7 Tentpoles of iPhone OS 4.0

Written on Friday, April 09, 2010 by KayChink

Apple is back with the latest big revision of the OS that powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. iPhone OS 4 is shipping this summer (iPad in the fall), and the developer preview will be out today. iPhone 3GS and new-gen iPod touch will get all the features, but some features won't make it to the iPhone 3G, original iPhone, and older iPod touches.

In addition, iPhone 4.0 boasts more than 100 new user features, such as playlist creation, 5x digital zoom in the camera app, tap-to-focus for video, auto photo-geotagging, the addition of Places functionality, the ability to change the Home screen wallpaper, improved spell-checking, and support for Bluetooth keyboards. Many of the features added are already available on the iPad, which currently runs iPhone OS 3.2.

1. Multitasking

The biggest new feature is multitasking, which Apple says is going to be the "best" implementation in the smartphone space, though it's obviously not the first. App switching is activated by double tapping the home button, which pulls up a "dock" of currently running apps, and Apple claims it can do this without hurting battery life or performance for the front app.

2. Folders

You’ll be able to stash apps in folders in iPhone 4.0

To tackle the problem of having too many apps on your phone, Apple is introducing Folders in the iPhone 4.0 update. “As people are downloading more and more apps, they have to keep flicking from page to page,” Jobs said. “They want a way to organize [apps] and find them, and Folders fits the bill.”

3. Mail

Apple has overhauled the Mail application for iPhone 4.0, adding support for a number of features, including a unified inbox that allows you to see all incoming mail from multiple accounts. You can also quickly jump between inboxes for multiple accounts. In addition, Mail also now supports more than one Exchange account at a time, and you can also organize by thread.

Attachments are enhanced as well: you can now tap files attached (.doc, .pdf ect) to e-mail messages to open them in a separate application, including third-party apps.

4. iBooks on iPhone

In another borrowed feature from the iPad, Apple will make its iBooks e-reader available to the iPhone in iPhone OS 4.0. The iPhone offering will be a smaller version of the iPad app, but it allows for the same features, including purchasing from Apple’s iBookstore. And you’ll also be able to sync your place and bookmarks between multiple devices—leave off reading a book on your iPad, and you can start reading it in the same place on your iPhone.

5. Enterprise features

iPhone 4.0 has added new features for business users. At the top of the list is better data protection: all e-mail, including attachments, can be encrypted with your PIN code. And Apple will make encryption APIs available to third-party developers, allowing them to do the same with data stored in their apps.

Apple also plans to roll out improvements for mobile device management for companies that deploy large numbers of iPhones. Companies can now wirelessly distribute applications anywhere in the world from their own servers.

6. Game Center

Billed as a “developer preview” in iPhone OS 4, Apple announced a social-gaming network called Game Center, which seems poised to compete with services such as Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. You’ll be able to invite friends, participate in online matchmaking, compete in leaderboards, earn achievements, and more. While available first to developers—presumably so they can integrate the functionality in their apps—Game Center will roll out to end users later this year.

7. iAd

As was widely rumored, Apple announced its own built-in advertising system for the iPhone OS, iAd. Developers to incorporate ads into their application and use both video and interactive elements without taking users out of the current application. And the system is built entirely on ~~Adobe Flash~~ HTML5.

“It’s all about helping our developers make money through advertising so they can keep their free apps free,” said Jobs.