A couple of days ago I made some predictions surrounding what Apple would be announcing for its latest version of the iPhone OS 4.0. Not to toot my own horn, but I was right on more than a few of them (including my prediction that Jobs would wear a turtleneck were he in attendance). So let’s get right to it and take a look at the 7 announcements regarding the latest iPhone OS and how they’ll affect us as iPhone die-hards.
1. Multitasking
In lieu of Google’s awesome steps forward in allowing this on their mobile OS, it was only a matter of time before Apple would have to catch up in this respect if they were going to continue dominating in the mobile market. We as consumers simply demand high-performing devices and require the ability to switch between multiple applications at once. Examples given were that audio from either the iPod app or Pandora will continue to stream as you go between other applications. It’ll be nice to have Twitter up and running while playing a game at the same time. Jobs also explained that multitasking had been a consideration for a long time, but coming up with the perfect way to implement it (which, I imagine means a balance between performance, battery power, and security concerns) had to be established before it would become a reality.
2. Folders
Apparently our cries for a better way to manage the plethora of apps we’ve added to our iPhones and iPod touches didn’t fall on deaf ears. In 4.0 a folders system will be available. It works by holding down on an applications icon until it starts jiggling as if you were going to delete it. However, now you can drag that app’s icon over another app which will create a folder . It seems to be a very intuitive way to group your applications together which makes tons of sense to me as I’d love to have all of my games, utilities, and context-specific applications existing within their own containers for easy access without having to swipe through endless screens.
3. Enhanced Mail Functionality
Apple is also introducing some great upgrades to their Mail app in iPhone OS 4.0. Some of those features include:
- Support for multiple Exchange accounts (FINALLY)
- A unified mailbox
- Threaded emails
I think all of these will make great additions for business users. Being one myself, I’m particularly stoked to have access to multiple Exchange accounts so I can stop fiddling with a web interface for my Outlook while Gmail eats up my one Exchange account for managing mail, calendars, and contacts.
4. iBooks Headed to iPhone
This should probably be the least surprising, but for whatever reason it didn’t occur to me when I was dreaming up what bountiful features might be coming to us. While I’m currently loving iBooks on my iPad, I’ll be curious to see how well it translates to the iPhone’s comparatively smaller screen.
5. Enterprise Features
Likely in a bid to build on the enhanced mail functionality is Apple’s implementation of more robust enterprise features. While the iPhone may not quite be the mobile business computing powerhouse of choice, Apple is certainly making bold strides into that market by now offering features such as improved data protection and device management through wireless app distribution from a company’s internal servers.
6. Game Center
I’m not entirely sure what lies in wait for us with Game Center aside from a unified social network revolving around mobile games. Apparently achievements of some sort will be implemented along with online leaderboards like some kind of mini Xbox Live. It’ll be interesting to see if this enhances the iPhone gaming experience or needlessly complicates things.
7. iAd
Ok, let’s get this out of the way- I don’t entirely agree with touting the ability to spam your users as a ‘feature’, but I can see the advantages for developers. iAd is a mobile advertising platform capable of serving 1 Billion ad impressions a day. It’s based heavily off of HTML 5 which shouldn’t be surprising given Jobs’ affinity for it as of late. Apple will handle the hosting of the ads and give 60% of the revenue to the developers. There’s certainly potential here and it will be interesting to hear Google’s take on the new platform.
While only these 7 ‘tentpole’ features were announced at the event, over 100 more features are supposed to be forthcoming in OS 4.0. Unfortunately, the only release date Apple has announced is ‘summer’. It’s likely a new iPhone will be unveiled in early summer, however, so it could be that they’re simply waiting to launch the next iteration of the hardware to coincide with the latest OS.
What features are you looking forward to the most? Leave us a comment below!
Images credited to Engadget and gdgt live.
Related posts:
Josh, looks like they are building a palm pre, with more spam and less physical keyboard. Way to be ahead of the curve apple!
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Like