Apple launched the new iPhone (as well as iPad and iPod Touch) OS in their iPhone OS 4.0 event. The feature list is massive and we now have multitasking officially available.
The new OS will ship in June (Fall for iPad), and a developer preview is already available. Below are some of the best new features of iPhone OS 4.0.
Image credit: Engadget
- Multitasking: The most awaited feature. Finally Multitasking comes to iPhone (officially that is). Multitasking is limited to audio streaming, VoIP and GPS apps, and some more instances. This is only available for iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G. iPhone 3G, 2G, iPod Touch 2G and 1G will not have multitasking capabilities. However, jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch users can already do mutitasking via Backgrounder. And yes, Backgrounder works on all iPhone and iPod Touch devices.
- Fast app switching: Meant to reopnen apps running in background. Only certain part of app is running in background. For jailbreakers, this is already available via ProSwitcher or Circuitous.
- Local notifications: Notifications can now be made locally within apps, and not just with remote servers.
- App folders: The icons on the springboard can be organized in folders. Jailbreakers can achieve this via Categories
- Unified Inbox: A new mail.app upgrade that allows users to have unified mailbox, which means single inbox will show emails from all the different service providers.
- iBooks: A new ebook reader app that competes with Kindle app.
- Custom background: Users can now have custom background on springboard and not just the lockscreen. WinterBoard for jailbroken users do the same thing, and mush more like video backgrounds.
- Game Center: A central gaming network much like the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.
- 5X Digital Zoom: At last. This too is available via several apps on Cydia as well as AppStore
- Bluetooth Keyboards: This one is a derivative from iPad. You can now use Bluetooth keyboard on iPhone. This too is available for jailbroken iphone users via BTstack keyboard.
- Many other new miscellaneous features like new polished interface, 1500 new developer APIs and many more.
The new OS comes this summer, and iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G will have all the features. iPhone 3G, 2G and iPod Touch 2G and 1G will get some new features only. For iPad, the new OS comes this Fall.
The previous 3.0 was fine. With this OS 4.0 it should be better. Anyways, the only thing to cope with the advances and bugs is to release an upgrade version.
Life is a bit of information.