headphones. Which suck.”  Christopher Breen of Macworld agrees.  I am also not a huge fan of the standard Apple headphones, although as previously noted I really like the newer and much more comfortable Apple In-Ear Headphones that come with a remote, which I understand works fine with the new iPod shuffle.  If you want to use headphones made by anyone other than Apple, you will need to make sure that they have an Apple-compatible remote built in or you will have to use an adapter along with the headphones.  Otherwise, Apple says that standard headphones will work, but you lose many features such as the ability to change volume, FF, RW, the
voice features, etc., although you can use the
single switch on the 3G iPod shuffle to play either in order or randomly.

Removing all buttons from the iPod shuffle itself is also a controversial decision.  Dan Moren of Macworld worries that the remote will be more complicated to operate than the buttons on the previous iPod shuffle.  I will admit that Apple’s chart on how to use the remote is a little daunting at first look, but Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has been using the new iPod shuffle for a few days now and he says that it “sounds more complicated than it is.”  Moren is also concerned that he will lose the Apple headphones.  Frankly, given the size of this thing, if I was going to lose something it would most likely be the iPod shuffle itself.

[UPDATE:  Jason Snell of Macworld got a chance to sit down with Greg
Joswiak this morning and he provides a lot more details about the 3G
iPhone shuffle here.]

Along with the new iPod shuffle, Apple updated iTunes to version 8.1.  Apple says that the new iTunes includes speed boosts that iPhone owners should appreciate, including faster loading of large libraries, faster browsing the iTunes Store and faster syncing.  To be honest, I didn’t notice much of a speed boost when I used the updated iTunes last night, but I’m sure Apple is correct and there were some increased speeds.  iPhones can also use the Remote app with iTunes DJ, an updated version of what Apple used to call Party Shuffle. Click here for a Macworld article describing the additional new features.