First look at iPhone OS 4.0, features it adds and what it misses

The iPhone/iPad features and fantasies won’t die until we all choke down to it. And this is what Job’s and his men at Apple strive at doing with the announcements like the new iPhone OS 4.0, carried out at a special press event in Cupertino. The next generation OS will open new gates to functionality of the iPhone and the iPad, adding multitasking and thousands of other grand facets to the previously available doodads. With iPhone OS 4.0, iPhone owners soon and iPad users later, will benefit from over 100 new features that’ll make it easier to interact with apps, manage email, read books and do much-much more.

iphone os 4

Owing to the new OS and the multitasking feature, Apple’s iPhone and iPad will be able to run more than one program at a time. This change will be effected this summer in the iPhone while the iPad users will have to wait a bit longer – maybe until fall this year. Multitasking on the OS 4.0 means the users would now be able to listen to music over Pandora and use the web-browsing facilities simultaneously. There is a bit of multitasking available on the iPhone currently, but that’s solely for the Apple’s own programs. It doesn’t support third party software apps, but with the iPhone OS 4.0 all’s set to change on double click of the home button that’ll get all running app icons onto the iPhone’s screen. From where you can pick and play any app at anytime. Multitasking will work with iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd gen, OS 4.0 will however keep the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2nd gen or earlier aloof of the multitask ability.

Other than multitask, Apple addicts have lot more to seize from the iPhone OS 4.0, which would make additions like Bluetooth keyboard support, app folders to group similar apps in one folder, user-defined wallpaper, better email to see messages from all email accounts displayed together in a unified inbox and spell-check.

Besides these the OS 4.0 would also make provision for thousands of new APIs, iBooks similar to the iPad but a little smaller, iAd advertising platform, which feature rich media ads that combine the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web. The OS will let the iPhone owner’s use the camcorder as the iPhone still camera with 5x digital zoom by only tapping on the screen to focus.

A quick read into what the iPhone OS 4.0 has got and what it misses

iphone os4 infographic