Apple iPhone – new rules and new hardware news

Well a few bits of interesting news surfaced from Apple recently regarding both applications, software, and hardware. First of all, if you are an iPhone application developer, you need to make sure your applications are compatible with the upcoming 3.0 version of the operating system. If the applications you submit are not, they will be rejected, and eventually if your old applications aren’t modified to work with 3.0 (most applications will not need to be modified), they will be pulled from the store, so you might want to get cracking and check both new and old applications if you make your living doing that kind of thing.

Second, in the new beta release of the iPhone 3.0 OS the parental control options appeared we talked about a couple of days ago, giving you options for applications rated 4+, 9+, 12+, 17+ as well as all or none. This has not been implemented into application submissions or existing iPhones though, but it’s nice to see this feature already in the works.

Last, according to some information submitted to BGR the upcoming hardware will have a magnetometer built in, which is just a fancy way of saying a compass, although it could in theory have other uses. It may seem a bit backwards, but the technology has proven to be extremely handy when coupled with GPS, who typically can not tell your orientation except when you are moving. It’s been implemented in interesting ways on several applications on the G1 as well, letting you “see” things in the direction you position your phone.