Gear Live is reporting that Apple has seeded a beta version of upcoming iPhone firmware 2.1 (beta1, build 5F90) to developers. Along with the firmware Apple has also posted new iPhone SDK. The new SDK can’t be used to submit applications to App Store at this moment. The firmware update brings a bunch of Core Location feature that track the direction you are heading and the speed you are traveling at. According to MacRumors Apple has also added Push Notifications APIs that allows applications to process notifications in the background. Apple had promised that they would implement this feature in September. It looks like the firmware 2.1 upgrade won’t be just about bug fixes but will also include new features like may be turn by turn navigation or push services for instant messenger clients and other applications. Apple might even allow third party developers to develop GPS navigation software for iPhone.

Update: The Webkit framework in firmware 2.1 has commands for plugins, copy, paste and cut. It looks like Apple is at last working on copy/paste function or it is also possible that these strings have always been there as the mobile framework is a direct derivation of desktop Webkit framework.