Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 15, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
“The iPhone does not stand still—we will keep improving it over time,” says Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Millions of customers are enjoying this revolutionary and magical product. It is wonderful to let them share in the improvements.”
Maps, one of the iPhone’s most popular and useful applications, has a new user interface that is even easier to use and offers new features, including the ability to display the user’s own position automatically. With a single touch, iPhone determines its position by triangulating nearby Wi-Fi base stations or cell towers. The position can be used as a starting point or destination for directions, or to find local points of interest. The new map view combines street map and satellite image, so key street names are also shown on the satellite map.
Web Clips are Home-screen icons that lead directly to favorite websites, including the exact zoom position. They are a great way to make frequently visited sites—such as news, blogs, sports pages or film listings—more quickly accessible. The order of icons on the Home screen can now be configured as desired. Up to nine different Home screens can be created and paged through.
The new iPhone software update adds the ability to send the same SMS text message to several people. The iPhone stores the history of sent text messages, so a new message can be sent to the same group with one touch.
With the new iTunes Movie Rentals, film fans can rent feature films for their computer and transfer them simply and quickly to their iPhone for viewing anywhere on the iPhone’s brilliant 3.5-inch display. Films can be navigated forward and backward by chapter, and different languages and subtitles can be displayed where available.
Prices and availability
The iPhone Software Update 1.1.3 is available immediately through iTunes 7.5 or later for all iPhone customers in the U.S., UK, Germany and France. Newly delivered iPhones already contain the software update; existing iPhone users receive it automatically and free when they synchronize their iPhone with iTunes (www.itunes.de). iTunes Movie Rentals are available only in the U.S. Further information is available at http://www.apple.com/de/iphone.
- Availability and accuracy of Maps positioning depend on the current location.
