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iPhone OS 3.0 to expand home screens; new video walk-through

iPhone and iPod touch users will see their number of homescreens expanded with this summer's release of iPhone Software 3.0, which can be observed in action as part of a new walk-through video.

More homescreens

On Tuesday, Apple provided iPhone developers with the second beta of the new mobile operating system, which delivered welcomed speed and stability improvements, according to those developers who were able to download the software and install it on one of their test devices.

Very few cosmetic changes or feature additions were discovered with the new beta when compared to the initial seed distributed on March 17th after Apple provided a public and comprehensive overview of software at a special media event.

One change we noted in our coverage of beta 2 on Tuesday is that Apple appears poised to add a set of preferences for the App Store that will be available via the iPhone's "Settings" application. The new beta includes a placeholder for this panel labeled "Store" but its contents are currently empty.

Another change discovered overnight by the LoopBlog pertains to number of homescreens that will be available to users of iPhone Software 3.0. Apple currently allows a maximum of 9 home screens, each containing 16 applications. With the 4 applications on the dock included, this allows users to carry a maximum of 148 applications on their device at any given time.


iPhone OS 3.0 shown with 11 home screens | Source: LoopBlog.

With the release of 3.0, however, Apple will expand the number of homescreens to 11, making way for another 32 applications or a total of 180. A screenshot of the eleventh homescreen on an iPhone running beta 2 of iPhone Software 3.0 can be seen above.

Video walk-through

Meanwhile, AppleInsider reader Thinnovation has provided the following video walk-through of iPhone Software 3.0 covering some of its more prominent features such as Spotlight search, voice memo recording, MMS messaging, copy-and-paste, landscape application mode for Notes, Web copy-and-paste, multi-photo emailing, and more.

Other iPhone Software 3.0 walk-through videos are available over at Gizmodo and Engadget.