[Ben]

iOS 4.3 is now available to developers.

Early indications are that we could see gestures, MiFi, and a location-based 'find my friends' service on the way. Another addition appears to be a software setting to control the iDevice hardware switch, changing it from mute to orientation and back again. I'm not sure what features, at this stage, will be iPhone or iPad.

References to iPad 2 and iPhone 5 are also noted to be present. While iPhone 5 is a little way off yet, iPad 2 should be a whole lot closer and I'm very much looking forward to this.

[hecatae]

any idea if it's for all models or are they giving up on the 3G?

[Ben]

Giving up on the 3G and 2nd gen Touch, afaik.

The 3G's time has, sadly, probably come - I was finding it slow when I stopped using it and god knows how long ago that was.

That said, it still sits in my drawer with barely a scratch on it. I have a bit of a hoarding issue ;)

[hecatae]

must remember not to tell the missus that.

[DBMandrake]

I think it would be unusual for the 3G to miss out on iOS 4.3 - it is only a point release after all, with minimal changes. The 3G will definitely miss out on iOS 5.0, but that's not until July...

My guess is they're holding it back until the public release to optimize it and more thoroughly test which new features (if any) can be added without sacrificing performance. In the last round of betas for 4.1 and 4.2 they did release betas for the 3G, and as the beta periods progressed, some features initially enabled on the 3G were left out in the final release (for example Airplay and Printing) due to performance and stability concerns, so I think they're a bit tired of all the conspiracy theorists complaining that feature X that "was there in the beta but is now gone" is some sort of ploy to get people to upgrade.

I think we'll see an iOS 4.3 for the 3G (possibly it's last non-security update) but it may just be for version compatibility, and may not have any of the big new features enabled like Personal Hotspot.

[Ben]

I do hope that you're right, and I agree that a point update would be a strange place to leave a model behind, but the 3G is definitely long in the tooth now. Perhaps if the current software release for the 3G is considered by Apple as 'stable' then they'll avoid playing with that particular fire and leave it be.

I wonder if I should shoehorn my 3G back into service somehow. Hmm. See, it was my first iPhone, and I'm a bit sentimental with stuff like that (cough NEC e606). Funnily enough I bought the Nexus One for that sort of reason - that it'd be a nice Android 'to keep'. Yet I honestly couldn't care less! My 3GS is currently being mauled by a friend but, y'know, I'm not opening an iPhone Gallery so that's ok. I digress...

Of course even when 4.3 does come out I probably wont have it for ages, downloading over this damn satellite connection is murder.

[DBMandrake]

The problem Apple faces is that they were still selling the 3G (albeit as an entry model) up until July last year, so if they abandon software updates for it now, there are people out there with iPhone 3G's that are less than 8 months old who would would feel ripped, especially when at the time they bought it it wasn't made clear to them just how limited the hardware in the 3G was compared to the also selling at the same time 3GS. (Nowhere on the Apple site was a comparison made of CPU or RAM specs)

Personally I think Apple made a mistake continuing to sell the 3G in parallel with the 3GS, when there is such a huge gulf in capability between the two devices - CPU performance and RAM in particular. The 3G really struggles to run iOS 4.0, but they're forced to support it (IMO) until this July so that the last people to buy a 3G still see out a 1 year software update cycle.

[hecatae]

or you have just announced the date for 4.3, July 2011

[DBMandrake]

Nope. Rumour is 4.3 will be out by early March, maybe late February. What I mean is that the update that comes out in June/July to support the next major release of the iPhone, eg iOS 5.0, should be the first iOS version that the 3G won't get, just like 4.0 was the first version the original iPhone didn't get...

[Ben]

The selling of the previous generation has always irked me a bit. Perhaps it's time Apple faced up to the fact that they need a real 'nano' version of the iPhone, rather than keeping old models going to service lower price points.

It works quite well at the moment due to the different case designs, but iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 on sale at the same time could be a right mess.

[Ben]

Gestures aren't to be enabled in the public release of 4.3 for iPad :( Apple has clarified that it's just seeking developer feedback. I guess this is something that may be coming to accompany the new iPad? Yet with so much functionality appearing in beta 2 (FaceTime, Photo Booth, Camera) that appears targeted at the new iPad one could make the assumption that it'll run 4.3 and could be with us very shortly...

It's possible that, while 4.3 will be running on Apple's test iPad 2's, this is simply part of the preparation for the new model and we wont see a public iPad 2 running less than, say, iOS 5. Yet Apple released the original iPad running iOS 3, a decision I still find difficult to understand (yet one that doesn't appear to have damaged uptake of the iPad somehow), so a release-now-add-features-later approach may yet again prevail.

The only thing we can conclude for certain is that I'm absolutely buzzin' about iPad 2 ;)

[hecatae]

missus finally updated her 3g to 4.2.1 yesterday after Itunes sorted itself out

[miffed]

The selling of the previous generation has always irked me a bit. Perhaps it's time Apple faced up to the fact that they need a real 'nano' version of the iPhone, rather than keeping old models going to service lower price points.

It works quite well at the moment due to the different case designs, but iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 on sale at the same time could be a right mess.

I've always found it a bit weird too , especially as they go to the trouble of introducing a new (8GB) version of the previous model !! (Using the 3GS example ) - so it's not like they are simply shifting residue stock or anything.
The simplest thing IMO would be to do like Apple do with the rest of their product line , with a Consumer and a Pro product - of course the consumer product is always going to be last seasons pro model in cheaper clothes in reality , but I think there should be a a clear physical distinction between the two products.