iPhone OS 4.0: a quick tour
08. Apr, 2010 
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Today Apple announced the next version of their amazing touch-based OS, iPhone OS 4.0. I was surprised that Apple decided not to change the name to Touch OS 4.0 since this OS now powers devices beyond the iPhone, i.e. the iPad and iPod Touch. Having used every major version of this OS, I can say that Apple has made some strides, are still behind other touch-based OSes in a few areas, but overall, they have one of the most powerful and the most widely used touch-based OS available. After using it for a while, a mouse can seem awfully clunky.
So, what will the new OS mean for current iPhone users and 3rd-gen iPod Touch users? Let’s take a look. I installed the OS on my phone today. It took a few short minutes and maintained all of the data on my phone.
Then, it took me a minute or two to organize my pages and pages of apps into folders. Well, Apple is calling them folders, but they’re really like pop-ups. They’re much quicker to use than folders. And they’re smart. You can rename them, but Apple provides default names for you based on the types of apps you put in, e.g. Games, Productivity, and Utilities. Here’s what my pages and pages of apps became:
Notice the sweet hurricane image in the background? That is one that I chose. You can choose any image you want. Simpler is better, I think.
What happens when you click a “folder”?
Of course, these features are simply cosmetic. What about real features? Well, I was most excited about the unified inbox in Mail. Now, you can quickly jump between INBOXES, not just accounts. It makes that faster. But you also have the option for ALL INBOXES which I’ve been wanting for a long time.
I choose ALL INBOXES and here’s what I get (names blurred out to protect the innocent!):
You might notice some differences above than in the current iPhone Mail app. For one, some messages, rather than having a chevron (›) have a number and a double chevron (2»). The latter indicate threaded messages. Clicking opens a list of all of the messages in a thread — original emails and all replies. That’s really useful. You can easily go back and see earlier messages to help keep up with a thread. Also, one conversation will not dominate your inbox now.
A few other changes are that you can now open email attachments in other apps. So, if someone sends you an OmniGraffle file, you can elect to open the attachment in your OmniGraffle app. Notice that Mail is behaving more like it does in OS X? We’ve been asking Apple for that.
Perhaps the biggest news for most was the ability to Multitask on the iPhone. Apple was forthcoming and admitted that like Copy-and-Paste, they came to the game late with Multitasking. But like Copy-and-Paste, they say, their implementation is the best. Since I haven’t used multitasking on other phones, I cannot comment. But I can say that they did a nice job and their strategy is quite useful while maintaining good battery life and performance.
When you double-click the home button, the screen slides up and reveals a bar with all the apps you’re currently running. You can swipe to see pages and pages of these. You can click-and-hold to kill any apps you want to quit. That’s perhaps the most annoying feature; once you run an app, it stays running until you manually go in and kill it. Otherwise, the implementation is excellent.
So now you can listen to Pandora, surf the web, and receive a call on Skype all at once.
What else is new? A whole bunch of features. Over 100, in fact. And I keep stumbling upon them. Here’s one that I am happy to see: Faces! In Photos, you can have Places, Events, and Faces, just like in iPhoto.
Overall, I am quite happy with the new iPhone OS. I can’t wait to get some of these features on my iPad in the Fall.
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Sweet review. Thanks for the opening tour through a new neighborhood, so to speak. I look forward to uploading and playing with it myself.
So… if double-clicking brings up that app screen, then how do you quickly go to your favorite contacts (which is what double-clicking does on 3.0)? I like that.
And having to kill any app manually sounds really really annoying.
Lastly, is it any faster? I have a 3G myself, since a few months now, unlocked from store and not jailbroken, but it's really slow. Just bringing up the screen to text takes anywhere between 3-8 seconds.
So… if double-clicking brings up that app screen, then how do you quickly go to your favorite contacts (which is what double-clicking does on 3.0)? I like that.
And having to kill any app manually sounds really really annoying.
Lastly, is it any faster? I have a 3G myself, since a few months now, unlocked from store and not jailbroken, but it's really slow. Just bringing up the screen to text takes anywhere between 3-8 seconds.
iOS 4 does seem a bit snappier than 3.1.2, but I am on a 3Gs, which is pretty fast to begin with (although the iPad is much faster, even still on iOS 3).
Killing apps manually has gotten easier since the beta. They made it fewer steps.
Double-clicking brings up an app switcher. This makes jumping between apps much faster, but for the times when you want to get to your favorites (I personally use my iPhone less as a phone than many other features), it takes one extra click.