Developers who have worked on the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK simulator for the iPad have indicated possible presence of new features that are yet to be announced by Apple. Some of these revelations also concur with earlier speculations by popular iPhone jailbreakers chpwn and Ryan Petrich.
You might recall that there were indications about features such as a comprehensive spell checker and multitasking being present in the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK. Additionally, Kevin Fox from Fury.com had noted earlier this month that the absence of iPhone apps such as Stocks, Weather and Calculator from the iPad home screen suggests a possible provision for dashboard style widgets.
Now there is further evidence that the features mentioned above could in fact be offered on the iPad. Sources close to Apple Insider have noted that the iPad's SDK has references that point out in this direction.
Dashboard Widgets:
There is a marked change in the internal nomenclature of native iPhone apps. For instance, the iPhone's Contacts application, which is internally called MobileAddressBook in the earlier versions of iPhone OS is now renamed as LittleBrownBook. This is referred to as "stand-alone-contacts" by the iPhone SpringBoard.
What this might indicate is the possibility for the presence of another non-standalone version of Contacts that could be accessed via a dashboard widget. Apple Insider notes:
"Enabling a way for apps to draw upon mini-apps while continuing to run would be one way for the company to skirt around the existing restrictions of the iPhone OS security model, which do not support multiple third party apps to be launched at once."
URL Routing to Apps:
At present, clicking on a Youtube link or a map link inside a web page or application will launch iPhone's mobile Safari browser. There are now indications that the SpringBoard will route these URLs to the appropriate apps instead. This could mean clicking on a YouTube link would now launch the native Youtube app. It is also possible that such URL-routing be extended to third party iPhone applications.
Dictionary Folder in Library:
The Library directory in the latest iPhone OS 3.2 SDK contains a Dictionaries folder. This folder that includes Apple Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus and three Japanese Shogakukan dictionaries is also traditionally bundled with Mac OS X. Sources claim that this indicates that features like "new word lookup" on Mac OS X could now be offered on the iPad as well.
While these are still speculations and it is possible that these features don't make it to the final version, we would like to hear from you on this. Do you like any of these features? Let us know your views in the comments.
[via Apple Insider]
URLs opening apps is already possible, and really easy to do. Facebook does it (when they sync your contacts with your facebook friends on your phone it adds a link beginning with fb://) and I do it