Apple concludes Push Notification Testing; Release of iPhone OS 3.0 next week?

Apple has concluded testing of Push Notification service on iPhone OS 3.0 beta.

Apple began testing of high volume Push Notifications during mid-April using a special version of AP Mobile's iPhone app distributed to developers testing beta versions of the iPhone OS 3.0.

Push Notification Service is Apple's solution or workaround for one of the features that we have been asking for i.e. the ability to run third party iPhone apps in the background especially for applications like Instant Messenger, Facebook etc. Apple finally included Push Notification Service in the feature list of iPhone OS 3.0.

As seen in the screenshot below, developers testing the Push-Notification features received a popup informing them that the testing has concluded and thanking them for their help.

The news comes close on the heels of iTunes 8.2 release earlier in the week which added support for iPhone OS 3.0. It's an indication that Apple is close to completing the testing and development of its latest iPhone OS.

If you remember, last year Apple had launched iPhone 3G, iPhone OS 2.0, App Store and MobileMe service on the same day. But things didn't go as planned, and they ran into issues with iTunes Activation and MobileMe service. At that time Apple had admitted that the launch of MobileMe should have been deferred.

So there are chances that Apple might release iPhone OS 3.0 next week during WWDC so that it can iron out all the issues before they release the much awaited next generation iPhone, sometime in July.

Do you think that Apple will release iPhone OS 3.0 at the WWDC? Let me know what your thoughts in the comment section below!

[via MacRumors]