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Tuesday 15th January 2008
MWSF: new iPhone and iPod touch features 7:58PM, Tuesday 15th January 2008
As previously rumoured, the home screen of the iPhone and iPod touch is now configurable. Press and hold an icon on the home screen and all icons begin to jiggle and can be dragged around and repositioned on up to nine pages, allowing organisation of applications by task as with application windows in Leopard's Spaces feature. A flick of the finger navigates between pages, just as when browsing photos.

This also closely parallels the multi-page home screen of Nintendo's Wii, which also allows icons to be dragged to new locations. As well as the configurable home screen, the iPhone gains several other new features.

Maps now show your location. Pushing a button on the left of the screen shows your current location on the map, which is triangulated from a mix of Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile phone masts. The same feature is available on the iPod touch, but taking triangulation only from Wi-Fi hotspots. Skyhook Wireless has mapped some 23 million Wi-Fi hotspots in the US and is currently doing the same in Europe and Asia.

The plus button in Safari's toolbar includes two additional options. The first emails a link to the current web page, while the second takes a clipping of the page and creates a link to it on the home screen. It remembers the zoom and pan settings, so you can focus on just the area that you're interested in.

One of the more infuriating limitations of iPhone has now been resolved with the ability to send an SMS text message to multiple
 
 
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people. Each group of contacts is maintained as one conversation, making it easy to keep all of them up to date by composing a single reply.

There was no mention of MMS support being introduced, so O2 customers in the UK will still have to log onto a website to collect MMS messages.

The iPhone's iPod application has also been updated, with chapter, subtitle and language support in videos, and lyrics - where available - shown on top of album art.

The features are available as a free software update for iPhone users, but iPod touch users will have to pay £12.99 to purchase the update through iTunes. The iPod touch software update adds five new features: the previously missing Mail application, as well as Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather. In addition, iTunes 7.6 is available for download now.

Before detailing the new iPhone and iPod touch features, Steve Jobs gave the assembled audience the lowdown on how the iPhone is doing, although this was globally rather than regional.

Today's Keynote took place 200 days since the iPhone went on sale and in that time four million iPhones have been sold, making an average of 20,000 per day.

In the third quarter of 2007, Gartner reports that Apple soared to 19.5% market share for smartphones. That's still a long way behind Research In Motion's 39% share, but a long way ahead of the individual figures for Palm (9.8%), Motorola (7.4%) and Nokia (3.1%). Other manufacturers combined to make a 21.2% market share. So Apple made a huge inroads into the smartphone arena in the first few months of availability, though this excludes European sales figures - none were given.

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