Save images to your iPhone, contacts search, iCal meeting invitations – More iPhone OS 2.0 firmware improvements

As we get closer to the official release of the iPhone v2.0 OS firmware, we’re getting more juicy tidbits about the next iPhone firmware’s features. Apparently, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has finally seen the light and allowed the iPhone to save images from the web directly to the iPhone’s photo album. The iPhone v2.0 firmware also features the contact search capability that was hinted at some time ago. And, the new firmware should also allow meeting invitations through the iPhone’s iCal application – bringing it closer in line with the desktop version of iCal.

Images on a webpage can be saved and used as wallpaper, contact images, and emailed to friends. A simple tap-and-hold on the image to be saved brings up a pop-up dialog box allowing you to save the picture to your iPhone’s onboard storage.

Contact search is also available in the iPhone OS 2.0 firmware, with the same familiar search-box interface that we’re used to in the iPhone’s Safari browser. Meeting invitations through iCal work similarly to the Mac OS X desktop version of iCal.

We’re going to have to wait for Apple to drop the new firmware on us in a couple months before us mere mortals get a chance to play with the new features.  If you’ve already been accepted into the iPhone developer program, you can play with the features in the new iPhone v2.0 firmware included with the iPhone SDK.