Apple announced what is on tap for iPhone OS 3.0 this week and here are some highlights:

  • Search your iPhone
  • Cut, copy, and paste
  • Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS
  • Read and compose email and text messages in landscape

iphoneApple’s making a big push for announcing search on iPhone OS 3.0, and it’s all being wrapped up in a new Spotlight search homescreen. A flick to the left from the first screen of apps brings it up, and from there you can search contacts, mail metadata, calendars, media, and more. iPhone OS 3.0 will also support copy and paste – FINALLY! A double-tap auto-selects the text you want with movable “grab points,” and a pop-up edit bar display buttons for cut, copy, and paste.  It works in every major app, including SMS and Safari, and what’s more, there’s also “shake to undo.”

Regarding tethering (where your laptop connects to the internet via a USB or Bluetooth connection to your iPhone) it turns out it really is already built in there. Apple’s Senior VP for iPhone Software, Scott Forstall, said that Apple had already built Tethering into the iPhone software. So where the heck is it? Well, turn to your “still can’t decide carriers” for the answer. Of course, with the way the iPhone brought down AT&T’s network at SXSW recently, the thought of millions upon millions of iPhone users burning even more data must have AT&T execs quivering in their boots.

The real question is when AT&T will actually improve capacity before allowing it, and how much of that will be pushed down to the user via Tethering “plan” ..all that remains to be seen. However, everything I have seen so far with these upgrades makes me a very happy iPhone owner. I can’t wait!