The “S” in the new iPhone 3GS, which goes on sale on Friday, stands for “Speed”. It could also stand for “Storage” and “Souped-up Software.”
The “S” has double the memory, a faster processor, compatibility with higher-megabit networks and up to 32 gigabytes of storage. And it may need every bit of this new horsepower and space.
As the iPhone reaches maturity, the software and services around it are starting to fill out and be more demanding on its capacity.
Take the 50,000+ applications in its App store that users are inexorably downloading towards their 148-app limit on the device (UPDATE – reviews of the iPhone 3.0 software out today report two more screens being added, taking the limit up to 180).
I am already up to 110 on my iPod touch and the apps take up more room than audio and video.
As more sophisticated applications are developed, they are growing in size, by a hundred times or more in some cases.
Most of the apps I have downloaded are less than 2 megabytes in size, but over the past month I have downloaded the game Assassin’s Creed (130mb), the National Gallery’s Love Art (207mb) (pictured) and I’ve tried and failed to install the iPhone-only award-winning Accuterra app (213mb).
Games are likely to become increasingly rich as developers try to maximise their use of the iPhone’s capabilities and Apple tries to push it as a platform to rival Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DSi. Last Monday’s presentation emphasised the S’s support for OpenGL ES 2.0, a richer graphics standard, and said games such as Sim City would load more than twice as fast.
The introduction of video on the new iPhone will also be a resources hog as users carry out editing, uploading and storage of large multimedia files on their device. Apple is also enabling video capture for apps, so look out for new ones from developers taking advantage of this.
Seesmic, the video comment service, is planning to launch an app next month and Qik and other video streaming services from mobile phones will also be taking a close look at the new iPhone’s capabilities.
