View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/10/06/iphone.22.street.view/
Monday, Oct 06, 2008 12:10pm
iPhone 2.2 to incorporate Street View, more?
Some heavily-requested features may be among those added to Apple's planned iPhone 2.2 firmware, anonymous developers claim. While the first beta is said to have altered Safari's address bar, and tweaked the App Store interface to include items like a new bug report option, an updated release is said to include hooks for Google's Street View feature, which lets people access ground-level panoramas on particular roads. At present, this can only be accessed through the Google Maps website.

The feature is notable in that the first phone to be announced with it was not the iPhone but T-Mobile's G1, also known as the first device to use Google's Android handheld platform. The G1 is due on October 22nd, which may give Apple enough time to compete with a completed version of its new firmware.

The update is also said to have an option for disabling the auto-correction feature in typing, which has irritated a number of iPhone owners by choosing inaccurate terms. Over 20,000 people have signed a petition asking for the interface adjustment. The firmware should further incorporate support for emoji icons, graphics used to enhance messages in Japan. As emoji are prevalent on a number of Japanese devices, the lack of these on the iPhone is said to be a common complaint.