The final version along with general availability of the highly anticipated iPhone OS 3.1 firmware is expected to be announced on September 9th, in Apple’s “Rock 
and Roll” event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco. Here’s a list of features that will be part of the new firmware, based on the feature set of iPhone OS 3.1 Beta 1, Beta 2 and Beta 3 come September 9th:
- Video editing on iPhone 3GS wont overwrite the clip over the original when you are editing a clip.
- A new option for checking tethering data statistics.
- iPhone will now vibrate whenever you switch to the mode where you can move and arrange icons on the iPhone home screen.
- Improvements in the performance of Compass on iPhone 3GS.
- Directional orientation in Google Maps app is now more accurate.
- Copy/Paste support for address book and numeric keypad in Phone application.
- “Fraud Protection” toggle has been added to settings under Safari.
- iPhone boot time is now faster.
- Voice Control over Bluetooth.
- Password-locked phones will now ask for a PIN, the first time the device is plugged into a new computer for syncing.
- New APIs to enable third party apps to access videos and edit them.
- Developers can now work with an iPhone wirelessly (WIFI) instead of having to connect it to their development computer via USB.
- Non-destructive video button names changed to Trim Original and Save as New Clip, this should help clear up the confusion caused by the original names Save and Save a Copy.
- New enhancements to Core Audio has been added.
- Support for copy/paste of videos into email.
- Support for Instruments (on your Leopard or Snow Leopard OS X machine) over Wi-Fi instead of USB for developers to test benchmarks in apps for memory leaks, performance etc.
- Video attachments can now be saved into photo album.
- Improved battery life.
- Failover support for HTTP live streaming.
- Support for VM Tracker in Snow Leopard.
- Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.
- MMS support for AT&T customers.
- Official API support for Augmented Reality apps. (unconfirmed)
- More accuracy in battery % meter. (unconfirmed)
- A toggle for Batter % for all devices. (unconfirmed)
- Password protection toggle for “Find my iPhone”. (unconfirmed)
- Real-time zoom for camera:
- Numerous other bug fixes.
The final version of iPhone OS 3.1 firmware is expected to be available for download on September 9. Stay tuned as we will bring you all the updates right here when the “Rock and Roll” event goes live this Wednesday!
UPDATE: iPhone OS 3.1 firmware has been announced and can be downloaded for free for iPod touch, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS from here.
