Apple unveils iPhone OS 4.0

[Mayareira]

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...-3g-iphone.jpg

As expected, multitasking for iPhone 3GS, 3rd gen ipod and ipad.

Cupertino, California (Wired) -- Apple unveiled details of its next-generation iPhone operating system Thursday in a press event at the company's headquarters here.

The new operating system, iPhone OS 4, will be released to developers this week and to consumers this summer. It will give developers access to calendar, photo library, still image and video data, and includes features aimed at helping apps run faster.

As expected, the new OS will support multitasking of apps.

"We weren't the first to this party but we're going to be the best, just like cut and paste," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, alluding to the fact that cut-and-paste hadn't been available until a year after the first iPhone launched.

"It's really easy to implement multitasking in a way that drains battery life. If you don't do it just right your phone's going to feel sluggish and your battery life is going to go way down. We've figured out how to implement multitasking of third-party apps and avoid those things."

With the new OS, users will be able to press the home button twice to see a menu of all the currently active apps, which appears as a bar along the bottom of the screen. Tapping one of the apps takes you directly into that app. Apps can remain running in the background.

Apple demonstrated how you can keep listening to music in Pandora while doing other things on the phone, and how the phone could deliver push notifications to alert users to an incoming Skype call.

"It was really simple to implement. Just a dozen lines of code," said Skype's head of product development David Ponsford.

To address privacy concerns, the OS will also let you know (via a notification on the app's icon) when an app running in the background has requested your location from the device's GPS.

The announcement comes less than a week after Apple's launch of its tablet computer, the iPad. Jobs said the company had sold 450,000 iPads to date, and that users have downloaded more than 1 million iPad applications and over 650,000 digital books from the iBooks store.

Jobs also added that the company has sold more than 50 million iPhones and 35 million iPod Touches.

TheiPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad all run iPhone OS 3.0. The operating system is based on an OS X core, but with a touch-centric interface and optimizations aimed at increasing screen responsiveness and maximizing battery life.

The current iPhone OS has been widely criticized for its lack of support for full multitasking: It only allows a few core apps, such as iPod and Mail, to run in the background while another app is active. The OS also restricts add-on software to apps available through Apple's App Store.

The App Store currently contains 185,000 apps, Jobs said, adding than users have downloaded more than 4 billion apps from it to date. About 3,500 of those apps are optimized for the iPad.

The new OS also gives users the ability to group apps in folders, instead of just laying them out on the home screens.

Other features planned for iPhone OS 4 include a 5x digital zoom feature in the camera, and the ability to tap to focus in video. (Tap to focus was already available for still images in iPhone OS 3.)

Live blog:

Audience is seated and music is playing.
- Steve Jobs on stage, talking about iPad success. Quoting reviews.
- 450,000 iPads sold so far, up from 300,000 on the first day. Best Buy is out of stock, and we're making them as fast as we can.
- iBooks: 250,000 books downloaded on first day, now up to 600,000.
- iPad apps: 1 million on first day, now up to 3.5 million.
- App Store: over 4 billion apps sold, with over 185,000 apps available in the store, 3,500 iPad apps.
- Jobs quickly showing off a number of iPad apps.
- Moving on to iPhone.
- JD Power satisfaction award for three years in a row. 64% share of mobile browser usage.
- Over 50 million iPhones sold. Add in iPod touches and we're over 85 million total.
- Today is preview of iPhone OS 4.0. Shipping this summer with developer preview today. Over 1,500 new APIs.
- Devs now have access to calendar, camera data, Quick Look, SMS within apps, etc.
- Over 100 new user features: playlist creation, 5x digital zoom for camera, tap-to-focus for video, Photos app has Places support, home screen wallpapers, spellcheck enhancements, etc.
- We'll highlight seven of the features today
- Feature #1: Multitasking. We won't be first, but we'll be best. Now demoing. Double-clicking home button pulls up a "dock" showing currently-running apps.



- Scott Forstall on stage to explain how they accomplished this while preserving battery life and performance.
- Apple has provided seven multitasking services to developers to assist with the functionality
- Service #1: Background audio streaming. Demo from Pandora founder Tim Westergren. Claims it took them one day to implement background streaming. Showing Pandora continuing to play while browsing in Safari, on lock screen, etc.
- Service #2: VoIP. Can now leave Skype app while still running. Can even see calls come in with status bar on the lock screen. Demoing with Skype's David Ponsford.


- Service #3: Background location. GPS apps like TomTom can continue in the background while you exit the app to listen to music. Audio cues overlay other audio. Also a second class of this service uses cell towers for apps like Loopt. For privacy purposes, status bar indicator lets you know if any app (foreground or background) is requesting location. Can also fine-tune approvals for location tracking on an app-by-app basis.
- Service #4: Push notifications. 10 billion push notifications served in past 9 months.
- Service #5: Local notifications. Rather than requiring third-party server to push notifications, iPhone itself can push within the phone. TV Guide application given as example.
- Service #6: Task completion. For apps like Flickr where a photo upload make take awhile, you can now leave the application and task will continue
- Service #7: Fast app switching. Application state stored and preserved instantly, freeing up resources when switching.
- Now back to Steve for more on iPhone OS 4.0's new features.
- Feature #2: Folders. With people downloading more and more apps, we need better organization. Drag and drop apps onto one another to create folders. Automatically names folder based on app categories, but user-editable. Icon becomes a "multi-icon".
- Also demonstrating changing home screen wallpaper.
- Folders now allow you to see 2,000 apps on your device, up from 180.
- Feature #3: Enhanced email. Unified inbox, multiple Exchange accounts, fast inbox switching, threaded views, open attachments with App Store app.
- Feature #4: iBooks for iPhone OS. Same as for iPad, same iBookstore. Showing of Winnie the Pooh.


- Buy books once and read them anywhere. Wireless syncing of content and bookmarks.
- Feature #5: Enterprise. Better email encryption, APIs for better encryption inside apps, wireless app distribution, mobile device management, multiple Exchange accounts, SSL VPN support.
- Feature #6: Game Center. We have over 50,000 gaming titles already. Game Center brings social aspect...challenge friends, leaderboards, achievements
- Feature #7: iAd. Free apps are great, and we want to help developers make the money they need to survive. Most mobile advertising sucks, and we want to help them keep free apps free. On the desktop, search is where advertising is at. But on a phone, users are in dedicated apps.
- Users spend 30 minutes a day in apps. Say an ad every 3 minutes...10 ads per day. We'll be at 100 million devices soon, so that's 1 billion ad opportunities per day.
- Apple wants more interaction and emotion than typical mobile ads. Interactive ads currently take you out of the app, but with iAd in the OS itself, you won't have to leave the app. Users are more likely to click since there is no penalty.
- Apple will sell and host ads, giving developers industry-standard 60% of revenue.
- Demoing Toy Story 3 ad. Everything is done in HTML5. Click an ad and it takes over the screen. Explore the ad...sound clips, video, in-ad purchases, even mini-games. It all plays back right there.


- Now demoing a Nike ad with video. Make your own shoes with Nike ID...link to app in the ad. Store locator right there with Google Maps pop-up.
- Now a faux Target ad allowing user "build" a dorm room.
- That's the demo. Very easy for ad agencies and devs to make the ads, and users are more likely to use them because they stay in the app.
- Jobs reviewing new features, all available in developer preview today.
- Public release in summer for iPhone 3GS and 3rd-generation iPod touch. iPhone 3G and 2nd-generation iPod touch will run many of the new features, but not all. Multitasking will be one of the ones that won't be supported on those. Original iPhone and 1st-generation iPod touch apparently left out. iPhone OS 4.0 coming to iPad in the fall.
- End of presentation, with a short break before Q&A.

[dejet]

High hopes it is as good as they say for the iphone

still dont like the ipad...

[Mayareira]

Pretty fail that 3G got left out for multitasking. Great news for 3GS though, multitasking seemed much more fluid than other smartphones.

[dejet]

Apple has a new Iphone planed as well; right?

[Mayareira]

Not sure, nothing related to a new device announced on the preview event.

[Krandor]

The iphone is a cool toy, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty fucking stupid when it introduces something even the most basic technology can do (i.e. multitasking, which my piece of shit non smartphone can do), and people treat Apple like they're the fucking messiah.

[octopus]

"xbox live" for iphone sounds pretty sweet.

[Boyiee]

Apple has a new Iphone planed as well; right?

Supposedly there were 2 new iPhones coming out, a watered down verizon one, and an at&t exclusive one. No real info on them though but they gained alot more popularity and knowledge and articles than most rumors.

[Mayareira]

[Correction]

Yay new evidence that Apple just doesn't give a shit about developers.

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

From: http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/ip...flash_compiler

Think different, just not that different.

[Odon]

Yo dawg I heard you liked apps so we put ads that let you buy apps so you can buy apps while you use previously bought apps.

[Krandor]

That youtube video proves my exact point I stated above.

[Julian]

I like how he had to slide his finger multiple times for it to register right.

[Quixon]

Lol. Once Flash comes out for Android the Iphone market share is going to shrink very quickly.

[BarthelloSylph]

Lol. Once Flash comes out for Android the Iphone market share is going to shrink very quickly.

Maybe. Unfortunately, I have a lot of apps for my iPhone, so I'm kind of locked in.

[dannyl]

*cough* who cares.

I love my DROID.

[DAKPluto]

Lol. Once Flash comes out for Android the Iphone market share is going to shrink very quickly.

Wasn't Flash promised for Andriod like 50 years ago now? WTF is the delay?

[dejet]

I dont like apple tbh, but I do like them and how they tend to push other company's to think outside the box.

I really am looking forward to AIR and flash 10 for my droid ~_~

I think apple is making a big mistake with not doing flash, at least till HTML5 is working at full power. its going to be years till it works as well, and by then flash will have developed a better system as well.

It just does not seem all that smart.

Apple makes money because they are apple... sorta like how MS made money because they where MS >.<

[dejet]

Wasn't Flash promised for Andriod like 50 years ago now? WTF is the delay?

1st quarter of 2010 is when they said it be coming out. There is a video of flash working on "The Droid" as well. So it works, they are tweeking it so it does not eat the battery and that it flows well on pages. It does work tho, the proof is there ~_~

[Shaskoru]

"We weren't the first to this party but we're going to be the best, just like cut and paste," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs

It's good to know that apple is going to revolutionize multitasking in the same manner that they revolutionized cutting and pasting.

On a serious note, it's awesome that apple puts so much attention on optimization of features; but, how do issues like those shown in the youtube video actually pass as "quality" and "optimized"? Unless that video was intended to manipulate (Or I just don't get it?), just what is this I don't even what the fuck.