…with a tip of the hat to ‘jeznav’ on macrumors. Re: PDFs, printing, and file sharing:
Yes it can according to Whats new in iPhone OS 3.2
“PDF Generation
The UIKit framework (UIKit.framework) includes new functions for generating PDF files and data objects from your application’s custom content. You can use this support to generate PDF-based content for use within your application or for storing to the local disk. The UIKit functions manage the setup and pagination for the PDF data. You provide the actual content using the same native platform graphics technologies (UIKit, Core Graphics, Core Text, and so on) already available for drawing to the screen. (You cannot draw to a PDF context directly using OpenGL commands. However, you can transfer the pixels of your rendered content to a CGImageRef data type and draw that.)”
As for printing, I’m sure it would use Bonjour printing services via WiFi. Like Snow Leopard, it would probably download the specific printer driver off the server. No need to install all of them.
Theres a lot of functionality in 3.2 like File Sharing and File type support.
“File-Sharing Support
Applications that want to share files with the user can now do so using the file-sharing support in iPhone OS 3.2. Here’s how it works:
An application indicates that it wants to share files by including the UIFileSharingEnabled key in its Info.plist file.
It puts whatever files it wants to share in its Documents/Shared directory.
When the device is plugged into the user’s computer, a mount point is added to the system and the contents of any shared directories appear on the user’s desktop.
Users can modify the contents of this directory freely by copying files out, deleting files, or dragging new files in.
Applications that support file sharing should recognize when files have been added to the directory or removed and respond appropriately. For example, if the user added files to the directory, your iPad application might make those files available from its interface. You should never expect the user to go searching for files in this directory, nor should your application rely on any files being in this directory. It is strictly for sharing files with the user’s computer.”
As for file types, one can develop let say zip file extractor App. As long as its installed, the system knows if you were to downloaded a zip file from Safari or open an attachment in Mail, it will automatically launch the actual App designated for the file type. That means this can support virtually any kind of files.
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Wow. Apparently some of this is from apple.com but it sure sounds to me like someone leaked something from behind the NDA wall 🙂 This is REALLY great news IMO. Not because it’s so radical and exciting in and of itself (though it’s certainly great news), but because it seems to indicate definitively that Apple has near-term, as in immediate, plans to allow so much of the type of functionality that the nay-sayers have been pointing to as lacking.
Toldja!