The iPad may not have a camera in its current incarnation, but Apple's at least laying the foundation for one: we just confirmed with extremely trusted sources that iPhone OS 3.2 contains rudimentary support for video calling, which could explain that mysterious space at the top of the device in our leaked pics. We're told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and -- most importantly -- run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you'll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there's at least some type of multitasking going on here.

We can also confirm that iPhone OS 3.2 supports file downloads and local storage in the browser, which means you'll be able to pull files off the web and use them in other apps, and there's at least the beginnings of SMS support buried within the code -- a fact we were able to verify with noted iPhone jailbreakers chpwn and rpetrich, who sent in the above screenshot from a hacked-up copy of the iPad simulator. (The simulator always says "iPhone simulator" in the menu bar, but that's the iPad.) chpwn and rpetrich also tell us they've found some inklings of actual phone support, there's a spellchecker, and that both the new landscape orientation for the homescreen and keyboard support appear to be destined for the iPhone itself when 3.2 comes out.

We're not sure what any of this means at this point, or if any of it will ever be implemented, but we're definitely starting to get the impression that Apple didn't tell us everything there is to know about the iPad on Wednesday -- and we're even more curious to find out what iPhone OS 4.0 will look like when it arrives.

P.S.- chpwn and repetrich were also able to port iPhone multitasking hacks ProSwitcher and Backgrounder to the iPad simulator, which is certainly going to be useful if an iPad jailbreak exploit is eventually discovered. Check out a shot of it going in the gallery below, along with some other settings panels the boys dug up.
Gallery: Confirmed: iPhone OS 3.2 has support for video calling, file downloads, and SMS

Confirmed: iPhone OS 3.2 has support for video calling, file downloads, and SMS originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


Permalink | | Email this | Comments

More...