Apple brings over the air movies to iPhone

Find My iPhone helps you locate your lost device
Find My iPhone helps you locate your lost device

Apple iPhone users will now be able to rent and buy movies from their handset over a 3G or Wi-Fi connection.

iPhone lovers will also be able to pick up music videos and audio books over the same system, announced by Apple at WWDC 2009.

The new system introduces an element of parental control by setting what their children are allowed to download for applications and iTunes content.

Tethering

Apple also announced that tethering would be supported with the new iPhone 3.0 OS, which was alluded to back at the iPhone OS 3.0 launch a few months ago but now becomes official.

Called a 'seamless experience' users will be able to tether their iPhone to work as a modem over USB or Bluetooth, and without the need to run an application at the same time, thus saving memory on the phone.

O2 has been confirmed by Apple as a supporter of tethering, along with 21 other countries, although AT&T in the US won't be getting it at launch.

Users will also be able to stream audio and video to the device with variable date quality and bit rate to compensate for connection speed.

Apple also announced improved HTML 5 support, as well as auto-fill of your important details (such as seen on Google's Toolbar) for websites.

New ways to talk

Languages also got a refresh, as the operating system is localised into every language Apple supports, including Hebrew and Arabic.

Apple has even thought about the times when you lose your pride and joy, with Find My iPhone.

Available only to Mobile Me customers, it will show you on a map where your phone is, and you can message the phone to let the person who 'found it' know that they can call you to return it.

And if that's not good enough you can also send a remote wipe command to erase all your data, with the opportunity to plug it back into iTunes to have it refreshed should you embarrassingly find it again.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.