iOS 4.0 Features review

100 New User Features

Seven Major Tentpoles

1) Multitasking

Double clicking the home button will slide up a window that will show you all the apps that are running. Sort of like the Doc on your MAC if it were to be on Auto Hide. Seven multitasking services available via an API to developers:
I) Background Audio: for example you can have Pandora radio run in the background while you browse the web and even get to its mini player controls from the lock screen like you do with iPod.
II) Voice over IP in the background – means you can run apps like Skype in the background and still receive phone calls. This also means you can for example open the Maps app while you’re on a Skype call to find directions to a restaurant for example.
III) Background Location: Locations is provided to you and to apps in the background. Examples include running TomTom in the background while you listen to music and getting voice guided directions. Security features are there to inform you about this. A new location indicator is added to the top of your iPhone’s status bar that shows if an app is asking for your locations. Settings will have the fine details of when, what apps asked for your location information and the ability to modify those restrictions.
IV) Push Notifications: Using Apple’s central servers to push messages from Apps to Users.
V) Local Notifications: Building on push, Local notifications send you push notifications based on your locations information made available to apps.
VI) Task Completion: When apps need a long time to finish a task, they can do so in the background and you can run other apps in the meantime. For example uploading photos to Flickr.
VII) Fast App Switchin: lets applications save their state and quit or stop running and restart where they left off. This is huge for gaming apps.

2) Folders

Folders in iPhone OS 4.0 let you organize your apps and find them quickly without having to flick through a dozen pages. To create folders you hold an app until they start to jiggle as you do now to move them around. Now you just drag one app on top of another app, and it instantly creates a folder. The folder is given an automatic name based on the category of the apps in it, for example games, which you can rename. The icon for the Folder becomes a multi-icon that shows app icons inside that folder on a 3×3 grid. You can then drag folders to anywhere you’d like, including the dock. Tapping a folder slides up a window of the apps in that folder with the folder name on top. Folders will give you the ability to store up to 2,160 apps on your iPhone a major jump from the current 180 maximum.

3) Enhanced Mail

Mail gets a few new things.
I) Unified Mailbox: lets you view all your accounts in one list, great if you have more than 1 mail account like Yahoo and Gmail or Exchange server setup.
II) Fast Inbox Switching: means you can jump between your inboxes quickly, like you’re already seeing in the iPad mail app
III) Threaded Messages: Finally Mail will organize your mail by threads. No more scrolling through hundreds of messages with the same subject.
IV) Open Attachments: Automatic prompts to open with supported apps. This means when you get an attachment and have a supporting app installed on your iPhone that can view the attachment, Mail will prompt you to do so. For example an OmniGraffle file will be prompted to open with the OmniGraffle iPhone app.

4) iBooks

The iBooks app is coming to your iPhone with OS 4.0 as you’ve already seen in your iPad. You will have the ability to sync your purchases across your iPhone and iPad wirelessly and read books on your iPhone with the built in reader. iBooks wireless sync includes support for your bookmarks and last viewed pages across devices.

5) Enterprise

Enterprise level support is added in iPhone OS 4.0 including support for multiple Exchange accounts, Exchange Server 2010, and new VPN options including SSL support. You also get better data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution.

6) Game Center

With over 50,000 games in the App Store, iPhone OS 4.0 is finally adding social gaming services like those of Xbox Live for things like achievements, leaderboards, inviting friends, and match making with Game Kit. Existing social gaming services for the iPhone include OpenFeint and Plus+ networks.

7) iAd

Apple enters the Mobile advertising market looking to get a share of the 1 Billion Ad impressions per day, by offering a simple and user friendly method for integrating ads into iPhone apps emphasizing interaction and emotion. The ads keep users in the app instead of taking them to a web page which could make them more user friendly and more likely to be clicked. Ads can support rich media like videos. The iAd revenue share model is a 60/40 split meaning the app developers who use iAd get 60% of the revenues generated from ad impressions. Existing ad service networks for the iPhone include AdMob and InMobi.

Release Dates

Consumers
iPhone 3GS & 3G, iPod touch 2nd and 3rd Gen will get iPhone OS 4.0 in the Summer of 2010.
iPad will get OS 4.0 features in Fall of 2010.
Important: Multitasking is not supported on iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd Gen.

Developers can download the beta OS 4.0 SDK & start testing now.

AppSafari review of iOS 4.0 Features was written by Joe Seifi on April 8th, 2010 and categorized under Developers, News. Page viewed 12196 times, 3 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.