Yes, your eyes didn't fool you: This is a very smart move by Apple! The iPhone 4.0 OS Event is still in progress but his looks very promising. edit:/ multitasking only for 3GS and touch 3rd gen?! Are you serious!
It's therefore reasonable to assume it will include the iPad as well as that runs on the same firmware as the iPhone. Still, exciting. Sam
Blah blah my shoes have had multitasking since the 1990's... give the trolling a rest... As with anything 'features' that will only work on the newest and shiniest devices are pretty much only a jailbreak away for the older versions.. I am a bit shocked however that there's been no mention of a new phone... maybe another event when they launch the OS?
Yea but they would have prob. made the event a lot bigger if they'd announce the 4th gen iphone. I'm a bit shocked how much Steve is in to their new in app advertising, because my phone/media player is kinda the last place where I want advertising, even it it looks good and well implemented, it's still annoying as ****.
It's not really "multitasking" as most of the apps, music ones aside, just go into a halt state, just like all the other devices out there. It is nice Apple have finally understood the concept of having apps halt instead of close though, but it's a shame they decided to push people to spend more money for their hardware and discriminate against the earlier versions even though they're more than capable of handling the new features.
Given that I believe the iPhone OS to be more important to Apple than OSX this was kinda inevitable, despite so many people claiming it was unnecessary to justify its absence up until now. Seems like a decent shot at it as well- not as good as WebOS mind, but I guess people people actually own iPhones.
newsflash here, Stevie boy likes money, and will happily lower customer satisfaction to get it, because he can.... because you all let him
Yeah I agree, especially as from the sounds of things it'll be a total takeover every 3 minutes (unless I read the coverage wrongly).. I do like the idea of iAd replacing the ads that are currently in use in iphone apps, 'cause frankly, they're fricking awful, and like The Steve said; they take you out of the app you're running. I can see the hardware being limiting in regards to the 3G model only having 128MB of ram available, but background apps have been out there for some time in the form of iPod and the Phone apps, so logically it shouldn't be much different with proper implementation. App switching on the other hand I can completely understand not making it in, but as it was said at the keynote, the state is saved and then shut down except for processes that need to stay open. Most apps will not need much if any in the way of TSR processes and as such should probably go into a 'pause' state (in a game for example) and then save state. Hell let the iphone use a bit more swap and then it's a completely non-issue.
tbh, you have to bear in mind that the excluded devices would be obsolete by all possible industry standards - iphone 3g is almost 2 years old, same ipod touch 2g. No other hardware/software manufacturer adds *NEW* features to devices that old. That's why, despite being an iphone 3G user, I have to give them at least some credit
well, don't give them too much credit, Apple only updates the Hardware once in a while (far less often than, say Samsung or Sony throw out a new device) so the regular software updates are kind of mandatory to "keep up". This is by no means criticism because I like the fact they put some effort in to developing and not just rushing a product out because they came up with one new feature.
In reality though, Apple now, really only has 3 (or 4 depending how you look at it) mobile devices of this kind, the iPod Touch, the iPhone and the iPad (and +3G version). While yes, Samsung, SE, Nokia et al may push out new hardware all the time, they come from different ranges or lines. If we were to just look say at Nokia's N8* line; that gets a hardware refresh roughly as much as Apple's iPhone does. Thus far Apple has released a new iPhone every year, it's just this year we're yet to hear anything, but I do hope that there will be new hardware on the horizon for this summer, maybe likely to follow the design influences from the iPad.
Apple... has an 'iPhone line', basically. The problem is, they look and feel so similar, they don't really feel like an upgrade. If you have an N95 and pick up an N97, you just know that the 97's a newer, more feature-packed piece of kit. Pick up a 2g iPhone and a GS... fundamentally they feel... pretty much the same. So it never feels like they've gone ad updated the range. Hell, the iPod line... that felt like an upgrade. First, those clumsy buttons around the clickwheel, then you could just click down on the clickwheel, etc. They felt different but familiar. The '1 button, everything-else-GUI' design of the iPhone... you miss out on that new-gadget glow that a more different interface gives you. (Design influences from the iPad... apart from being bigger, uhh... they're pretty similar, design wise? There's not a lot they can do?)
Not to pick apart your post wst (but I will, and with glee!)... As I said previously, with regard to iPhoneOS products, there are three lines. iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad. Your example of the design differences between the iPhone (Original/2G/1st Gen/Edge etc) and the iPhone 3G and 3GS aren't so subtle that you wouldn't be aware which version you were holding. To outline a couple features, the back cover of the original was flat, blushed alu with a matt black plastic part at the bottom, and black buttons for volume etc and had a recessed 3.5mm headphone/headset jack connector. On the 3G and 3GS, The back is entirely glossy plastic either black or white, with silver buttons and a flush mounted 3.5mm jack. And between the 3G and 3GS, that is quite subtle I'll give you that, the text on the back of the 3G is just white ink silkscreened on, whereas the 3GS has silver ink much like the Apple logo. On the front however, yes, you would be hard pressed to tell a picture of 3 iPhones side by side apart. and in regards to the iPad design, it has gone for a more square'd off aluminium rear enclosure more familiar to the MacBook Pro range.
N95 and N97 are phones that are 2 years apart. Try comparing nokia's xpressmusic line with all those 5xxx phones. I cannot distinguish between one another had it not been for the coloring on the phone body. And these phones are 1 year apart similarly to iphone 3g and 3gs
iPhone OS 4.0 Adds Multi-tasking, Folders, iBooks & an Xbox Live Rival More news on what there is with OS 4.0 Trusted Reviews Sam
just installed it on my iphone 3G, it is surprisingly stable and is quite refined for a beta (nowhere as flaky as last year's 3.0 beta, especially the early ones). Runs quite fast as well, however I cannot really imagine it coping with multitasking, perhaps some jailbreak hack will enable users to try their luck with multitasking on 3G. New Mail app is much nicer than the previous one, I will see how it fits into my usage pattern, perhaps it will encourage me to do more mobile emailing instead of just syncing my imap boxes. It's got some sort of T9 like dictionary replacement - you can double tap on a word and replace menu comes up, where you can choose what you had in mind, quite handy - you don't have to go back anymore. Can't really see the point of folders thing, apart from enabling users to store more apps - the spotlight functionality is much more useful at finding the application. It has also gotten a Wikipedia search option, I can see geeks using it quite often in bar arguments Unfortunately I don't have the iBooks app, however having played with "Classics" app before, which apple's rendition of a bookstore seems to mimic, I must admit it is quite a satisfying experience and in fact something that might find some use - the fonts are just about the right size, perfect for a quick read on the tube. Still need to get my iPhone 3GS to see if there are any worthwhile improvements. The beta for 3G is sort of crippled
Nothing officially... But from digging around in the SDK, people are getting some pretty big hints as to what's coming: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/04/08...e-to-have-front-facing-camera-ichat-and-more/
