Apple feeds the rumor mill; Symbian gives detailed info

Last week Apple sent out invitations to the preview of the new iPhone OS version 3.0 on March 17 and immediately caused an avalanche of blog posts. The invitation simply states: “Get an advance preview of what we’re building.”

Apple must be loving the frenzy this vague statement has created. News feeds went a-twitter (in both senses of the word) with comments wondering what will be included in the next-gen software upgrade. While most voices are clamoring for cut and paste, others are spreading rumors that the new software will include MMS, data tethering, or background apps. Rumors that the company will be revealing a new SDK are also circulating, based on Apple’s hesitation to renew current developer licenses. It has even been pointed out that with Apple may choose to put its mobile OS onto notebooks.

[ InfoWorld’s Tom Yager reports on the iPhone 3.0 OS, live from Apple’s Town Hall, in the Enterprise Mac blog. ]

Personally, I’m waiting for an iPhone that can do everything — including fix my coffee in the morning — but either way, soon all will be known.

Symbian, never one to lag behind, had news of its own last week when it announced the schedule for the next five software upgrades of its OS. Gartner recently released data that showed Symbian is a global leader in mobile OS, and the company is working to keep that title by releasing new versions every six months.

The Symbian master plan will keep five versions in the works at the same time with one release in a “hardening” phase, two releases in a stable phase, an upcoming release in a feature submission phase, and the release to follow that in an early build phase.

The first release will be Symbian^2 — the “^” in the version name is an upside-down “v,” which stands for “version” — and ^2 should see the light of day by the end of the year, with ^3 appearing sometime in 2010. This should give Nokia users an edge over Windows Mobile users, who may get a release candidate of Windows Mobile 7 in May.

In the end, it may come down to handset popularity and not software updates, but it’s certainly a wise move for Symbian’s upgrades to move at the speed of technology.