Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Hidden iPhone Firmware 2.2 Features: Google Street View, Turn Off Auto-Correction & Japanese Emoji Icons

The beta version of iPhone Firmware 2.2 that was seeded to developers of the iPhone developer program has revealed some minor tweaks to iPhone Safari’s user interface and to the App Store application.


Mac Rumors has revealed some more interesting new features that could be included in the next iPhone firmware update.


Mac Rumors has got information on some new features that could be included in iPhone firmware 2.2.


The most exciting feature is the Google Street View for the Google Map application. With this feature, iPhone users will be able to view 360 degree panoramic view with street level photographs of select cities within the Google Maps application. Google had demoed this feature in their soon to be released Android phone - G1. You can see the video of Google Maps for mobile which demonstrates the new Street view feature on the Blackberry to get an idea on what to expect.


iPhone users will finally have an option to turn off auto-correction within iPhone’s keyboard settings in iPhone firmware 2.2 which is good news for all those who have been asking for it.


iPhone Firmware 2.2 could also includes support for Japanese emoji icons as seen in the screen shot below. Emoji icons are apparently very popular in the Japanese mobile market and was cited as one of the reasons for the slow sales in Japan.


iphone emoji


As per Mac Rumors, though firmware 2.2 contains the emoticons in a single artwork file in the UIKit.framework, they are not accessible. The screen shot above was apparently created by calling an unpublished API.


The clock icon on the left as seen in the screen shot above gives you access to your recent emoji, while the other icons give you access to differently themed emoji.


Apple has not yet announced when iPhone firmware 2.2 will be available to iPhone users.


What do you think about these features?

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