Where Is iPhone OS 2.3?

I’m somewhat perplexed with Apple’s iPhone SW update scheme since 2.0 was released. Apple has been somewhat erratic in it’s feature set and release schedule as of late. 2.0.x was obviously about big bug fixes and performance issues. 2.1.x was also largely bug/performance fixes plus a few enhancements like Genius playlist and usability enhancements. 2.2 was about small enhancements, street view, and bug fixes (mainly for Safari) getting the 2.x platform stable. Apple has been promising a push notification system since 2.0 but has been radio silence as to the status of this feature that developers have been waiting for.

Since 2.2 was released November 21, 2008, there have been no 2.3 seeds released to developers as far as I’m aware of. Apple needs to distribute seeds before a release to give developers a chance to update their applications as appropriate. Leaks are inevitable as various sites love posting this info and with enough developers, the odds of someone breaking NDA is inevitable. Considering there have been no leaks, it’s pretty safe to say 2.3 is either still under heavy development to immature for even a developer seed, or it doesn’t exist.

I suspect Apple has most of it’s engineers working on iPhone OS 3.0 which will likely launch with the next generation of the iPhone this summer. I suspect that’s when push notification will be addressed. Apple will need to give developers at least 2 months to play with it partially to shake out the bugs, and partially so it has some utility by the time of release.

This will be an interesting thing to spin in a positive light since Apple promised it would be seeded to developers in July 2008 and in users hands by September 2008. It was subsequently pulled from iPhone OS 2.1 and considered a bit immature by developers who played with it. That was back in August 2008.

I’m thinking there might be an iPhone OS 2.2.1 between now and June to hold perhaps a few bug fixes. I think the odds of an iPhone OS 2.3 release are growing slimmer due to June/July rapidly approaching.

I’m not alone in my thoughts. John Gruber thinks the same for the most part though is slightly more optimistic on the timeline.