iPhone 1.1.3 video walkthrough: A-GPS, bookmarks on home screen, more

Last week, Gear Live offered up screenshots of the upcoming 1.1.3 iPhone firmware upgrade. Apparently many folks felt that the pics were Photoshopped and some even claimed that the site was simply trying to increase traffic with the alleged fakes. Although I've yet to meet Andru Edwards of Gear Live personally, we have had conversation as peers in the tech blogging world. I've always perceived Andru & his team as hard-working and honest folks, so I really didn't need proof of the 1.1.3 upgrade.

For those that were unsure of the firmware pictures and features, Andru has an outstanding video walkthrough of the iPhone upgrade. In it, he shows off what we might see in the next iPhone firmware version; I say might because Apple isn't going to release a function if it doesn't work as designed, so keep in mind that what you see may not be the final firmware. What's in the version that Andru has, however, is exciting:

• Customization of the home screen and multiple pages for home
• Safari bookmarks for your home screen with icons that are screen snips of the bookmarked site
• Assisted GPS in Google Maps which is essentially the new "My Location" feature
• Hybrid views of satellite and aerial maps
• Ability to send SMS messages to multiple recipients

Again, it remains to be seen if all of these features (or more) will make it to the next public firmware release. My guess is that we'll see all of them and I'd bet that the release will be timed to coincide with the start of CES. At last year's CES, the announcement of the iPhone was the most talked about news item... and Apple doesn't even attend CES!

Comments

[Jake]

Unfortunately the iPhone doesn't offer A-GPS because it doesn't have a GPS chip built in.

A-GPS uses data from the mobile network to supplement the data from the GPS signal to find your location faster. This is what an N95 running the latest firmware does to speed up the process of acquiring a satellite lock. The iPhone, on the other hand, is using the mobile network to triangulate your poition relative to the nearest network towers. This explains why it's unable to pinpoint your exact location and can only place your position to within a radius of a couple of hundred metres or so.