“The iPhone 3.0 software, which the company released in beta on Tuesday, is a win for users and Apple, cementing Apple’s market lead with advanced new features while also adding a couple of capabilities that competitive devices have had for years,” Mitch Wagner reports for InformationWeek.

“‘The new capabilities make it better as a game machine, as a social networking tool, better as a business tool, and better as a browser,’ said Technology Business Research analyst Ezra Gottheil. ‘This can only help Apple,’” Wagner reports.

“The software is available to developers now in beta and in a developer kit, and it will be available to consumers this summer, a year after Apple shipped the iPhone 2.0 software and iPhone 3G hardware. Apple didn’t talk about any new hardware at Tuesday’s event, but might well do so at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, which is where it introduced the iPhone 3G last year. The software will be a free upgrade to existing iPhone users, and $9.95 to existing iPod touch owners,” Wagner reports.

“‘It’s a huge release for Apple,’ said Gartner analyst Van Baker. The ability to sell content from within applications will be a significant win for developers, who will be able to generate applications that depend on a subscription model, including city guides and e-book readers, Baker said. For example, the Amazon Kindle application for iPhone has a much clumsier shopping experience than on the dedicated Kindle hardware — so much so that Amazon itself recommends users shop either on the Kindle hardware, or through a Web browser on their PCs,” Wagner reports. “Using iPhone 3.0, Amazon and other e-book developers will be able to build a rich shopping experience into the Kindle iPhone software.” ‘We’ll see more capable applications coming to market, more complex applications coming to market, and, hopefully for developers, more expensive applications coming to market,’ Baker said.”

Full article here.