To great fanfare, Apple recently released details about their new mobile operating system – iPhone 3.0 – and the newest handset, the iPhone 3G S.

New features such as in-application purchasing, push notification, access to location based information and a built-in compass mean that this new combination can provide an even more powerful means for brands to communicate with consumers.

Luke Janssen, CEO of mobile agency TigerSpike, has reviewed the new iPhone from the perspective of mobile marketing – read the review to get a good understanding of the implications of this major announcement.

With so much coverage of this Apple announcement, sometimes its hard to sort through all the information to understand what is really important. Several months ago when Google released Android, TigerSpike put together an analysis of the new mobile operating system that was very well received by MobiAD readers (see Google’s Android: What It’s All About), and they have been kind enough to do the same for these new Apple products.

Some of the new iPhone features discussed in this review are:

• In-application purchasing which means that products (eg magazines) can be sold directly from inside an iPhone app, with Apple paying the publisher monthly.
• Push notification allows a publisher to send a notification alert to a user, and when they click on it their application will automatically launch.
• Location based information is easier to access now, whether it be from GPS or from wifi and cell-tower triangulation.
• Automatic peer-to-peer communication