Apple has made a couple of adjustments to its iAd mobile advertising platform for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, including significantly lowering the buy-in price to $100,000 -- down from $500,000, which was already down from $1,000,000 -- and to increasing developer revenue sharing to 70 percent -- up from 60 precent. iAd was supposed to allow developers who made free apps earn some extra revenue through in-app advertising, but Apple has been facing a lot of challenges getting the program off the ground. iAds were supposed to be both lucrative for developers and effective for advertisers, while delighting users with better presented, more engaging content than your average punch-the-monkey web banner.

However, Apple has had some trouble getting it off the ground, and competing with Google's AdMob. iAd is basically fighting a battle on two fronts. First, trying to get more advertisers on board with iAd. Second, trying to get developers to show the ads they do manage to sell. Higher revenue should sweetens the pot for developer, hopefully creating a bigger target for Apple to sell advertisers.

The iAd mobile advertising network provides a simple and compelling way to generate additional revenue from your apps. Now we’re making it even better, raising your revenue share to 70 percent. The new revenue share goes into effect automatically on April 1 for all developers in the iAd Network. Learn how easy it is to get started with iAd.

That's also where the significant decrease in iAd price comes in. Apple has struggled with adoption among advertisers since Steve Jobs introduced the program back in 2010. When first announced, Apple required participants to fork over $1 million to get started, which they've since realized was far too high an amount given the lack of participation after the program launched. Apple has been experimenting with the buy-in amount from the get-go, cutting the price in half to $500,000 a year ago.

These changes should no doubt encourage more advertisers to participate, but whether or not iAd will ultimately become what Apple envisioned is yet to be determined.

Source: Apple, TheLoop

Seems like Apple just can't get their alarms to work consistently following time changes. The bug struck again, according to BBC News, as some iPhone owners in the UK were late for work this morning after the clocks moved forward an hour for British Summer Time. Similar problems occurred during the switch to and from standard time in North America, and following New Year.

This time the glitch is not with the iPhone’s clock application but is affecting non-recurring alarms set within the iPhone's calendar application. The alarms either go off one hour late, or not at all. We are not quite sure why anyone would want to set up a morning wakeup call in this way in the first place, but the bug could also affect agenda alarms too.

I am in the UK and my alarm went off without a hitch today and all my agenda reminders too. Did any of our UK readers experience any alarm related problems this morning? Let us know in the comments!

[BBC News]

Apple has aired yet another “if you don’t have an iPhone” commercial, this time focusing on the Retina Display. It highlights photographs, movies, maps and email and how clear they look on the phone with the highest resolution screen!

Official Apple video after the break. What do you think, better than the previous iBooks, iTunes music, App Store, and Game Center spots?

New to iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and trying to figure out how to change the default search engine to something other than Google? For many users Google is synonymous with web search but if you prefer Yahoo! or Microsoft Bing, it's an easy change to make. And we'll show you how after the break!

If you want to change your default search engine from Google to Yahoo! or Bing, here's what to do:

• From the home screen, tap on the Settings app
• Tap on Safari.
• Tap on Search Engine.
• Select the new Search Engine.

Once you quit settings, your selection will remain the default Search Engine until you change it again.

Bonus Tip: Just because you set one search engine as default for the search field doesn't mean you can't use others. Just enter their URL (google.com, yahoo.com, bing.com, etc.) in Safari and you can use any one you wish, whenever you wish.

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

According to a translated Chinese source (I know, a little sketchy to say the least) the iPhone 5 will revert to an aluminum back panel, in place of the latest generation's entire glass affair. The picture above is a concept however we would expect Apple to also provide a flash for the camera!

The source claims that Apple will dump the glass panel due to problems with scratching, breaking and the weight of the panel. The iPhone 5 is claimed to more resemble the latest iPod touch design. The original iPhone also had an aluminum rear panel and many still believe this model had the best build quality.

The antennae will also face a redesign according to the same source; the new placement will be on the rear of the phone via a resin made Apple logo. The side exposed antennas will be abandoned. This is not much of a surprise after all the bad press Apple received over the death grip/touch.

What do you think? Would you prefer an aluminum back panel? Do you like the iPhone 4 glass back panel? Let us know in the comments!

[MacRumors]

New to the iPhone and curious how to change your text message (SMS) tone? Apple is not overly generous when it comes to customizing alert tones on your iPhone. Ring tones are completely customizable but email tones can't be changed from the default unless you jailbreak. Text messages are somewhere in the middle -- you can personalize them but not customize them (yet). Read on after the break to find out how!.

Changing the default SMS/Text tone

To change the tone you hear for all incoming texts:

1. Open Settings
2. Tap Sounds
3. Tap Text Tone
4. Choose new tone (A preview of the tone will play when tapped)

That’s all there is to it. All new text messages will trigger the new tone when they arrive.

Changing an individual contact's SMS/Text tone

To set a personalized SMS/Text tone for an individual contact:

1. Launch the Contacts app (or Phone app and choose the Contacts tab)
2. Scroll to the contact you want to personalize
3. Tap on their name to bring up their contact page
4. Tap edit
5. Tap on Text Tone
6. Choose a new tone

Now, when that specific contact texts you, you'll get their specific tone. It's a great way to differentiate family from friends, for example.

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

When placed in the dock, your iPhone or iPod Touch will be charged, but also automatically backed up. The backup is for photographs and contacts only. Unfortunately you cannot backup any applications, music, video, SMS, Email etc. To enable the backup process, you also need an app from the App Store called SuperHero which is free. The app launches automatically when you place your device in the dock. The dock is connected directly to a power outlet and has no facility to connect to a Mac or PC should you want to sync to iTunes.

The included 4GB SD card can be replaced with a larger capacity card should you need more storage for your photos and contacts; also more than one device can be backed up to the same SD card.

The Iomega SuperHero should be available worldwide later this month for around $70 and is compatible with iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4 as well the 2nd generation iPod Touch and above.

Can you see yourself using a dock like this? Is it too limited as a backup solution? Let us know in the comments!

[cnet]

The iPhonECG by Lifetone Technology is a case that turns your iPhone 4 into a fully functional  ECG (Electrocardiography) device that can be used to monitor your heart. It works via  interpretation of the electrical activity of the heart over time captured and externally recorded by skin electrodes.

The case is a simple enough snap on type plastic case with two electrodes on the rear. The patient can hold the case in their hands, touching the electrodes, or hold it against their chest to capture the performance of the heart. The information is displayed on the screen of the iPhone 4 with a dedicated app, again developed by Lifetone. It also has another app that works with the case. The second app is a personal heart rate monitor, to aid with relaxation; it is aimed more at the consumer than the professional market.

Both apps and the case will be announced at CES (Consumer Electronics Show), which begins in Las Vegas next week.

[MobileCrunch]

RunKeeper Pro has been made available to everyone for free today. The offer lasts until the end of January 2011 so don’t delay, go and grab yourself a copy of this fantastic app for free.

In an effort to encourage more people to get off the couch, and as a show of appreciation to the RunKeeper community for your terrific support for the last two and a half years, we're making the RunKeeper Pro app (usually $9.99 USD) free to download now through the end of January!

What more do you need to kick-start your fitness goals for 2011!

[iTunes Link]

iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad having problems or just being buggy and unresponsive and curious how to restart or reset it? Strange as it sounds, just like a computer, restarting or resetting can solve a host of problems. We'll show you how after the break!

Update: Re-Spring iPhone 4S with Siri

iPhone 4S can do a very quick re-Spring (relaunch of the Springboard, or Home screen system) thanks to Siri.

1. Hold down the Home button
2. Say "Restart"

You'll see your iPhone 4S screen go dark briefly, then come back.

Restart your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad

The first thing to try is a simple restart.

1. Hold down the Sleep/Wake button until a red slider appears on the screen.
2. Slide your finger across the slide and the iPhone will turn off.
3. Turn the iPhone back on again by pressing the Sleep / Wake button until the Apple logo appears on screen.

It will take a little bit till your iPhone turns back on this is normal dont worry.

If the problem is still there after a power down or if the power down option failed due to a freeze up, there is another option. You can reset your iPhone. Don’t panic, your normal data will not be wiped.

Reset your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad

1. Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least 10 seconds.
2. Ignore the red slider that appears on the screen and keep holding both buttons until the Apple logo appears.

That’s it, iPhone will restart and hopefully all your problems are cured.

The two methods are slightly different, the first method is a soft reset only and leaves running programsin memory. The second method completely powers down your iPhone and also clears the RAM and cache.

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

Apple has launched its 12 days of Christmas promotion in the UK, an iTunes offer where Apple gives away a different free download each day. The download can be a song, music video, app, book, TV episode or even a complete film.

The promotion starts on December 26^th and runs for 12 days. Each free gift will only be available for 24 hours. Apple also has a dedicated 12 days of Christmas app, compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, that is available today so you won’t miss any of the give aways that start on the 26th.

No news on availability in other countries yet but we are sure it will be coming soon!

[iTunes Link]

iOS 4.2 for iPhone supports a technology known as Network Controlled Fast Dormancy which enables the cell network and the handset to work together to create the best conditions for smartphones to work quickly yet have a longer battery life, and minimize network congestion.

Interestingly, it is Nokia Siemens Networks and not Apple that has brought this to everyone’s attention. Nokia Siemens Networks has posted the news on its own blog page.

Tests by Nokia Siemens Networks have shown that iPhone iOs 4.2  supports a technology called Network Controlled Fast Dormancy. To overcome the problem Nokia Siemens Networks introduced a method that, instead of putting the handset into idle or keeping it always active, keeps the handset in an intermediate state. From here, a smartphone can wake up much more quickly and needs to send far fewer signals to and from the network to start a data connection. You get a fast network response and longer battery life.

As Nokia Siemens Networks point out, this technology is a good thing for the user and the actual network. Users gobble up less data and get a better overall experience; especially battery life. The network receives less demand and can provide a better service to its users.

So have any of our readers noticed any improvement in data retrieval times and more importantly battery life since updating to iOS 4.2? Let us know in the comments.

[Nokia Siemens Networks via Engadget]

Well known media player manufacturer Xtreamer, has just launched a new media player, called the iXtreamer. It is aimed squarely at iOS users because not only is this a media player, it also has a dock on the top which accepts virtually all iPod / iPhone devices as well as the iPad. When a device is in the dock, it offers a full charging solution; but more importantly, provides access to your music, video and photo libraries all via your HD TV. The iXtreamer has its own on screen UI to access and play your content via a remote control from the comfort of your living room.

Experience your iPad music collection on the spectacular artistic GUI on your TV screen with amazing picture quality of HD video and crystal clear sound clarity of 7.1 CH digital audio. Use your iPhone or the included remote control to navigate through your entertainment choices using crisp, animated HD menus.

Now combine this with a media player that can also play content from a local hard drive, USB Drives or network attached storage and the package starts to look particularly attractive. File support is well covered, the iXtreamer supports, BluRay image files, MKV, AVI and a lot more besides, all in 1080P HD. YouTube access is also included along with internet radio and TV streams.

Xtreamer has big plans for the device; they are currently investigating the possibility of getting access to apps and games on your iOS device and showing them on your HDTV too. They do state that this will depend on Apple’s willingness, so I think you can rule that one out for the foreseeable future.

This does look like a very good media player with some special features to attract iOS users. The iXtreamer is currently priced at 199 Euros ($270). Shipping is available worldwide and it is available now.

Although this has much greater file support than the Apple TV, does it offer enough for the extra cost? Let us know in the comments!

[Xtreamer]

iTunes 9.2, currently in beta on the Mac, will be required to install iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod touch when it becomes available on June 21, and here's likely one of the reasons why -- it can edit Folders.

We've go a complete walkthrough of iOS 4 features up, but if you're curious as to how it works in iTunes, the good news is -- pretty much as you'd expect. Click on a folder icon and the virtual screen opens up to show the contents, same as in iOS proper. Drag an app out to remove it, or in normal view, drag it over another app to create a folder or an existing folder to add it in. You can even rename the folder if the "intelligent naming" isn't quite intelligent enough.

An obvious addition to iTunes 9's app management repertoire but the obvious stuff doesn't always get done. Nice to see, in this case, it did.

A release version of iTunes 9.2 should proceed iOS 4's availability.

Working on an icon for your new iPhone 4 or iPad app? Fresh from WWDC 2010, Cocoia have updated their PSD resource file to include not only the original iPhone/iPod touch and iPad dimensions, but the new iPhone 4 114x114 Retina Display resolution as well:

Again, if you appreciate it, tweet this to help your fellow designers and developers make nicer icons for iPhone 4 (and beyond).

As someone who admittedly skips over anything with a poor icon in the App Store, here's hoping Cocoia's generosity -- and passion for iconography -- is widely embraced.

Go grab it via the link directly below.

[Cocoia]

One of the more interesting notes on Apple's iOS 4 for iPod touch page is persistent Wi-Fi connectivity, so Skype calls or push-notifications can come through even when your iPod touch is in sleep mode:

iPod touch can stay connected to Wi-Fi when asleep so you can receive incoming VoIP calls and notifications from compatible third-party apps.

There's no word on whether this applies to the iPhone as well (since cellular data is typically persistent anyway), but it would be a nice feature to have in all iOS devices -- including iPad, especially when roaming with data turned off, or even just to prevent the delays that usually accompany reconnecting to Wi-Fi based remote control apps.

For more on Apple's latest software, see our complete iOS 4 feature walkthrough...

[Apple iPod touch iOS 4 page]

iOS 4 (previously iPhone OS 4 or iPhone 4.0) continues Apple's relentless yearly mobile OS update cycle. If 2007 was the mainstreaming of the multitouch user interface, 2008 all about the App Store, and 2009 was filling in the feature list, then iOS 4 promises to be... well, that's why we're here.

(And yes, iOS. That's the new name Apple has licensed from trademark-holders Cisco to represent the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch -- and maybe soon the Apple TV and who knows what else -- family.)

Back on April 8 at the sneak preview event, Apple promised 7 "tent-pole" features and 100+ general user features overall, along with 1500 major new API for developers. We're going to walk you through the ones that matter most.

Note: iOS 4.1 is now available. See our complete iOS 4.1 walkthrough for the latest on Game Center, HDR photography, Ping social music network, and the other new features.

See also our iPhone 4 review for more on hardware specific features.

iOS 4 in 10 minutes: video quick-start guide

If you don't have time (yet) to read this massive iOS 4 walkthrough and are eager to get the basics down now, here's a quick 10 minute video guide to get your started.

We're showing it off on an iPhone 3GS, which should be similar to how it will work on an iPod touch G3. If you're using the iPhone 3G or iPod touch 2G you won't get the multitasking and wallpapers. You'll blame Apple. Apple will blame the hardware. The hardware will try to frustrate you into upgrading to an iPhone 4. You've been warned.

Note: If you haven't updated yet, save yourself some time and potential hassles and go read our getting ready for iOS 4 post first first. Then once you're good to go, sit back, relax, and hit play on the video below.

YouTube link

What Hasn't Changed

As always, we'll start off by telling you what hasn't change so we can clear the deck for what has. For more information on any functionality that's pretty much identical to past versions, check out our previous walkthroughs:

• iPhone 3.1
• iPhone 3.0
• iPhone 2.2
• iPhone 2.1
• iPhone 2.0

And here's a quick list of the unchanged apps in iOS 4:

• Stocks: Similarly, Stocks got landscape and a slew of swipe-able data last time, so the update love gets skipped this time.
• Weather: Almost comedically at this point, it's still unchanged from iPhone 1.0. Still no HTC TouchFlo 3D style animations, no landscape mode with more/different information. Not even a Calendar-style icon update to show current local weather. Nada.
• Voice Memo: Introduced in iPhone 3.0, it looks pretty much the same in iOS 4.
• Clock: With nothing but a lap feature added last time, we lose the "but" and keep the "nothing" for iOS 4.
• Calculator: Upgraded back in 2.0 for landscape scientific mode, all Calculator gets this time is a slight icon tweak towards the red.

(We're not counting getting a resolution bump for iPhone 4 Retina Display as a functional change.)

System-wide enhancements

Spell check

Spell check, which debuted in iOS 3.2 for iPad, is a system-wide addition to iOS 4 now as well. Words the OS thinks you've misspelled will be underlined in red (familiar to any Microsoft Office or Mac OS X user). Tapping on them will give you a popup containing a recommended replacement. Tapping the popup replaces the misspelled word with the (hopefully!) correctly spelled one.

Combined with the iPhone's existing -- and industry leading -- predictive auto-correct, it's a powerful combination.

Text Replace

Cut, copy, and paste also gets an iPad-debuting feature with "replace" now added to the popup options.

Additionally, if iOS 4 autocorrects a word and you immediately backspace, a popup will appear offering to replace the correction with the originally typed word.

VoiceControl

We haven't found any specific documentation on this yet, and it doesn't seem to be listed as one of the options flying by on the on-screen suggestions, but per the comments below asking "what time is it" will now have VoiceControl speak the current time to you. It's possible other commands have been added as well. If you come across any, let us know.

Wi-Fi

iPod touch (and I believe iPhone) can now stay connected to Wi-Fi even when in sleep mode. This means background VoIP calls, push notifications, and other apps that require an active Wi-Fi connection can just keep working.

Virtual Keyboard

Instead of just hitting the globe key to cycle through languages on the virtual keyboard, you can now hold it down to get a popup showing all currently enabled international keyboards.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support

You're going to get tired of us saying "like the iPad" but remember when we told you spring's influx of iPad news would be important come summer's new iPhone news? You were warned for a reason. iPhone is getting iPad's Bluetooth keyboard support. Thank goodness for that.

Over-the-air Carrier Setting Updates

Based on reports from Rogers/Fido users in Canada, iOS 4 adds the ability for Carrier Setting Updates to be pushed out over-the-air (OTA) to iPhones and installed on-device. (In previous versions iTunes would handle the update and sync it over).

Home Screen

SpringBoard, the app behind the Home Screen gets an iOS 3.2 for iPad-style update to support custom wallpaper. Yes, the default background in iOS 4 is water drops on gray, which is not default but included in the iPad's wallpaper gallery. Also like iPad, the Mac OS X reflective Dock (buh-bye grid) and translucent top bar have been brought over.

(If you get a new iPhone 4, or do a clean install of iOS 4, you'll also note Clock, Compass, Calculator, and Voice Memos have been moved to a Utilities folder by default -- more on Folders later).

In addition to the iPad wallpapers, Apple has also introduced a few new ones, all seemingly focused on livening up the home screen without being too visually distracting. Natural textures and muted patterns get an obvious focus here with stones, rocks, and textiles front and center.

(See all of them in our iOS 4 wallpaper gallery)

In addition to previous status icons, the top bar will now show a north-east pointing arrow to alert you that location-based services (GPS) are being used. (So you'll see this in Maps and when using navigation, location-based social networks or games, etc.) An orientation lock icon will also show if you've enabled the widget to lock your screen in portrait mode (see below).

The color bands indicators across the top of the screen that highlight running voice or data connections (green for Phone, red for Voice Memo, blue for tethering) get expanded. Red now serves double-duty to indicate a VoIP app (like Skype) is active in the background.

How the SpringBoard has been once again extended to visualize new, core-level OS changes is where things get more interesting...

Spotlight

First, and strangely least, the Spotlight Home Screen introduced in iPhone 3.0 now gets to look beyond on-device data and reach for the clouds. Literally. Well, insomuch as the cloud here is Google and Wikipedia, which are very welcome additions. (Hopefully Twitter will be added in as well at some point). Tapping either will launch you into Mobile Safari and the appropriate search result page.

Multitasking

While Apple's built-in apps (like iPod, Mail, etc.) have had background multitasking since 1.0. four years, many gripes, and stiffer Google Android competition than later, background multitasking comes to App Store apps. (At least for iPhone 4 and last year's iPhone 3GS).

Why no iPhone 3G? Apple abjectly refuses to put their name on an implementation where hardware constrains software -- see video recording last year -- and that means iPhone 3G isn't up to their multitasking standards.

As to how it works, instead of a traditional "leave full apps running in the background" approach, Apple instead chose to implement a more restricted but, they felt, better performing and power friendly solution involving 7 specific background API (application programming interfaces.)

Local notifications

In addition to the existing push notification service from Apple's servers, which provide sound, badges, and alert popups for everything from IM to game challenges, iOS 4 adds local notifications so something like an alarm-clock app could register an alert that would sit in the iPhone in the background until the proper time, then activate. That takes the online server out of the equation which is good for tasks that don't need additional information from the cloud, and so don't have to activate the radios.

Task completion

There's another API for task completion so that, for example, if you're uploading a picture to Twitter and leave the app, it can register a thread to keep uploading the picture in the background while you do something else. That means the entire app doesn't have to keep running, freeing up memory and lightening battery load, and even the thread will terminate when the upload is done.

Fast task switching and saved state

Fast task switching deals with the perceptive speed that multitasking offers. With previous versions of iOS, if you left an App Store app it would shut down completely. If you went back -- regardless if it was a second or a week or later -- it would usually restart not from where you left off but from the beginning. A few developers tried to add persistence on their own, saving your place when you came back as best as previous OS versions allowed, but most didn't -- especially games which was aggravating when phone calls pulled you unexpectedly out of them. Also, if you closed one app and went to another, you could theoretically be stuck swiping back or forth between 11 home screen pages.

Saved state is now built into iOS 4. If you switch out, Apps have their currents state saved to memory and if/when you go back, the app checks the memory save and resumes from that state. [Thanks Aaron]

To enable fast app switching, Apple's created a new UI mechanic. Now, when you double tap the home button, the screen turns translucent and slides up, allowing you to peek at the apps running "under the hood". (Technically frozen with state saved and threads registered with the background API).

Apps in the fast switcher UI are sorted in order of last usage. That means, if you're moving between a set of commonly used apps, they're most likely right next to each other and not screens and screens away. These two elements combine together to make launching apps perceptively much faster, even though the apps don't have to be running in the background consuming resources just for that convenience.

Positionally the fast task switcher apps take up the space traditionally reserved for the Dock, so while it's a tad confusing the concept of apps at the bottom of the screen being more permanent and easily accessible remains. Behaviorally, while they look like a secret dock, they function like the Home Screen itself in that you can swipe from right to left to scroll through a several 4-icon sets of multitasking apps.

Given even the iPhone 3GS has only 256MB of RAM, we assume Apple will discretely kill off the least-used app in the stack when things get tight. Whether or not that means the icon disappears from the multitasking UI we don't know, but worst case you just have to go to the home screen, re-launch it (hopefully from saved state) and all you notice is a slightly longer start up time. iPhone 4 is supposed to have 512MB of RAM which should allow for significantly more threads to run in background without slowdown or other problems.

iOS 4 helps users visualize what's going on when switching tasks by introducing a new, carousel-like animation. The new animation occurs when you switch between two apps either via the new, double-click-Home to trigger to launch the multitasking UI, or when one app calls another app (i.e. when you're in Contacts and you tap to send a contact an SMS).

Launching or leaving an app retains the same, zoom-based effect as always (though the wallpaper in iOS zooms slightly as well, like on the iPad).

YouTube link

Interlude: Task Killing

At the iOS 4 event, Steve Jobs likened task managers (in the multitasking, not to-do sense) to styluses -- if you need them there's something wrong. Initially this created confusion in iOS 4 when it was noted, if you hold your finger down on multitasking apps, they'd jiggle and bring up a delete icon that, if tapped, removed them.

It appears like there's a couple things going on. First, with built-in Apple apps, like Mail, if you "delete" it from the fast task switcher, you will still receive Mail (it doesn't kill the background thread that checks, sounds/vibrates, and updates the badge) but the app seems to do some sort of data cache refresh at times.

For App Store apps, if you "delete" them it does appear to force a reset when next you launch them, i.e. they won't resume from the previously saved state and their threads seem to be restarted. [Thanks Justin!]

Widgets

Just like to the left of the main home screen is a special Spotlight screen, to the left of the fast app switcher is a special widget dock containing an software version of the iPad's hardware orientation lock control (though it currently only locks in portrait mode). More over, there are three circular controls to skip back, play/pause, or skip forward any music (including streaming music) -- and rewind or fast forward if you hold them down. Lastly, whichever app is currently playing the music, be it iPod, iTunes (streaming podcasts, for example), or an App Store app (like Pandora or Slacker) is shown at the right so you can jump back to it and access further controls.

YouTube link

The presentation may not be as visually slick as Palm webOS' Card view (which looks like iPhone Safari's Page view) or Mac OS X Expose mode, but it keeps tens of millions of existing iPhone and iPod touch users grounded in the interface they're familiar with and that's what Apple is prioritizing.

Note: Previously you could assign the double-click home button action to trigger Phone Favorites, Camera, or Spotlight. On iPhone 3G under iOS those options remain. On iPhone 3GS under iOS, in early betas you could double-click-and-hold the home button to trigger Phone Favorites, but this function doesn't appear to have survive to the final release. Hopefully something will replace it and soon.

Background music, location, and VoIP

Speaking of streaming music, perhaps most famously, Apple is allowing apps to register three specific types of the threads for persistent backgrounding (they can just keep running until you close them). Again, this isn't the whole app running, just one thread from the app, so the idea is it won't slow down performance, use up memory, or drain battery to the same degree. These API are for streaming music, location, and VoIP (voice over IP).

This means you can listen to Pandora, Slacker, etc. while surfing the web. Navigon, TeleNav,TomTom, etc. can keep using the GPS and alert you to directions while you're on the phone, and to further save resources, non-critical location apps like FourSquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc. can be alerted when you change cell towers. Fring, Skype, Line2, etc. can answer calls and receive messages when you're not in the app, making them more equal telephony citizens.

What's still missing are background API for timeline updates, so that IM, Twitter, RSS, etc. could update like Mail does and have new messages ready and waiting when you return to the app. Also, there's no API to let internet sessions like SSH, RDP/VNC remain active when you exit an app making it more onerous for network administrators and others to manage remote machines. Hopefully these can be added in future revisions.

Folders

There are over 200,000 apps in the App Store and likely a ton more by the time I finish writing the sentence. Literally. iPhone 1.0 had one Home Screen but with only the built-in apps available back then, it wasn't even a limitation. With WebApps, it grew to 9 pages for a 148 app limit. With iPhone 3.0 we were given 11 pages, for 180 apps viewable, but you could eventually install many more and use Spotlight as a way of finding and launching them. Organizing them still wasn't a real option.

Enter Folders. A Folder is simply a grouped icon that holds up to 12 other icons inside it. (And for those keeping count at home, the new math means a whopping 2160 apps can be kept available at once. Shudder).

The way it works is you tap a Folder icon and once again the Home Screen fades and splits open, this time below the Folder. Inside the split are all the apps contained in the group.

To create a Folder, you begin by tapping and holding an icon to put it in jiggly mode, just like you did before to delete or move it. Then, drag it over and drop it on top of another icon to create a Folder. (This works better when icons aren't at the right edge of the screen, as the move behavior seems to supersede the Folder behavior, causing the icon to wrap to the next line before you can drop on top of it.) Once created, iOS reads the apps' category data and tries to name the folder for you, but you can easily edit it and change it to anything you want.

To remove apps from a Folder, put them in jiggly mode inside the Folder and drag them out (or just delete them if you don't want the app anymore at all). You can also move them around within the Folder to customize their order.

Folders can be put in jiggly mode and moved as well, but not deleted (they can only be deleted by removing all the apps from within them, and which point they self-destruct for you). You can even move them to the Dock, which means you could have 48 apps readily available at any time for quick launching.

And while you still can't delete Apple's built-in apps, you can take the ones you're not using and hide them away inside a folder so they waste as little Home Screen space as possible (as Apple now does by default with the Utilities folder mentioned previously).

Again, not as visually exciting perhaps as Mac OS X's Stacks, but it keeps current iPhone users in a familiar interface while adding much-needed functionality.

YouTube link

The ability to manage Folders has also been added to iTunes 9.2, mirroring the creation, editing, and removal features found on-device.

Messages

Messages in iOS 4 gets the same built-in Spotlight search that Mail and other apps got with iPhone 3.0. It appears at the top of the main messages screen. (There's no search within an individual Messages thread). [@justin_horn]

Messages (finally) gets a character counter so you'll know when you're getting close to, or going past, the SMS limit (which would cause a second message to be sent). It kicks in after you've typed 50 characters or so. [@iMuggle]

iOS 4 will now put an exclamation badge on the Messages app as a way to inform you when an SMS text or MMS multimedia message fails to send.

There's also a new API to allow in-app SMS for developers who want to include the functionality in their own apps. While this might be similar to the iPhone 3.0 embedded email option, and whether or not it will let users reply to SMS without leaving an app, it doesn't seem as elegant a solution as a global background messaging system.

Calendar

Calendar removes two long-standing gripes and adds something pretty much invisible from the interface but awesome in terms of functionality.

First, you can now show all or hide all calendars or individually check/uncheck just the calendars you want to see.

Birthday calendars have also been added to the option, something that was previously only possible to see under certain setup conditions.

Lastly (and most excitingly), Apple has finally added Calendar access for developers. What this means is you may soon see apps where you can buy tickets for a local movie and have the show time automatically added to your Calendar.

Photos

Photos, at least for Mac users, gets the same iPhoto '09-based organizational features introduced with the iPad: Events, Faces, and Places.

If you have a Mac with iPhoto '09 and you've let it automatically file your photos by time stamp (Events), through facial-recognition algorithms (Faces), and via geo-location (Places). All these join the previous Albums view to form the bottom tab bar.

Landscape mode is also now supported in album and gallery views [@antonioj].

Previous betas included a Rotate function under the action button that would turn a photo 90 degrees, but this doesn't seem to have made it into the final. Hopefully it will return.

If you Email Photo, you now get the option of sending a small, medium, or large version (shrunken pixel dimensions and hence file size), or at actual size.

Lastly, developers have been given access to the photo and video library (not just the image picker as in previous OS versions).

Camera

Tap to focus, introduced in iPhone 3.0 for still photography, now gets expanded to video recording for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.

Still photography maintains its leg up, however, via a new 5x digital zoom. When you tap the screen, a slider pops up allowing you to swipe to the right to increase magnification and swipe left to decrease.

With iPhone 4, there's an additional control to swap between the beefed up 5mp back-facing camera, and the all new front-facing VGA camera (if you want to take a self-portrait/profile picture). There's also an icon to show the new rear-mounted LED flash. This feature sounds like it's automatic for still but can be turned on and left on for night-time video shooting, but we'll have to wait and see when iPhone 4 ships.

Developers also get full access to and control of video playback and recording.

YouTube

You can now watch YouTube videos in portrait mode if you really want to. They'll still default in landscape, so you may have to rock the accelerometer back and forth to get them to switch.

Maps

A minor tweak, but the current location/current direction button changes from the previous crosshairs to a north-east pointer to match the new location services icon used in the title bar. (No iOS 3.2 for iPad-style terrain mode, at least not yet).

For developers, overlays can now be added to embedded maps to show extra data like routes or annotations.

Notes

When you first enter notes it looks unchanged from previous versions of the iPhone OS. However, there is now an Accounts button at the top left of the list page and tapping it takes you to a new screen where you can choose to view All Notes, just the notes on your iPhone, or just the notes that are synced via IMAP to your email account(s). Yes, that means over the air (OTA) notes sync is finally here -- with the caveat that Exchange doesn't seem supported yet.

(UI-wise this is similar to how you back out/left in Calendar or Contacts to toggle data sources.)

The way these show up in Mac OS X is via the built-in Mail.app client in the Notes tab.

On Gmail they show up as a generic label. In other IMAP clients, regardless of OS, they'll show up as generic IMAP folders.

iTunes Store

The iTunes store itself is the same, however, audio streaming from the app has taken a huge leap forward. Since iPhone OS 2.2 you've been able to tap the title of a podcast to begin streaming (rather than downloading) the audio, even in the background while using other apps, but it was sometimes hit or miss. It would drop out, it would time out, you couldn't really scrub through it, and if you left it for a while it would lose its place and start over.

In iOS 4 it's rock solid. You can scrub and it re-buffers and keeps playing flawlessly. You can stop it and come back hours or even days later -- even after using the iTunes app to search for other things or the iPod app to play different audio -- and it still knows where you left off and starts playing again instantly without missing a beat.

As mentioned previously in the multitasking section, when iTunes is using the background music streaming API (I'm assuming thats' what it's using) it gets the widget position in the fast task switcher interface, complete with widget controls.

Settings

This year, like every year, some of the more numerous and interesting changes Apple delivers in their new OS are tucked neatly away in the Settings app.

General: Network

You can now choose to not only turn off 3G data or roaming data, but all cellular data.

General: Location Services

At the iOS event, Apple made a big deal about user privacy when it came to location (like a shot at Google). That manifests here with far more granular controls over which apps are allowed to access your location data (GPS, Wi-Fi mapping, and cell tower triangulation) and the aforementioned north-east pointing arrow that shows up when any app has used your location in the last 24 hours.

General: Spotlight Search

Since double clicking the home button is now a hard-wired to launch the fast-task switcher for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, the Home Button setting is gone and replaced by direct access to Spotlight Search preferences.

Since iPhone 3G won't be getting multitasking those options remain under iOS 4 for that device.

General: Passcode Lock

Previously available only through an Enterprise profile, iOS 4 brings stronger, alphanumeric passcodes to all iPhone users. That means you're no longer stuck with only a 4 digit pin, but can now create longer passcodes with far greater variation. Of course, longer, more varied passcodes are more of a hassle to remember and enter, but that's the cost of good security.

Mail, Contacts, Calendars

As previously mentioned, Notes will now sync over IMAP and the settings for that appear here. First, all the way at the bottom, you can choose which account to use as the default for note sync.

Inside MobileMe, Gmail, or other IMAP accounts, you can choose whether or not to enable sync. Again, there's no support for Exchange ActiveSync accounts yet (including Gmail via GoogleSync).

Safari

When you tap into the Safari's URL bar in iOS 4 and start typing, Safari starts to do a "keyword search", i.e. display predictive results based on your bookmarks and history. Anything that contains the text you're inputing either in the URL or history is listed below the URL field so the moment you see what you want you can just tap it and go.

This makes it easier to find something if you don't remember the exact web page address or if you know you recently saw a site, and know what it was about, but don't remember where exactly it was. Just start typing a few words you do remember and let Safari do the heavy lifting. Highly convenient and certainly "awesome". [To misappropriate the term from Mozilla]

Also, welcome to iOS search options, Microsoft Bing.

Messages

Here's where you can turn on that new character count option.

iPod

The iPod app now has an overlay that shows you information about songs and podcasts. While functional it's not terribly attractive so it's nice to be able to toggle it off right here.

App Store

iPhone 2.0 brought us the iTunes App Store, iPhone 3.0 added in-app purchases, and now iOS raises the mercantile stakes once again with...

iAd

iAd will provide developers with an easy-as-Xcode way to place advertising in their apps, both paid and free. Apple is setting a high bar for their ads, however. No simple Google-style text, annoying punch-the-monkey, or jarring transition out of the app and into the browser, they claim to want great looking, highly interactive, emotionally compelling content that will connect with rather than alienate users. Served every 3 minutes. Yeah...

Functionally these are built in HTML5 (no Flash need apply) and seem to work as apps-within-apps. Tapping on a banner brings up a full-screen ad-as-webapp and examples shown included plenty of animated UI effects and content that ranged from videos to freebies like wallpaper, to free and paid apps you could download from within the ad (no trip to the App Store needed). An exit button is persistent at the top left so users can quit the add at any time.

Apple will be selling and serving the ads, so all we can do is hope they're unobtrusive and actually reach the quality levels presented. For paid apps that also try to include in-app iAds, that bar will rightly be very, very high.

Quick Look

Just like Mail can preview documents, Quick Look will allow developers to present the same functionality in their apps.

Accelerate

2000 hardware accelerated math APIs probably won't be seen by users, but there's not doubt we'll feel them in the games. Zoom. Zoom.

File Sharing

Again it looks like the iPhone is finally getting in iOS what the iPad got in 3.2 with the file/document transfer feature now exposed in iTunes sync.

Now all we need is an elegant way to share and wirelessly sync those documents across multiple devices and users. MobileMe 2.0, souped up iWork.com 2.0, where are you?

Phone

The biggest addition to the iOS 4 Phone app is iPhone 4 exclusive -- FaceTime. When connected to Wi-Fi and making a call to another iPhone 4 user, the Hold button gets replaced with a FaceTime video icon. (Where the hold option goes under these circumstances is as yet unknown.)

Tapping that initiates a FaceTime video call. During the FaceTime video call, the person you're calling fill the screen, your own camera input is boxed in the lower left corner (you can touch and drag it to move it around), and mute, hang up, and switch camera buttons line the bottom of the screen. (Switch camera toggles between the rear-facing and front-facing cameras on the iPhone 4).

Mail

Mail gets a unified inbox. Let's write that again -- Mail gets a unified inbox. For those with multiple email accounts whose previous iPhone experience involved tapping into and out of those boxes many, many times a day this is a hugely welcome addition.

As with Calendars, Notes, etc. you can tap a button on the top left, in this case Mailboxes, to back into a selection screen where you can then go into All Inboxes, a specific account's inbox (which is considered fast inbox switching), or into the complete folder and sub-folder system of a given account (how Mail has worked from iPhone 1.0 to iPhone 3.0).

Once inside, All Inboxes is visually indistinguishable from an account-specific inbox, it simply contains all of their messages.

What is distinguishable are the small carets (technically greater-than symbols) to the right of replies that indicate a message is part of a thread. A number, typically 2 or 3, accompanies the caret to indicate how many replies are in the thread.

Tapping on a message that's part of a thread doesn't take you to the message but rather to a second list-view, similar to the inbox itself, but containing only the messages from the thread. Tapping on one of them then takes you to the message. A thread view contains a small vertical bar at the top with the subject of the thread and time of the most recent reply. A button to the top left of the message that's part of the thread also contains the subject of the thread and lets you back out and see the thread again. The button then switches to contain the name of the inbox so you can back out again, leave the thread completely, and see all your messages.

So yes, the tap, tap, tap of inbox navigation persists, albeit shifted from moving into and out of inboxes to moving into and out of threaded messages.

Like iOS 3.2 for iPad, you'll be able to open email attachments in apps. Now there's no iWork (Numbers, Pages, Keynote) for iPhone yet, but plenty of apps should support it as they push out the iOS 4 compatible versions.

Great news for heavy ActiveSync users, iOS 4 supports multiple accounts. So, for example, you can now have your work Exchange server and home Google account both set up to push through ActiveSync (which is what Google Sync users behind the scenes) at the same time. Win. Win.

Also for Gmail users, the Delete button has no been properly renamed as Archive (since Google really doesn't want you deleting anything if they can possibly help it).

Lastly, in previous versions of the iPhone OS, when you wanted to abandon an email, you would hit Cancel and get options to Save (store the email in Drafts), Don't Save (trash the email), and Cancel (go back to writing the email). The naming of these options was likely too confusing so in iPhone OS they've been replaced with a big red Delete button (to trash the email), Save as Draft, and Cancel. And yes, you can still cancel a cancel. (iPad, by contrast, still has Save and Don't Save, but no Cancel since it's in a popover rather than full-screen menu and you can just tap away to cancel).

Safari

More iPad to iPhone cross-polination means we get search auto-complete in iOS. As you type, suggestions appear in a list view below. And as with the iPad, while Google and Yahoo! branding remain in the search boxes (along with Bing now as well), they no longer get brand advertising on the keyboard -- it simply remains labeled Search now regardless of which engine is set and default.

While HTML5 video would work under iPhone 3.1.3, it would launch the full screen QuickTime player to do so. Under iOS, it seems to play in-line as well [MobileGeekdom], like it does on the iPad.

If history is any indicator, Apple will likely also integrate whatever advancements WebKit and the Nitro JavaScript engine make between now and release this summer. However, there's no sign of Safari 5 desktop's key new features -- reader (think built-in Instapaper) and extensions.

iPod

When you have a song playing in the iPod app and you tap the album art, in addition to all the previous controls that popped up, you now get a dark overlay with white text giving you the info metadata of the song or podcast. This is another iPad bring-over, though not the most attractive one by a long shot. (Remember, it can be turned off in Settings).

Album art has been added to album views, jazzing up the track lists.

And in yet another iPad-like update, on-the-go playlists are dead, long live... just regular old playlists. You can add them via an item in the playlists list, at which point you get a popup that asks you for a name. Next, you tap on any songs you want to add, and when you're done, you have a new playlist. If you're not happy with it, or any playlist, just swipe to bring up the usual red Delete button and annihilate it.

Contacts

When you sync contacts from more than one source (i.e. Exchange and MobileMe, on-device and Google Sync, etc.), and there are duplicates, rather than showing the same contact twice iOS 4 will instead create a single, linked contact. This works on any iOS 4 device, including iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, recent iPod touch, etc.

If you look at a linked contact, the header will show Unified Info at the top so you know it's linked. At the very bottom of the contact it will show you the source of the links (i.e MobileMe, Google). Tapping on the source lets you see the original, non-unfied info from just that source.

If you don't like the idea of your contacts being linked, you can tap edit and hit Unlink. If iOS 4 missed linking a contact that ought be linked, tap edit, scroll down to the bottom, tap Link Contact and choose the contact you want linked.

Game Center (Preview)

Game Center is Apple's entry into the social gaming network space (think Xbox Live or Playstation Network for iOS devices). With Game Center you'll be able to invite friends to play, use matchmaking to challenge other players, gain achievements, and have your scores displayed on a leader board.

Game Center won't launch with iOS this summer, but is scheduled for release "later" this year.

iBooks

Though not a built-in app (you'll need to go get it from the App Store when it becomes available), as part of iOS Apple announced they were bringing iBooks to the iPhone.

Apple has announced new features, including notes and bookmarks, and that those along with highlights will automatically be synced across all the iOS devices logged into your iTunes accounts. (So you can have the same book, at the same place, with the same annotations on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad).

Also, iBooks will be able to add PDFs to a second book shelf and open them in the same iBooks interface.

Due to the fracture and regionalism in books, it's going to take Apple a while to get deals in place with all publishers in all areas which means most countries won't have paid content at first, only public domain books from the Project Gutenberg library.

Accessibility

Apple really doesn't get enough credit for the outstanding accessibility features they build into their OS, both desktop and mobile. iOS 4 continues to lead the industry. VoiceOver supports 21 languages to read out loud whatever your finger touches on the screen, and a "rotor" gesture lets you temporarily change languages now on the fly.

Bluetooth support has been extended to more than 30 braille devices with tables for more than 25 languages.

Touch Typing lets you run your finger across the keyboard, hear the letter you're currently over, and release your finger to type it.

The basic rotor has been made visible so sighted users can see it in action, and you can now add custom settings to move through content.

iOS 4 pricing and availability

Apple has announced that iOS 4 will be coming to iPhone and iPod touch on June 21, and iPad later this fall. In a huge departure from previous years, Apple is also making it a free update to all users, iPhone and iPod touch alike. (If you have a compatible device, see directly below).

iOS 4 device compatibility

Before we begin it's important to note that not all iOS 4 features will be available for all iOS devices.

• iPhone 4 (2010): All features
• iPad (2010): Coming this fall
• iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 (2009): No features requiring iPhone 4-type hardware (i.e. FaceTime)
• iPhone 3G and iPod touch G2 (2008): No multitasking, custom wallpaper, and Bluetooth keyboard support.
• iPhone 2G and iPod touch G1 (2007): not compatible/no update

Yes, the original iPhone 2G and iPod touch G1 don't look to be getting iOS 4 at all -- Apple considers them outdated. Second generation iPhone 3G and iPod touch G2 are getting the update but no multitasking -- Apple doesn't consider them powerful enough (similar to video recording last year). And it should go without saying only iPhone 4 (and perhaps a forth generation iPod touch when it ships this fall) will be able to use hardware specific features like the Retina Display resolution or the front-facing camera.

Additionally, Apple's own iMovie for iPhone will only run on iPhone 4 -- apparently it needs the A4 chipset -- so there might be other apps that go 2010-only. Legacy, right?

Conclusion

Apple is again rounding out their offering with iOS 4, which is the sign of the maturity of the platform. Since they've stated several times now that they're using the iPhone to "educate" users about multitouch interfaces, they're going to continue keeping changes evolutionary for now, and the UI broadly consistent across devices. There won't be any huge, revolutionary changes again until they have to, and they don't have to yet. Restraint can be a virtue.

Some functionality is still not present, like non-interuptive notifications, widgets beyond the limited fast task switcher UI, wireless sync/sharing, less painful file round-tripping, etc. but Apple is no doubt working on this the way they worked on copy and paste and multitasking. The question is how and when, not if. After all, it's only 9 or 10 months until the iOS 5 sneak preview in spring 2011, right?

But this is not a review — our full rundown of the pros and cons will come after the official launch, when we've had a chance to spend some quality time with the final version on the new iPhone 4 hardware.

Congratulations to the iOS team at Apple, phenomenal work. Again.

[Thanks to everyone who contributed screenshots and descriptions for this walkthrough. If you noticed we missed anything, drop us a note in the comments and we'll update as needed.]

The iOS 4 GM seed (gold master) released during WWDC 2010 once again made changes to Section 3.3.2 of Apple's licensing agreement -- specifically the part that deals deals with the use of cross-compilers.  The changes this time around may not make things all better, but it could make things slightly better for some developers.  Matt Drance had this to say about the change to Section 3.2.2:

"While explicit approval from Apple is still required, these new terms seem to acknowledge that there’s a difference between an app that happens to have non-compiled code, and a meta-platform. It’s a step that should allow for many new possibilities."

While this may not provide a solution to everyone, especially Adobe, it may allow some previously rejected apps into the App Store after all, and reassure others who may have been worried about using scripting engines for games, for example. 

Any developers out there have an opinion on the latest revision of 3.2.2? Is it a move in the right direction or are people over-analyzing what may or may not be between the lines here?

[Apple Outsider via Daring Fireball]

During WWDC 2010 I had a chance to sit down with the team from Agile Web Solutions -- Roustem, Dave, Jamie, Dan, and Chad -- to talk not only about their newly launched 1Password for iPad, but about the big news of the show including official browser extension support from Apple in Safari 5, and of course iPhone 4 and iOS 4.

Apple called Agile about their new Safari 5 extensions before they debuted in hopes of having a demo ready for the show. Dave found the preview was polished and well documented and it took them only a few days to put something together. That sounds like good news not only for developers but for Safari users as well.

Agile also said making the iPad version was a chance to start from scratch and figure out how users were going to interact with the larger, wider display, and with the ability to do things like scrolling independently with each thumb.

While I used 1Password on Mac long before the iPhone debuted, Roustem pointed out they now have a whole new user base introduced to their product via the iPhone and iPad and with no Mac-based preconceptions. While the iPhone and iPad versions [iTunes link] are great for Mac or Windows users as an extension, Agile is also working to help iPhone and iPad-only users get more out of it as well.

As for iPhone 4 -- they want it. (Even if Dan has to re-render his artwork at higher resolution to support it). Chad's also looking forward to iOS 4 multitasking and like the way it runs select API rather than full apps in the background.

(Though I suspect they were just humoring me when I asked for Game Center integration so I could see where my 63 character pseudo-random passwords place on the leaderboard compared to Leanna's!)

You can find out more about 1Password for Mac, PC, iPhone, and iPad, and the newly acquired Knox, via Agile's web site, below. Video after the break.

[Agile Web Solutions]

YouTube link

We've all heard huge numbers thrown around as measures of iPhone and iPad App Store success -- over 200,000 apps and 5 billion downloads being some of the most recent and most impressive. There's a couple of other numbers that are even more interesting when it comes to iPhone and iPad development: 100, 100 million, and 1 billion.

Roughly 100 million iOS devices have been sold to data and they are all broadly software compatible. There's some fragmentation to be sure -- older devices are slower, there's no cameras (yet) on the iPod touch and iPad, no GPS in iPod touch, iPad Wi-Fi, and the iPhone 2G. Apple mitigates this somewhat by offering services such as CoreLocation where, if no GPS is found, it gracefully degrades down to cell tower triangulation or Wi-Fi router mapping. Even the iPad with its odd-device-out 1024x768 display will frame iPhone apps or pixel double them, which is awkward but still workable, still compatible. When iPhone 4 ships, it will be precisely double the vertical and horizontal pixel count of previous generations, meaning older apps will simply look the same as they did before (using 4 pixels in the space they used to use 1).

Likewise, most iOS devices tend to get updated to the latest version of the OS, or at least fairly recent versions. While iOS 4 will drop compatibility for iPhone 2G and iPod touch G1, it will also be free for all other devices for the first time, ensuring iPod touch G2 and G3 owners are more likely to update.

Everything isn't perfect, but for a vast majority of apps it doesn't need to be. They just work.

The sheer size of that install base is stunning. Code an app once and deploy it to a theoretical 100 million devices -- and growing -- all with a drop-dead-easy to use icon on the home screen to help them get your apps?

That's where the 100 comes in. One of the single biggest advantages Apple had going into the App Store was iTunes and the ability to process credit cards and handle transaction at an international scale. There are App Stores now in almost 100 countries (could be 100 or more now, I lost count at 96). Making an app for 100 milion devices -- even if they were broadly compatible -- wouldn't be anywhere near as enticing if a developer couldn't sell them to more than 1 or 2 countries (especially for the many, many developers who live in those unserviced countries). Again, the App Store isn't literally everywhere, and due to local laws and ratings requirements they can't sell games in in a couple places, or have other restrictions, but also again, for the majority of apps it's an unmatched opportunity. When you consider Apple does all the processing and delivery heavy lifting for a 30% cut of paid apps, and 0% of free apps, allowing developers to develop and not spend time on managing that themselves, it's easy to see why many of them jump at the chance.

1 billion dollars paid out to developers, as mentioned in the comments below, makes manifest the potential market size of those 100 million devices in about 100 countries. At day's end -- and financial year's end -- many developers will go where the money is.

There's one last set of numbers to touch on as well. The iOS SDK frameworks. They provide an incredibly rich set of functionality developers get "for free" when making apps for the iPhone and they don't exist (as directly portable options) on other platforms. Accelerate alone offers 2000 hardware-powered math API for games. Never mind CoreAnimation, CoreData, Game Center, the UI elements, and everything else that rounds out the kit. If portability isn't the prime concern, they greatly enhance ease of development.

Apple isn't wasting the chance to show that off. They just posted a video showcasing developers for developers [QuickTime link -- tip of the hat to 9to5Mac]

The flip side of that, of course, is the trade off in control made for convenience and opportunity. There are certain apps Apple won't let into their store, and no guarantee they won't pull an app (or whole class of them) even after they're in the store. Having humans review apps makes app review subject to human error. Also, for every hit-it-rich app in the store there will be many, many times more that don't break even.

For developers writing mainstream apps, nowhere near the edge-cases, it will probably never be an issue. Edge-cases, however, are often where some of the most interesting developments come from. Further, if you do use a lot of those API and you want to move to other or multiple platforms, you're likely in for a lot of recoding, including a lot from scratch.

Palm, with parties, cross-compilers, and the chance for a nice payday, and Google with factually challenged trash-talk at I/O and a lightning fast JIT (just-in-time compiler) and Flash support, aren't wasting the chance to show that off either.

It should come as no surprise that both Palm webOS and Google Android want iPhone developers on their platform. Mac developers have long been as passionate about their platform and incredibly talented in the apps they've delivered, and a lot of that has transferred over to iOS devices like the iPhone and now iPad.

Whether or not Apple is engaged in a platform war with Palm and Google it's inarguable that the current generation of users want apps and right now Apple has an advantage in that area. Part of getting people to switch to another platform is making sure the apps they love are on that platform, and that means big name apps and fan favorites alike.

If Google is moving around behind the scenes, approaching core iPhone developers (the ones who make the most iPhone-like apps and enjoy high mind share) and trying to sneak them over to Android, Palm has gone one step further -- openly courting them.

In the middle of Apple's iOS-centric WWDC 2010 no less, Palm held a shindig of their own, a PDK (Plugin Developer Kit) soiree to wine and dine iPhone developers, point out the Pre has pretty much the same guts as the iPhone 3GS, and that a lot of applications can be ported over -- especially games. And they made certain to highlight their openness, especially to emulators and cross-compilers. And they offered $1 million dollars in incentives.

Obviously users go where the apps are and developers make apps for where the users are, so the cycle can be vicious or virtuous, and just as obviously Google and Palm would much rather the latter.

Competition is good, different approaches are good, and options for developers are great, but whether or not Google and Palm can convince iPhone developers (and now iOS 4 developers) to become mobile developers is the question.

Apple has sent out a notice to developers advising them that the iTunes App Store has begun accepting iOS 4 binaries for submission and review:

Submit your iOS 4 apps for review so they can be ready for sale when iOS 4 is available to iPhone and iPod touch users. Make sure you have built and tested your applications using iOS 4 and iPhone SDK 4 GM seed, which you can download from the iPhone Dev Center.

Log in to iTunes Connect and upload your iOS 4 applications today.

iOS 4 is scheduled for release on June 21, once again developers aren't likely to get much sleep, especially if trying to once again implement new features for a device they don't have and can't yet test.

(The effort is much appreciated.)

Multitasking was widely rumored to be coming to the iPhone with iOS 4, but instead of a traditional "leave full apps running in the background" approach, Apple instead chose to implement a more restricted but, they felt, better performing and power friendly solution involving 7 specific background API (application programming interfaces.) Is that, however, the best solution to the multitasking challenge as Apple claims? I spoke to several developers during WWDC 2010 and asked them that question.

First, we'll review what Apple is doing in iOS 4, then we'll see if developers think it works as well in reality as as Apple says it does on stage.

How does Apple say iOS 4 multitasking works?

In addition to the existing push notification service from Apple's servers, which provide sound, badges, and alert popups for everything from IM to game challenges, iOS 4 adds local notifications so something like an alarm-clock app could register an alert that would sit in the iPhone in the background until the proper time, then activate. That takes the online server out of the equation which is good for tasks that don't need additional information from the cloud, and so don't have to activate the radios.

There's another API for task completion so that, for example, if you're uploading a picture to Twitter and leave the app, it can register a thread to keep uploading the picture in the background while you do something else. That means the entire app doesn't have to keep running, freeing up memory and lightening battery load, and even the thread will terminate when the upload is done.

Fast task switching deals with the perceptive speed that multitasking offers. With previous versions of iOS, if you left an App Store app it would shut down completely and if you went back -- regardless if it was a second or a week or later, it would usually restart not from where you left off but from essentially the beginning. (A few developers tried to add persistence on their own, so they'd save your place when you came back as best as previous OS versions allowed, but most didn't -- especially games which was aggravating when phone calls pulled you unexpectedly out of them). Likewise, if you closed one app and went to another, you could theoretically be stuck swiping back or forth between 11 home screen pages.

Saved state is now built into iOS 4 so all developers can more easily have their apps remember exactly where you were when you left and put you right back at that position when you return, Apple has also added a fast app switcher UI that, when you double tap the home button, lifts up to show you your apps "in the background" sorted in order of last usage. That means, if you're moving between a set of commonly used apps, they're most likely right next to each other and not screens and screens away. These two elements combine together to make launching apps perceptively much faster, even though the apps don't have to be running in the background consuming resources just for that convenience.

Lastly, but perhaps most famously, Apple is allowing apps to register three specific types of the threads for persistent backgrounding (they can just keep running until you close them). Again, this isn't the whole app running, just one thread from the app, so the idea is it won't slow down performance, use up memory, or drain battery to the same degree. These API are for streaming music, location, and VoIP (voice over IP).

This means you can listen to Pandora, Slacker, etc. while surfing the web. Navigon, TeleNav,TomTom, etc. can keep using the GPS and alert you to directions while you're on the phone, and to further save resources, non-critical location apps like FourSquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc. can be alerted when you change cell towers. Fring, Skype, Line2, etc. can answer calls and receive messages when you're not in the app, making the. More equal telephony citizens.

How do developers think iOS multitasking really works?

Of the developers I spoke to during WWDC -- and I certainly didn't speak to them all -- they were remarkably pleased with how iOS multitasking was working out in practice. For those who made large, resource intesive apps, they actually preferred Apple solution since they didn't want to be blamed for performance hits on other apps while they were in the background (especially performance hits for other intensive apps like games). So far, they were also excited by the relatively low impact on battery life compared to traditional, full-on app backgrounding.

In terms of implementation, the devs I spoke with were really happy about how quickly they could implement the background APIs in their apps -- really quickly, much faster than they thought.

(if you're a developer with a different opinion, send it our way so we can get as well-rounded a sampling as possible).

How will users think iOS 4 multitasking works for them?

Like with copy and paste, it's possible Apple really did take their time to get multitasking right. It's also possible that, like many other Apple solutions, it will be outstanding at what it does, but limited or non-functional for those who want to do more -- like have an SSH session stay open in the background, or have their Twitter, IM, or RSS timelines be ready and waiting, just like mail, when they open an app.

We've heard from Apple, we've heard from developers, and starting June 21 when iOS 4 goes live for end users, we'll hear how it works for all of them in the real world.

That, of course, will be the true test.

The US government is reportedly now investigating Apple for the terms in the iOS 4 GM license that restrict rival ad networks owned by competing platforms -- i.e. Google's AdMob. Independent ad networks are not effected, nor is Apple's own iAd platform.

According to two people close to the situation, US regulators have already taken an interest in Apple’s actions, though it is not yet clear whether it will be left to the Federal Trade Commission, which carried out the recent Google investigation, or the Department of Justice to take an investigation forward.

This follows other reported probes into Apple's restriction on cross-compilers -- i.e. Adobe's Flash CS5 packager for iPhone, and its position in music -- i.e. Apple's decision to not promote tracks that gave rival Amazon MP3 a 24hr exclusive.

Google's AdMob acquisition itself faced intense US government scrutiny due to its dominant position in the online advertising market. Both Apple and Google want to buy AdMob, with Google winning out and Apple purchasing Quatro Wireless to power their new iOS iAd platform instead.

If one thing is clear, it looks like PC-underdog Apple is a high profile investigative target in the mobile space.

[Financial Times]

WWDC 2010 day two saw sessions jump into high gear as developers learned more about Game Center (which is comforting considering it was strangely MIA from the Keynote) and what's going on with that monster 960x640 retina display on the new iPhone 4. Apple also handed out some polished aluminum cubes by way of app awards, and I got to sit down with some terrific app developers. (And yes, we're giving away an iPhone 4).

Today is TiPb's last day at WWDC [sniffle] so if you're a developer email us at news(at)tipb(dot)com and drop on by, say hi, and amaze us with your apps. We're trying to fit in as many as possible.

iPhone 4/iOS 4

• Who wants to win an iPhone 4 from TiPb?
• iPhone live podcast #103 – WWDC 2010
• Apple posts WWDC 2010 keynote video stream, iTunes download
• iOS 4 device compatibility – can your iPhone and iPod touch be upgraded?
• Will you be spending some FaceTime with iPhone 4?

Apps

• Twitterrific gets simpler, better for iPad – TiPb at WWDC
• Line2 brings iPhone, iPad calls into 21st century – TiPb at WWDC 2010
• TomTom talks iPhone, iOS 4 multitasking – TiPb at WWDC 2010
• Apple Design Award winning iPhone and iPad apps from WWDC 2010

Tom Murray, SVP of Marketing, TomTom sat down with me to discuss their turn-by-turn navigation app for the iPhone. Announced at WWDC 2009, over the last year TomTom has managed to get the app to where all its core functionality is in place and they can give iPhone users a really first-class tool to get them from point A to point B. Now, with iOS 4 and its multitasking API for location, they can start getting them in style.

Since TomTom does everything from owning their own maps to selling their own devices, they're uniquely positioned do things like crowd-source changes in roads or analyze patterns in routes and get that fed back into their system so their 40 million users can share local wisdom whether they're improving their daily commute or driving in a new city for the first time.

With the iPhone, Apple is providing the device (and the GPS) but TomTom still offers a car kit to supplement and extend the built-in hardware. (I asked if the existing car kit would be compatible with the just-introduced iPhone 4, but they hadn't had a chance to get their hands on it yet so they're waiting to whether it fits, whether it requires an adapter, or whether some reengineering will be in order).

No word on an iPad version yet, unfortunately, but turn-by-turn navigation on smartphones is still growing. With free-as-in-Google and open source map apps now on the scene, TomTom is investing in the quality of their service and the trust in their data.

Check out our video interview, after the break!

[TomTom on iTunes]

YouTube link

• Our podcast feed
• Download Directly
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Special post-WWDC 2010 Keynote edition! Apple introduces iPhone 4, rebrands iPhone OS to iOS, shows off Farmville, Netflix, and iMovie for iPhone, and invents FaceTime. Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You -- iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Part 2

During yesterday's WWDC 2010 keynote, Steve Jobs announced that iOS 4 will be a FREE update for all devices, and the iPhone and iPod touch version will be released on June 21 (iPad version is still slated for fall). The main features include multitasking, folders, spellcheck, unified inbox with threaded messages, iBooks, Bluetooth keyboard support, and custom wallpaper. (Be sure to check out our iOS 4 preview for more details!)

iOS 4 is available for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and the 2nd and 3rd-generation iPod touch. On the other hand, the original iPhone 2G and 1st-generation iPod touch will not be able to upgrade to iOS 4, and as with every big software release, some devices will not get all the new features.

Multitasking, custom wallpaper, and Bluetooth keyboard support are only available for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the 3rd-generation iPod touch.

In the past, iPod touch users had to purchase big software releases for $9.99. Not this year. iOS 4 is a FREE upgrade for iPod touch. This is huge news for our iPod touch wielding readers.

If you use an iPhone 3G or 2nd-generation iPod touch, do any of these missing features entice you to upgrade? If so, do you plan to go big and upgrade to iPhone 4; or do you upgrade to the iPhone 3GS at the new amazingly low price of $99? iPod touch users, are you thrilled to be able to upgrade for free, or do you believe it should've been free all along?

Let us know in the comments below!

[Apple iOS 4 page]

Steve Jobs brought back the "one more thing" bump for FaceTime, Apple's new iPhone 4 feature that promises no setup, Wi-Fi only, one-on-one video calling. You start a call or choose a contact and you're video chatting.

We're curious if you think you'll be using it? Nokia has had video chat for what seems like a century and half, and the Android-based Evo 3G has it via Qik, but it's hardly a mainstream phenomena yet. Apple has a history of taking interesting technology and making it usable for the masses, but given the iPhone 4-only, Wi-Fi only restrictions, will the masses embrace it?

Apple has made the protocols behind FaceTime open, so while we hope iChat on Mac gets compatibility ASAP, it's possible Skype could provide the same functionality, and Nokia, Android, and other platforms could have compatible apps. We could (and should) even -- finally -- get camera equipped iPads and iPod touches to join in the fun.

Is that enough to make it mainstream?

Let us know what you think about FaceTime. Do you see yourself using? If so, how? And where else do you want to see the FaceTime tech pop up?

Apple.com has posted streaming QuickTime video for Steve Jobs' WWDC 2010 keynote, where he introduced the new iPhone 4.

Update: a higher quality version is now available via iTunes download as well.

[Apple.com, iTunes - thanks @bengillam for the tip!]

WWDC 2010 certainly starting with a bang -- or boom in Apple parlance -- with almost more iPhone 4, iOS 4, and related news than we could keep up with. Almost. Here's a quick round up of what happened today, including Steve Jobs' triumphant return to the keynote stage.

We'll be here Tuesday and Wednesday as well, so if you're a developer email us at news(at)tipb(dot)com and drop on by, say hi, and amaze us with your apps. We're trying to fit in as many as possible.

iPhone 4

• Apple announces iPhone 4: retina display, LED flash, A4, 802.11n, gyroscope, 5 megapixel camera, 720p video
• Apple iPhone 4 video: this changes everything. Again.
• Are you getting an iPhone 4? - poll
• iPhone 4: $199/16GB, $299/32GB, available June 24 in US, France, Germany, UK, Japan
• AT&T details iPhone 4 launch, subsidies, iPhone 3GS discounts
• iPhone 4 vs Droid Incredible vs Android Evo 4G vs Nexus One tech specs
• What kind of case do you want for your iPhone 4?

iOS 4

• iPhone OS 4 is now iOS 4, coming June 21
• Apple introduces FaceTime video calling — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 [updated with video]
• iOS 4 GM seed now live, app submissions begin June 10

Apps

• Apple updates iBooks for iPad and iPhone, adds notes, bookmarks, PDF support, sync
• Apple announces iMovie for iPhone
• Guitar Hero now available in App Store
• New iPhone apps: Netflix, Farmville, Guitar Hero
• Safari 5, now available for Mac and PC

WWDC 2010

• 100,000,000 iOS devices sold, 5 billion apps downloaded — WWDC 2010 by the numbers
• WWDC predictions, iPhone pre-order, Win a 4th gen iPhone, iPhone carriers - From the Forums
• WWDC 2010 – What We Didn’t Get

So, what was your favorite bit of iPhone news today? And what was your least favorite?

Apple has released the 378MB Gold Master (GM) seed for iOS 4 (formerly iPhone OS 4) and it's now available to developers via developer.apple.com (after you agree to the new terms of use). Apple has also announced that developers can begin submitting iOS 4 compatible apps to the iTunes App Store beginning June 10.

So let's get going devs, we know you're going to amaze us!

NOTE: Be sure to grab iTunes 9.2 beta -- you can't activate iOS 4 GM with iTunes 9.1 (download from the same page).

[developer.apple.com]

Now that the WWDC 2010 keynote's over and the dust settles, we know what we're going to get in the coming weeks. iPhone 4 with a brand new look and tons new features, iOS 4, iMovie for iPhone, new developer APIs, iAd, and then some. Apple definitely changed the game today.  But what about the things we wanted but didn't get?

We're all extremely excited to get our hands on the new hardware and OS but for many users, iOS 4 still leaves certain things to be desired. Keep on reading to see what we would have liked to see.

A new notification system was one area we really wouldn't have minded a change. This is something we had hoped would be addressed in 4.0, but alas, it wasn't. The way notifications present themselves isn't necessarily the best implementation. This is an area that's been neglected almost since the 1st generation iPhone. Besides the addition of push notifications, nothing has been added or tweaked. If you receive a text then a Twitter push notification, the Twitter notification is all you'll see. In 2010, we'd think it's time for a change.

Several other mobile platforms such as WebOS and Android have a nice notification layout that leaves iPhone users with something to be desired. It would have been nice to see a complete overhaul. To me, this alone is reason for jailbreakers to keep on jailbreaking.

A lot of folks also would have liked lock screen or home screen widgets. Perhaps this could have provided a creative way to implement a new notification system as well as show users information they want to see, when they want to see it. Jailbreakers have had functionality like this in apps such as LockInfo and Intelliscreen for quite some time now. We aren't quite sure why Apple hasn't produced a native solution yet.

One thing I really would have personally liked to see is a few simple tweaks to texting functions. Anyone who texts frequently knows that everytime you get a text, you'll have the choice to either view the text or close it. That's it. What about an option to reply without closing out of whatever you're doing, whether that be playing a game or browsing Safari? Again, jailbreakers have had this option for a while with apps such as QuickReply for SMS and iRealSMS. Apple has given developers an API for in-app SMS and I think a lot of people are confusing that with having a quick reply method. As far as I can tell, it isn't the same. A quick send option from anywhere would have been nice as well, like iReal offers. You can configure your own gesture for it within Settings.

One thing on the top of my list was an announcement about MobileMe. I was almost positive something would have been mentioned about pricing or features, especially as MobileMe has been in Beta for a while now. With services like DropBox and Box.net, can Apple afford to still charge $99/year? With services such as DropBox, you get 2GB for free, 50GB for $9.99/month, and 100GB for $19.99/month. For a mere $20 more a year, you get over 3 times the storage MobileMe offers with the typical $99/year single license.

Did anyone else expect an announcement about AppleTV? What about those rumors of it running a new OS similar to that of the iPhone and iPad? Or what about that mythical Magic Trackpad we saw briefly this morning?

Are we stoked about iOS 4 and iPhone 4? We sure are! But as with all things, there's always room for improvement and these are some of the things we think still need improvement. Did any of you really want to see something that wasn't announced? We'd love to hear from you, let us know in the comments!

Apple has announced as part of their WWDC 2010 keynote that iOS 4 (previously iPhone OS 4) will go Gold Master (GM) today. That means devs should be able to get it via developer.apple.com and begin testing their apps for release... alongside the new iPhone 4.

More as this develops!

As part of the iPhone 4 introduction today at WWDC 2010, Apple's Steve Jobs announced a name change for the operating system that powers an increasing number of their mobile devices -- goodbye iPhone OS, hello iOS. And it's coming June 21.

Base features are what we saw at the sneak peak event -- and have detailed in way too much detail already in our walkthrough -- except for the FaceTime (i.e. video chat/calling) feature.

GDGT says cisco owns that trademark, much like they owned iPhone in 2007. It looks a bit weird to me still, and I'm fairly sure the iMac isn't running it, so it will take some getting used to. For Apple to use iPhone 4 for the phone name, however, they needed something more distinct for the OS.

[Apple.com iOs page]

NOTE: Apple keynotes typically bring down the internet. We've got two widgets after the break because both have failed in the past. If one fails this time, we'll switch to the other. You shouldn't have to refresh the page.

We've already seen how iPhone OS 4 now includes double-tap to launch the fast-app switcher for multitasking, and how you can now swipe left to get audio control widgets for the iPhone, but it seems those audio controls are working for iTunes streaming now as well - and maybe more?

Likewise, I've mention how iTunes streaming audio is working incredibly well under iPhone OS 4, and the widget controls make it even better. Which led me to think -- if iPhone OS 4 can swap out the iPod app for the iTunes app when it's using the new background music API, could this be the way iPhone OS 4 also shows you other streaming music apps like Pandora and Slacker? Instead of iPod or iTunes, the Slacker or Pandora app would be shown to the right, and the widget controls would let you play, pause, etc. those apps?

Makes sense to me, but we'll find out for sure on Monday.

• Our podcast feed
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AT&T introduces tiered data plans, Steve Jobs speaks at D8, WWDC 2010 predictions, Slacker 2.0, Documents to Go 3.0, Fishies, and all the week's news, how-tos, and app reviews. Listen in!

We're trying an experiment! We've posted video for the first 20 minutes of the show on YouTube and embedded it below. Drop us a comment and let us know if you want to see more. (And if you work for YouTube, can you get us one of those accounts that doesn't force us to chop it into 10 minute chunks? Kthx!

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You -- iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Part 1

Part 2

Since introducing iPhone OS 4 beta, Apple has kept a rigorous every-second-Tuesday update schedule through beta 4... until yesterday. Yesterday, the next Tuesday in line for a release, came and went with nary a beta 5 in sight.

Could be late, or it could be with WWDC 2010 less than a week away Apple is holding off to release the iPhone OS 4 GM (gold master) seed at the show? (Like they did last year for iPhone 3.0).

If you're stuck waiting, we've updated our iPhone OS 4 preview and feature walkthrough, so check that out and let us know what we're missing, and what you're still expecting!

I mentioned this during the iPhone live! #100 podcast, but iPhone OS 4 has taken a huge leap forward when it comes to streaming audio via the iTunes app. Since iPhone OS 2.2 you've been able to tap the title of a podcast to begin streaming (rather than downloading) the audio, even in the background while using other apps, but it was sometimes hit or miss. It would drop out, it would time out, you couldn't really scrub through it, and if you left it for a while it would lose its place and start over.

In iPhone OS 4 it's rock solid. You can scrub and it re-buffers and keeps playing flawlessly. You can stop it and come back hours or even days later -- even after using the iTunes app to search for other things or the iPod app to play different audio -- and it still knows where you left off and starts playing again instantly without missing a beat.

It's so good you may find you no longer download or sync podcasts but just stream what you want to listen to. (If they let you "subscribe" and receive notifications of when a new podcast appeared in the feed, it would be perfect).

Maybe this is architecturally laying the underpinnings for a grander Apple streaming service, or maybe they just wanted this app to work great for this functionality. Either way, iTunes streaming audio in iPhone OS 4 is a significant improvement.

Could these be shots of iPhone HD/iPhone 4G iChat video call settings screens taken off field test units? Who knows, they don't look 960x640 to our pixel peepers but with WWDC 2010 and the supposed unveiling only a few weeks away, anything is possible.

So let us know, real, fake, or really fake?

[BGR]

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iPhone live turns 100! Also: iPhone OS 4 goes beta 4, iPhone HD/iPhone 4G goes white, Wi-Fi sync goes jailbreak, and Tweetie goes Twitter for iPhone. Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You -- iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

It was only a matter of time that developers searched through the latest iPhone OS 4 beta to find secret goodies and this time we see that the next generations of the iPod and iPad both may receive a LED camera flash (which we guess also presupposes they're receive cameras, right?). The code is as follows:

FLASHDISABLEDiPad = "The iPad needs to cool down before you can use the flash.";

FLASHDISABLEDiPod = "The iPod needs to cool down before you can use the flash.";

Knowing that it is highly likely the next generation of iPad will contain a camera with flash, anyone out there regretting picking up the first generation? Or after the iPod touch incident last year, can we even be sure it'll make it into the next shipping product? Sound off in the comments!

[9to5Mac]

With iPhone OS 4 beta 4 Apple has brought over some of the iPad wallpapers and introduced a few new ones, all seemingly focused on livening up the home screen without being too visually distracting. Natural textures and muted patterns get an obvious focus here with stones, rocks, and textiles front and center.

And yes, you can still set backgrounds independently for the lock screen and home screen.

See TiPb's full iPhone OS 4 preview and feature walkthrough for more. Gallery after the break!

Once again keeping to their two-week cycle, Apple has just released iPhone OS 4 beta 4 for developers. You can download it now via developer.apple.com.

What bug fixes and new features lurk within? We'll have to wait and see (and keep an eye on the comments below...)

For more check out our complete iPhone OS 4 beta preview and feature walkthrough.

[Apple via @mrburns05]

Add another image to the Taoviet iPhone HD/iPhone 4G prototype gallery, this one purporting to run iPhone OS 4 in all shades of blurred glory.

Did they really get the PRO2 (which is apparently an earlier prototype to the Gizmodo iPhone HD/iPhone 4G unit) to boot up Apple's next generation iPhone OS, or did some enterprising individual launch Photoshop, grab a 3GS resolution screen shot, match all the edges up, and then add the haze? If not, where's the sharp, multi-angled pics and video like yesterday's firmware-only posts?

You tell us -- real, fake, or really fake?

[Engadget, Thanks Damon for the tip!]

Rumor has it Apple could be increasing their Facebook integration for iPhone OS 4, perhaps to include contact sync and messaging support for end users and Facebook Connect for developers.

Apple's relationship with social networks has been tentative at best, with Mac OS X 10.6 and iPhoto 09 offering rudimentary integration for things like photo tags. The Facebook app on the iPhone has done some contact syncing (initially with funny to off-putting results), but nothing thus far as hinted at Palm webOS or Microsoft Kin level integration.

Business Insider cites only a "source", and coming as it does with Facebook once again in the eye of the user-privacy storm, it's sure to be met with mixed reaction. Here's why it might just happen:

Some 34.2 million people were "active users" of the Facebook iPhone app in the last month, according to Facebook. That's about a little more than a third of all the iPhone OS devices -- iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad -- out there. And it's almost 10% of Facebook's 400 million users.

It's one of the rare instances where Apple is way behind the consumer curve. They don't "get" social media (perhaps their hyper-secretive corporate culture doesn't allow them to) but they're slowly and painfully realizing that if they don't do something, they lose an element of user tie-in, and Apple certainly "gets" user tie-in.

[Business Insider]

Today we are going to cover how to successfully downgrade the iPhone from OS 4 beta (iPhone 4.0) back to iPhone 3.1.3. If you're a small developer who installed the iPhone OS 4 beta then realized you had to troubleshoot problems for an existing app under 3.1, it can sometimes come down to this or having to quickly go shopping for a second iPhone or iPod touch. Luckily, downgrading can be done pretty easily a majority of the time, even though things sometimes go downhill, like DFU loops, errors, etc.. We will cover these scenarios right now and hopefully get a lot of people where they need to be.  I'll show you two ways to downgrade, through XCode (Mac only) and through iTunes (Mac and PC).

And as always, if you are even a little scared you may mess up your phone during this process, stop right now.  What you do to your phone is always on you.  These guides are there for your convenience, but we hold no responsibility for any bricked iDevices of any kind.

If that didn't scare the pants off of you, hit the jump for screenshots, a written walk-through, and a video!

First of all, we need to differentiate between firmware and a baseband as a lot of people seem to get those confused.  Firmware is the actual software your phone is running, which in most cases can be downgraded easily.  A baseband however can NOT be downgraded as easy.  This is part of what makes a phone unlockable (when the baseband is cracked).

Currently, iPhone firmware 3.1.3 and above can not be unlocked as the baseband version changed.  So if you are trying to downgrade in order to get your unlock back, don't bother with this process.  Your baseband will currently remain at the 4.0 baseband.  Even when you downgrade successfully, your baseband will remain the same, ruining your chances at having your unlock back.

What I'm getting at here is, do not downgrade in hopes of getting an unlock back.  If you've installed 3.1.3 and higher, there is no unlock released.  The only way you can unlock 3.1.3 is to have an older bootrom that was not upgraded (meaning you upgraded to 3.1.3 from a custom firmware ipsw, not the official 3.1.3).

XCode Downgrade

The easiest way to downgrade is going to be to go through XCode on a Mac.  If you're just going through XCode, simply choose 3.1.3 from your available firmwares, and voila, your phone will restore.  If you are a licensed dev, you should have no problem going this route. No errors, nothing.  You will not need the packages listed above (at least you shouldn't). Open XCode and go to Organizer...

Then choose 3.1.3...

If you do get stuck in a DFU loop or get an error, jump down to the iTunes directions and continue from there (typically error 1015 or a DFU loop, which is where you need iRecovery - covered below and in video).  I did not include an XCode walkthrough in the video as it's extremely simple and painless if done correctly.

iTunes Downgrade (Mac and PC)

Even though I am covering a PC downgrade, you should NEVER ever install a beta OS through a PC. That is not the way they were meant to be installed. Betas should NEVER be installed through iTunes, always through XCode on a Mac. Especially with 4.0. The file system changed and iTunes will install the old way, creating crashes and all kinds of other nastiness. Even though I am giving instructions for PC downgrade, I have no way to test them, if there are issues, please let me know so I can correct them.

Alright, now on to what you'll need to have beforehand -

Here is what you need to download to your computer (to your desktop is easiest):

• libusb (Mac Versions, PC Package including iRecovery)
• Faster iRecovery (Mac Version <-- scroll all the way to bottom of page, there are 2 versions, this one's easier)
• iPhone firmware 3.1.3 (All versions, make sure you download the correct one for your phone model)

Wait for your phone to go through the restore process (I would normally of told you to backup before doing any of this, but as 4.0 does not support backups yet, that isn't possible. Hopefully you backed up your data before 4.0 so you can restore from that).

Your phone will not complete the downgrade, it will give you an error like below, that's OK.

Next, open iRecovery.  There are 2 versions of iRecovery.  One you have to manually enter commands, the other, fast version is a button click.  So for Mac users, open the faster iRecovery and click the button.  iRecovery will reboot your phone and you "should" be done and able to sync and restore like normal through iTunes (you are done if you have a screen showing "Slide for Emergency", if you still have "Connect to iTunes", skip to the section titled "Still Stuck").  For PCs who need to enter commands into your command prompt, type the commands in this order:

• iRecovery -s
• satenv auto-boot true
• saveenv
• reboot (by holding home and power down until you see Apple logo - about 10 seconds)

Here is what you don't want (but may get)...

Still Stuck

When I decided to downgrade, my phone was stuck in a hopeless loop of DFU fail.  I found a way around this with blackra1n.

First, download blackra1n to your computer.  Launch it, and click "make it ra1n".  Wait about 30 seconds, your screen should be black but not off.

UNPLUG your phone and hard reboot it.  When it comes back on, you should now have "Slide for Emergency" and be able to sync like normal. blackra1n will not jailbreak your phone, so if you want a Jailbreak, use Spirit afterwards (see my Spirit Jailbreak for iPhone 3.1.3 walkthrough).  But it will get your phone out of DFU mode.

That's it!

Just a side not: Anytime you restore you may have to repeat this process as a clean restore may still fail (at least until 4.0 official drops and you upgrade to that).  Forcing your iPhone out of DFU mode can cause restores to act funky, so just save these steps for further reference.  You should now be able to backup and sync like normal though.

Questions, problems? Let us know in the comments or in the TiPb Jailbreak Forum!

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iPhone OS 4 beta 3 brings orientation lock, widget-like iPod controls, and iTunes file transfer. Adobe vs. Apple vs... the USA? How to Jailbreak iPhone 3.1.3 with Spirit, and all the week's news and app and game reviews. Listen in!

Thanks to ListMaker [$4.99 - iTunes link] and Daze End Software [iTunes link] for providing promo codes this week. If you want in to the app and accessory give away, you have to show up for the live recordings, so see you next week!

Want to be part of the show?

Grab your iPhone, launch VoiceMemo, record yourself introducing the show. Tell us your name, where you live, your favorite iPhone app, and finish it off with "...and my favorite podcast is iPhone Live!" Then email it to news (at) tipb (dot) com. We'll pick one of you, and you'll be on the show!

• Example: “Hi, this is Jon from Cupertino. My favorite app is We Rule and my favorite podcast is iPhone Live!!”

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You -- iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Again it looks like the iPhone is finally getting in iPhone OS 4 what the iPad got in 3.2 with the file/document transfer feature now exposed in iTunes sync.

While the iPad version identifies document-friendly apps (like Apple's own Keynote, Numbers, and Pages) and lets you find and sync over files, the iPhone OS 4 beta 3 version currently only shows Mail and doesn't really let you do much. However, it stands to reason this will at least reach feature parity with the iPad when Apple releases iPhone OS 4 to the public later this summer.

Now all we need is an elegant way to share and wirelessly sync those documents across multiple devices and users. MobileMe 2.0, souped up iWork.com 2.0, where are you?

For more check out our complete iPhone OS 4 beta preview and feature walkthrough.

[BGR]

Today's iPhone OS 4 beta 3 update has brought with it some interesting new features, including a soft-version of the iPad's orientation lock and iPod controls added into the fast app switcher (multitasking) UI.

When you double click the home button to bring up the fast app switcher, you can now scroll all the way to the left to get the new orientation lock and iPod controls. The default on the orientation is off but a tap will turn on, or turn off, the lock. (Home screen doesn't sound like it rotates, however).

iPod controls include back, play/pause, and forward, with the name of the current track written beneath.

The background for the app switcher (and for folders) has also changed from the rubbery, pock-mocked, dark gray of beta 1 and 2 to a new cross-hatched medium gray.

Video after the break! For more check out our complete iPhone OS 4 beta preview and feature walkthrough.

[Thanks anon!]

YouTube link

The evidence that iChat video is coming with the 4th generation iPhone continues to pile up with iPhone OS 4 beta 2 released just last week.

More code reveals that the iPhone must be registered for video conferencing along with the possibility of the feature only being used via Wi-Fi and not 3G data. So those who had hoped for video chat using their networks 3G connection may be a bit disappointed.

ACCOUNTNOTREGISTEREDMESSAGE = "This device has not been registered for video conferencing.";

IMAVCHAT

COULDNOTCONNECTNOREMOTEWIFI = "The video call could not connect because a remote Wi-Fi connection could not be established."; IMAVCHATDISCONNECTEDNOLOCAL_WIFI = "The video call disconnected because the local Wi-Fi connection was lost.";

And as an added bonus it seems as if Apple is working on integrating video chat with "tentpole" number 6, Game Center. From the code below it appears that you will be able to initiate video chats with other Game Center users.

IMAVCHATERRORNOSUCHPLAYERID = "No Such Player ID"; IMAVCHATERRORNOSUCHACHIEVEMENT = "No Such Achievement"; IMAVCHATERRORUNRECOGNIZEDGAMEDESCRIPTIONHEADERS = "Unrecognised Game Descriptor Headers"; IMAVCHATERRORNOSUCHGAME = "No Such Game";

iPhone OS 4 looks to be more promising than we originally had thought. Any of our readers excited just yet?

[Mac Rumors]

RIM has just unveiled BlackBerry 6 (yes, single digit just like iPhone OS 4), their latest, greatest mobile operating system and they've got the Blackeyed Peas-strewn video highlight reel to prove it!

As always, our confederates from CrackBerry.com are all over the WES2010 launch event and bring us back all the BlackBerry 6 highlights:

• Touchscreen friendly: The preview video makes it clear that BlackBerry 6 will be much more touchscreen friendly than what we have seen in the past from RIM, with new gestures, multitouch support and improved feedback for the user (kinetic scrolling, rubber banding). We've also heard that BlackBerry 6 will work well with non-touchscreen input as well and it looks like it should suit the optical trackpad.

• Revamped UI and OS/Homescreen Experience: At first quick glance during the video BlackBerry 6 looks familiar, but then all of the new and improved features start to jump out at you... Search from Homescreen, a pull down for notifications (sweet!), pop-up contextual menus, etc.

• Revamped Native Apps: It's clear that RIM has put a lot of effort into key native apps as well. The inbox and contacts and media apps are all getting updates, and they're looking good.

• WebKit Browser/Rendering Engine: RIM's new WebKit rendering engine is going to really speed up the web browsing experience while keeping it efficient. The browser gets much-needed features like tabbed browsing.

To us it looks like they've taken the solid BlackBerry messaging experience and tried to expand it with iPhone like music, video, and app abilities. In other words, they're making a serious play for Apple's market. Some of this stuff looks like Apple's 2007 iPhone OS 1 demo of the iPod and Safari app's -- and that's not a critique, Apple still hasn't demoed any messaging equivalent to any BlackBerry from any era. If BlackBerry catches up with web and media, where's Apple on messaging? (Mobile iChat video perhaps?)

There are still problems to be sure; BlackBerry 6 doesn't address their OS' increasingly outdated code base and the new app focus doesn't fix the anemic storage limitations -- but those problems don't yet affect the average user and so really don't exist outside bullet points and blogs.

Apple has revealed most of iPhone OS 4 (see our complete preview and feature walkthrough) and now RIM has show off BlackBerry 6.

Check out the boom, boom pow after the break and let us know what you think, should Apple be worried?

[CrackBerry.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlO8KMv7Bx4

iPhone OS 4 beta 2, released yesterday, has introduced a new, circling, side-switching animation for multitasking fast app switching. The new animation occurs when you switch between two apps either via the new, double-click-Home to trigger to launch the multitasking UI, or when one app calls another app (i.e. when you're in Contacts and you tap to send a contact an SMS, as noted by @ranger_bill, when clicking on a link in Mail to open Safari, etc.).

Launching or leaving an app retains the same, zoom-based effect as always (though the wallpaper in iPhone OS 4 zooms slightly as well, like on the iPad -- gotta love those little details Apple puts in).

Check out our complete iPhone OS 4 preview and feature walkthrough for more and hit up the video after the break!

YouTube link

Apple has just released iPhone OS 4 SDK beta 2 on developer.apple.com for developers. Update: Here's the official word:

iPhone SDK 4 beta 2 and iPhone OS 4 beta 2 are now available from the iPhone Dev Center. The new iPhone SDK introduces an auto-provisioning feature that allows you to add a new device in a single step from within the Xcode Organizer, making it even easier to enable a device for testing your applications. View the Xcode 3.2.3 Read Me for more details on this feature.

It's great to see the 2 week schedule is being kept up, which means there should be several more leading up to a final, gold master seed at WWDC in 2010 and public release sometime to follow -- probably alongside the 4th generation iPhone.

For more on iPhone OS 4, see TiPb's complete iPhone OS 4 preview and feature walkthrough. No doubt code-diggers are already at work looking for even more in the newest release, so we'll update when the finds come in.

If you notice anything, let us know in the comments!

Apple has shown off iPhone OS 4 and now BGR has the first preview of BlackBerry's attempt to maintain their messaging advantage and close the web-browsing and UI gap with BBOS 6.0.

BlackBerry is an email and BBM monster, no two ways about it, but until now we've been able to make fun of their ridiculously bad web browser and their inability (like Android) to store a large amount of large-sized apps (infinite app potential, tiny little onboard storage). And their java-based OS.

The bad news (for BlackBerry-faithful, good news for Apple) is that RIM doesn't seem to have fixed the core problems behind the increasingly outdated OS, but the good news (for BlackBerry, decidedly not for Apple) is that they seem to have done more than enough to make those problems theoretical and almost complete non-issues for current users. (There don't seem to be enough large apps to make the app limit a problem yet either -- we'll see when they get their texture-mapped OpenGL games on).

The biggest news looks to be the WebKit browser, based on the same engine Apple uses for Safari, along with complete OS-wide support for rubber-banding, pinch to zoom, and other multitouch gestures and user interaction behaviors. (Which raises the interesting issue of whether or not Apple decides to sue RIM the way they're using HTC, or if RIM has enough patents to hold them off, like Palm presumably does).

There's a lot more as well, including swipe-able homescreens, RSS in email, etc.

So what do you think? Did either Apple or RIM take a new-OS leap over the other, or will 2010 be much like 2009 -- two devices still top of their respective categories, keeping up but not taking the lead?

[BGR via CrackBerry]

Advertising agency Hill Holiday blogged about their visit from Apple's iAd team -- you know, the folks who want to make mobile ads not suck -- and shared what they could about the experience:

• They saw the Toy Story ad from Steve Jobs' iPhone OS 4 keynote live and in person and liked the less jarring, place-keeping nature of the iAd.
• iAds will be branded so you can tell them apart from more-jarring, browser-jumping ads from other networks, and there'll be only one per app screen, top or bottom.
• iAds look and behave like apps and have full access to the OS.
• Apple will build all iAds in house to start, with an iAd SDK coming later
• Launching in June with "charter" ads, only for iPhone and iPod touch with iPad coming later
• No details on targeting yet
• They did hear about price but can't talk about it yet. Think premium though, straightforward and elegant.

Meanwhile MediaMemo thinks Apple is going to again use the double-punch combo of great technology and SDK license restrictions to make it difficult for rivals to compete on the iPhone platform:

>[Competitors are] concerned about language in the contract that seems to ban apps from transmitting data that third-party ad networks would use to track their ads’ performance. If they’re right, Apple’s contract would severely handicap rival “in-app” ad networks–like Google’s AdMob–without formally banning them.

>“Ads don’t exist without analytics,” says a mobile ad executive. “Can’t measure it, can’t bill for it.”

They can go advertise to Android, BlackBerry, or Palm users any way they like (so far), just not iPhone users any other way than what Apple lets them. Magazines control what ads go on their pages, can Apple expect people to accept their doing the same thing on their devices? (Or at least giving themselves a significant advantage on the iPhone?)

[Hill Holiday and MediaMemo via Macrumors]

The first of Apple's big iPhone OS 4 announcements was multitasking, and the first set of multitasking announcements were APIs to let streaming music (think internet radio), location services (think navigation, check-in games, social networks), and VoIP services (think internet telephony) register threads in the background. For users this means you can keep listening to your songs, getting your turn-by-turn directions, and answering your virtual phone all while surfing the web or playing a game.

To find out what it means for developers, we asked some. Read what they had to say after the break!

NAVIGON, which makes MobileNavigator [$79 -- iTunes link]:

We are very excited about the background location feature and will work on implementing this into our app, so that the app can run in the background and provide directions when, for example, taking a call. We’ve really been waiting for this, so it’s great to see this happening now.

TeleNav, which powers AT&T Navigator [Subscription - iTunes link], Rogers Navigator [Subscription - iTunes link] and other location-aware services and apps:

Overall, we are very excited about the new multitasking and background location features as it opens up a variety of new capabilities for navigation and other location-based services on the iPhone. We’re actively working on new features and capabilities and look forward to sharing these with consumers soon.

Slacker, which offers Slacker Radio [Subscription - iTunes link]:

Right now 4 out of 5 of our mobile apps are on platforms that support multitasking and our listeners have let us know they enjoy being able to utilize their smartphone's functions while listening to their favorite music. We are elated that soon Slacker listeners using their iPhone will have this same capability.

Fring, which makes the VoIP service of the same name [Free - iTunes link]

fring is congratulating Apple for reaching this decision, which will only enhance the iPhone/ iPad's user experience. With the allowance for VoIP calls over 3G and now the background VoIP functionality, Apple is taking great steps allowing for the freedom of choice fring has been a big supporter of, since day one.

Seems like they're happy. While some internet chatter has revolved around whether iPhone OS 4 is providing "true" multitasking or not, the end result for the user is that they're getting these 3 types of functionality in the next update. Of course, we'd enjoy other services as well, including persistent connections for SSH and like protocols, and background updates for timelines like IM, but from zero to this for 3rd parties is certainly a good start.

9to5Mac casts a spotlight on the file sharing feature shown off during Apple's iPad Announcement event back in January as part of iPhone 3.2 for iPad... and how it was mysteriously gone come launch day, April 3.

Given the current kluge that is getting files onto and off of the iPad file sharing seems like a fairly important feature to suddenly go missing.

You could flip a switch in the Settings and your iPad disk would show up on your Mac/PC's desktop as a drive. You could copy files from your desktop to iPad this way manually. This would have been a great feature for carrying around important PDFs and other documents. You could store important files on your iPad, not just ones that were going to be used in iWork.

Was the feature not working properly and, given the already slipping deadline for delivery, get pushed off to a future iPhone OS update? It doesn't seem to be in the iPhone OS 4 beta 1, but that doesn't mean it won't show up again in time for the final iPhone OS 4 release this summer.

Given the inclusion of iWork, however, and the ability of the iPad to handle a higher level of productivity it is strange and irksome to be waiting, especially after having been teased by the prospect.

Anyone else missing it?

According to yet another claim of Steve Jobs replying to a customer email, Apple will no longer be offering updates to the original 2007 iPhone 2G, including iPhone OS 4.

The question:

Is Apple supporting/updating the iPhone 2G in the Future?

Cheers Niko

Steve Jobs' answer:

“Sorry, no.

Sent from my iPhone”

Apple's subscription accounting method for iPhone was said to allow for 2 years of free updates, including iPhone 2.0 in 2008 and iPhone 3.0 in 2009. Since that period is now over, we were left to wonder if Apple would charge for iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0) in 2010 like they do for iPod touch updates, or just not provide it at all. If this email exchange is accurate, we have our answer.

What say you?

[Macstories via TechCrunch]

iOS 4 (previously iPhone OS 4, iPhone 4.0) continues Apple's relentless yearly mobile OS beta and release cycle. If 2007 was the mainstreaming of the multitouch user interface, 2008 all about the app store, and 2009 filling in the feature list, then iPhone 4 promises to be... well, that's why we're here.

(And yes, iOS. That's the new name Apple has licensed from trademark holders Cisco to represent the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch -- and maybe soon Apple TV and who knows what else -- family.)

Apple promises 7 "tent-pole" features and 100+ new user features overall, along with 1500 major new APIs for developers. We're going to walk through the ones that matter most. As with previous years, Apple is likely to release a half-dozen or more betas, as often as every second week or so, leading up to a Gold Master (GM) seed on or around WWDC 2010 (date yet to be announced) for iPhone and iPod touch, and September for iPad.

Things can and will change. Features will come and go. And all sorts of iOS secrets will be discovered deep inside the code strings. We'll update when any of that happens.

What Hasn't Changed

As always, we'll start off by telling you what hasn't change so we can clear the deck for what has. For more information on any functionality that's pretty much identical to past versions, check out our previous walkthroughs:

• iPhone 2.0
• iPhone 2.1
• iPhone 2.2
• iPhone 3.0

• iPhone 3.1

• YouTube: Accounts were a big addition in iPhone 3.0, so iPhone 4 sits this update out, at least so far.

• Stocks: Similarly, Stocks got landscape and a slew of swipe-able data last time, so the update love gets skipped this time.
• Weather: Almost comedically at this point, it's still unchanged from iPhone 1.0. Still no HTC TouchFlo 3D style animations, no landscape mode with more/different information. Nada.
• Voice Memo: Introduced in iPhone 3.0, it looks pretty much the same in iPhone 4.
• Clock: With nothing but a lap feature added last time, we lose the "but" and keep the "nothing" for iPhone 4.
• Calculator: Upgraded back in 2.0 for landscape scientific mode, all Calculator gets this time is a slight icon tweak towards the red.

System-wide enhancements

Spell check

Spell check, which debuted in iPhone 3.2 for iPad, is a system-wide addition to iPhone 4 now as well. Words the OS thinks you've misspelled will be underlined in red (familiar to any Microsoft Office or Mac OS X user). Tapping on them will give you a popup containing a recommended replacement. Tapping that replaces the misspelled word with the (hopefully!) correctly spelled one.

Combined with the iPhone's existing -- and industry leading -- predictive auto-correct, it's a powerful combination.

Text Replace

Cut, copy, and paste also gets an iPad-debuting feature with "replace" now added to the popup options.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support

You're going to get tired of us saying "like the iPad" but remember when we told you spring's influx of iPad news would be important come summer's new iPhone news? You were warned for a reason. iPhone is getting iPad's Bluetooth keyboard support. Thank goodness for that.

Home Screen

SpringBoard app, the power behind the Home Screen gets an iPhone 3.2 for iPad-style update to support custom wallpaper. Yes, the default background in iPhone 4 beta 1 is water drops on gray, which is not default but included in the iPad's wallpaper gallery (yet strangely not included in iPhone 4's) Also like iPad, the Mac OS X reflective Dock (buh-bye grid) and translucent top bar have been brought over.

Apple has brought over some of the iPad wallpapers but also introduced a few new ones, all seemingly focused on livening up the home screen without being too visually distracting. Natural textures and muted patterns get an obvious focus here with stones, rocks, and textiles front and center.

(See all of them in our iOS beta 4 wallpaper gallery)

In addition to previous status icons, the top bar will now show a north-east pointing arrow to alert you that location-based services (GPS) are being used. (So you'll see this in Maps and when using navigation, location-based social networks or games, etc.)

In addition to the previous color bands across the top of the screen that indicate running voice or data connections (green for Phone, red for Voice Memo, blue for tethering) red is used again to indicate a VoIP app (like Skype) is active in the background.

As mentioned, the Calculator app also gets a new icon. Where things get more exciting is how Home Screen has once again been extended to visualize new, core-level OS changes.

Spotlight

First, and strangely least, the Spotlight Home Screen introduced in iPhone 3.0 now gets to look beyond on-device data and reach for the clouds. Literally. Well, insomuch as the cloud here is Google and Wikipedia, which are very welcome additions. (Hopefully Twitter will be added in as well at some point). Tapping either will launch you into Mobile Safari and the appropriate search result page.

Multitasking

While Apple's built-in apps (like iPod, Mail, etc.) have had background multitasking since 1.0. Now, four years, many gripes, and stiffer Google Android competition than ever, background multitasking comes to App Store apps. At least for the iPhone 3GS and the 4th generation iPhone Apple will more than likely introduce this coming summer. RAM limitations and Apple's abject refusal to put their name on an implementation where hardware constrains software -- see video recording last year -- means iPhone 3G will get a lot of 4.0, but won't get multitasking.

We won't get into the saved-state, streaming music, location, and VoIP APIs, push and local notifications, and task completion that make up the 6 innards of the service because this is a GUI walkthrough. Fast task switching, however, is where we see background multitasking made manifest, and this is what it looks like.

You double tap the Home Screen and the UI turns translucent and slides up, allowing you to peek at the apps running "under the hood". (Technically frozen with state saved an threads registered with those APIs, but we're trying not to get technical here). Positionally the Fast Task Switcher apps take up the space traditionally reserved for the Dock, so while it's a tad confusing the concept of apps at the bottom of the screen being more permanent and easily accessible remains. Behaviorally, while they look like a secret dock, they function like the Home Screen itself in that you can swipe from right to left to scroll through a several 4-icon sets of multitasking apps. We don't know what the upper limit is yet (11 pages like Home Screen itself?) but it's a lot.

Given even the iPhone 3GS has only 256MB of RAM, we assume Apple will discretely kill off the least-used app in the stack when things get tight. Whether or not that means the icon disappears from the multitasking GUI we don't know, but worst case you just have to go to the Home Screen, re-launch it (hopefully from saved state) and all you notice is a slightly longer start up time.

In iOS beta 3, the fast app switcher UI gained a soft-version of the iPad's orientation lock and audio controls. When you double click the home button to bring up the fast app switcher, you can now scroll all the way to the left to get the new orientation lock and audio controls. The default on the orientation is off but a tap will turn on, or turn off, the lock. (Home screen doesn't sound like it rotates, however).

Audio controls include back, play/pause, and forward, with the name of the current track written beneath. If music is being played via the iPod app, the iPod icon will be displayed to quickly get you back to that app. If you're streaming via the iTunes app (i.e. a podcast) then the iTunes icon will be displayed instead. We're guessing iOS will show you the icon of whichever app is currently playing music using the new background audio API, and yes we mean Slacker and Pandora when they're enabled as well.

YouTube link

At the iPhone 4 event, Steve Jobs likened task managers (in the multitasking, not to-do sense) to styluses -- if you need them there's something wrong. However, if you hold your finger down on multitasking apps to make the jiggle and bring up a delete icon that, if you tap it, removes them. Added to the list of things we don't know -- whether that kills their API thread or merely removes them from the Fast App Switcher interface. (And no, sadly you can't re-arrange jiggling apps for fast switching, at least not yet -- if you want your favorites close at hand, that remains a Dock thing).

The background for the app switcher (and for folders) has also changed from the rubbery, pock-mocked, dark gray of beta 1 and 2 to a new cross-hatched medium gray in beta 3.

The presentation may not be as visually slick as Palm webOS' Card view (which looks like iPhone Safari's Page view) or Mac OS X Exposé mode, but it keeps those 85,000,000 existing iPhone and iPod touch users grounded in the interface they're familiar with and that's what Apple is prioritizing.

Note: Previously you could assign the double-click Home to trigger Phone Favorites, Camera, or Spotlight. On iPhone 3G under iOS those options remain. On iPhone 3GS under iOS, you can now double-click-and-hold on Home to trigger Phone Favorites, but there doesn't appear to be any mechanism to re-assign that functionality to Camera or Spotlight (see Settings, below). [@oliok] This appears to be gone under Beta 3.

YouTube link

iOS beta 2 introduced a new, circling, side-switching animation for multitasking fast app switching. The new animation occurs when you switch between two apps either via the new, double-click-Home to trigger to launch the multitasking UI, or when one app calls another app (i.e. when you're in Contacts and you tap to send a contact an SMS).

Launching or leaving an app retains the same, zoom-based effect as always (though the wallpaper in iOS zooms slightly as well, like on the iPad).

YouTube link

Folders

There are 180,000 apps in the App Store and likely a ton more by the time I finish writing the sentence. Literally. iPhone 1.0 had one Home Screen but with only the built-in apps available back then, it wasn't even a limitation. With WebApps, it grew to 9 pages for a 148 app limit. With iPhone 3.0 we were given 8 pages, for 180 apps viewable, but you could install many more and use Spotlight as a way of finding and launching them. Organizing them still wasn't a real option.

Enter Folders. A Folder is simply a grouped icon that holds up to 12 other icons inside it. (And for those keeping count at home, the new math means a whopping 2016 apps can be kept on-screen at once. Shudder).

The way it works is you tap a Folder icon and once again the Home Screen fades and splits open, this time below the Folder. Inside the split are all the apps contained in the group.

To create a Folder, you begin by tapping and holding an icon to put it in jiggly mode, just like you did before to delete or move it. Then, drag it over and drop it on top of another icon to create a Folder. (This works better when icons aren't at the right edge of the screen, as the move behavior seems to supersede the Folder behavior, causing the icon to wrap to the next line before you can drop on top of it.) Once created, iPhone OS reads the apps' category data and tries to name the folder for you, but you can easily edit it to anything you want.

To remove apps from a Folder, put them in jiggly mode inside the Folder and drag them out (or just delete them if you don't want them anywhere anymore). You can also move them around within the Folder to customize their order.

Folders can be put in jiggly mode and moved as well, but not deleted (they can only be deleted by removing all the apps from within them, and which point they self-destruct for you). You can even move them to the Dock, which means you could have 48 apps readily available at any time for quick launching.

And while you still can't delete Apple's built-in apps, you can take the ones you're not using and hide them away inside a folder so they waste as little Home Screen space as possible (not that that's as big a deal now as it used to be...)

Again, not as visually exciting perhaps as Mac OS X's Stacks, but it keeps current iPhone users in a familiar interface while adding much-needed functionality.

YouTube link

Messages

Messages in iPhone 4 gets the same built-in Spotlight search that Mail and other apps got with iPhone 3.0. It appears at the top of the main messages screen. (There's no search within an individual Messages thread). [@justin_horn]

Messages also (finally) gets a character counter so you'll know when you're getting close to, or going past, the SMS limit (which would cause a second message to be sent). It kicks in after you've typed 50 characters or so. [@iMuggle]

There's also a new API to allow in-app SMS for developers who want to include the functionality in their own apps. While this might be similar to the iPhone 3.0 embedded email option, and whether or not it will let users reply to SMS without leaving an app, it doesn't seem as elegant a solution as a global background messaging system.

Calendar

Calendar removes two long-standing gripes and adds something pretty much invisible from the interface but awesome in terms of functionality.

First, you can now show all or hide all calendars or individually check/uncheck just the calendars you want to see.

Birthday calendars have also been added to the option, something that was previously only possible to see under certain setup conditions.

Lastly and most excitingly, Apple has finally added Calendar access for developers. What this means is, we'll soon see applications where, by way of example, you can download a movie app, buy tickets for a local screening, and the app will be able to automatically add the show time to your Calendar.

Photos

Photos, at least for Mac users, gets the same iPhoto '09-based organizational features introduced with the iPad: Events, Faces, and Places.

If you have a Mac with iPhoto '09 and you've let it automatically file your photos by time stamp (Events), through facial-recognition algorithms (Faces), and via geo-location (Places). All these join the previous Albums view to form the bottom tab bar.

Landscape mode is also now supported in album and gallery views [@antonioj].

The action button now includes a Rotate function (yes!) that turns a photo 90 degrees counter-clockwise (to the left).

If you Email Photo, you now get the option of sending a smaller version (compressed dimensions and hence file size), or at actual size.

Lastly, developers have been given access to the photo and video library (not just the image picker as in previous OS versions).

Camera

Tap to focus, introduced in iPhone 3.0 for still photography, now gets expanded to video recording for the iPhone 3GS (and presumably the 4th generation iPhone).

Still photography maintains its leg up, however, via a new 5x digital zoom. When you tap the screen, a slider pops up allowing you to swipe to the right to increase magnification and swipe left to decrease.

Developers also get full access to and control of video playback and recording.

Maps

A minor tweak, but the current location/current direction button changes from the previous crosshairs to a north-east pointer to match the new location services icon used in the title bar. (No iPhone 3.2 for iPad-style terrain mode, at least not yet).

For developers, overlays can now be added to embedded maps to show extra data like routes or annotations.

Notes

When you first enter notes it looks unchanged from previous versions of the iPhone OS. However, there is now an Accounts button at the top left of the list page and tapping it takes you to a new screen where you can choose to view All Notes, just the notes on your iPhone, or just the notes that are synced via IMAP to your email account(s). Yes, that means over the air (OTA) notes sync is finally here -- with the caveat that Exchange doesn't seem supported yet.

(UI-wise this is similar to how you back out/left in Calendar or Contacts to toggle data sources.)

The way these show up in Mac OS X is via the built-in Mail.app client in the Notes tab.

On Gmail they show up as a generic label. In other IMAP clients, regardless of OS, they'll show up as generic IMAP folders.

iTunes Store

The iTunes store itself is the same, however, audio streaming from the app itself has taken a huge leap forward. Since iPhone OS 2.2 you've been able to tap the title of a podcast to begin streaming (rather than downloading) the audio, even in the background while using other apps, but it was sometimes hit or miss. It would drop out, it would time out, you couldn't really scrub through it, and if you left it for a while it would lose its place and start over.

In iOS it's rock solid. You can scrub and it re-buffers and keeps playing flawlessly. You can stop it and come back hours or even days later -- even after using the iTunes app to search for other things or the iPod app to play different audio -- and it still knows where you left off and starts playing again instantly without missing a beat.

Settings

This year, like every year, some of the more numerous and interesting changes Apple delivers in their new OS are tucked neatly away in the Settings app.

General: Network

You can now choose to not only turn off 3G data or roaming data, but all cellular data.

General: Location Services

At the iOS event, Apple made a big deal about user privacy when it came to location (like a shot at Google). That manifests here with far more granular controls over which apps are allowed to access your location data (GPS, Wi-Fi mapping, and cell tower triangulation) and the aforementioned north-east pointing arrow that shows up when any app has used your location in the last 24 hours.

General: Home Button

Rather than gaining functions, the Home Button setting loses several. Since double-click for iOS on the iPhone 3GS (and presumably future iPhone hardware) is now reserved for launching the multitasking interface, gone is the option to assign it to launch Spotlight, Camera, or iPod. Also gone is the option to have it launch iPod when audio is playing.

Double-click-and-hold will now trigger Phone Favorites on the iPhone 3GS, but no options are presented yet to re-assign that to Spotlight, Camera, or iPod. So, the only thing that remains are the Spotlight search inclusion options. Looks downright barren now...

Since iPhone 3G won't be getting multitasking (Apple cites hardware, i.e. RAM constraints) those options remain under iOS for that device.

General: Passcode Lock

Previously available only through an Enterprise profile, iPhone 4 brings stronger, alphanumeric passcodes to all iPhone users. That means you're no longer stuck with only a 4 digit pin, but can now create longer passcodes with far greater variation. Of course, longer, more varied passcodes are more of a hassle to remember and enter, but that's the cost of good security.

Mail, Contacts, Calendars

As previously mentioned, Notes will now sync over IMAP and the settings for that appear here. First, all the way at the bottom, you can choose which account to use as the default for note sync.

Inside MobileMe, Gmail, or other IMAP accounts, you can choose whether or not to enable sync. Again, there's no support for Exchange ActiveSync accounts yet (including Gmail via GoogleSync).

Messages

Here's where you can turn on that new character count option.

iPod

The iPod app now has an overlay that shows you information about songs and podcasts. While functional it's not terribly attractive so it's nice to be able to toggle it off right here.

App Store

iPhone 2.0 brought us the iTunes App Store, iPhone 3.0 added in-app purchases, and now iOS raises the mercantile stakes once again...

iAd

iAd will provide developers with an easy-as-Xcode way to place advertising in their apps, both paid and free. Apple is setting a high bar for their ads, however. No simple Google-style text, annoying punch-the-monkey, or jarring transition out of the app and into the browser, they claim to want great looking, highly interactive, emotionally compelling content that will connect with rather than alienate users. Served every 3 minutes. Yeah...

Functionally these are built in HTML5 (no Flash need apply) and seem to work as apps-within-apps. Tapping on a banner brings up a full-screen ad-as-webapp and examples shown included plenty of animated UI effects and content that ranged from videos to freebies like wallpaper, to free and paid apps you could download from within the ad (no trip to the App Store needed). An exit button is persistent at the top left so users can quit the add at any time.

Apple will be selling and serving the ads, so all we can do is hope they're unobtrusive and actually reach the quality levels presented. For paid apps that also try to include in-app iAds, that bar will rightly be very, very high.

Task completion

With iPhone 4, when you close and app and that app is still performing an activity, the OS will allow it to complete that activity in the background. For example, downloading or uploading content from the internet.

Streaming music, location, and VoIP API

The underside of the multitasking/fast app switching UI mentioned at the beginning of the walkthrough are three specific types of API that an app can register threads with when you close them out. These are intended for streaming music (Pandora or Slacker being the classic examples), location-aware (i.e turn-by-turn navigation, check-in games, social networks, etc.), and VoIP (Skype and SIP clients) to register with the OS when you exit the apps proper so that your music can keep streaming, location can keep tracking, and VoIP can still alert you of phone calls even when the app isn't running.

There's no time-line API for instant messaging (IM), Twitter, etc. to register their threads with, however. Apple believes existing Push Notifications are sufficient but that means once an alert is received and you tap View, the app still has to pause and load the timeline/messages before you can view them. This is unlike the built-in Mail and Messages (SMS/MMS) apps that have new messages loaded and waiting when you get there.

Local Notifications

Like Push Notifications in iPhone 3.0 but not requiring an outside, internet connected server, local notifications will let apps you're using (and perhaps apps that have registered one of the three types of background threads mentioned above) send you popup boxes, sound alerts, and icon badges.

For the user, these should be functionally the same and perhaps indistinguishable.

Quick Look

Just like Mail can preview documents, Quick Look will allow developers to present the same functionality in their apps.

Accelerate

2000 hardware accelerated math APIs probably won't be seen by users, but there's not doubt we'll feel them in the games. Zoom. Zoom.

File Sharing

Again it looks like the iPhone is finally getting in iOS what the iPad got in 3.2 with the file/document transfer feature now exposed in iTunes sync.

While the iPad version identifies document-friendly apps (like Apple's own Keynote, Numbers, and Pages) and lets you find and sync over files, the iOS beta 3 version currently only shows Mail and Stanza and doesn't really let you do much else. However, it stands to reason this will at least reach feature parity with the iPad when Apple releases iOS to the public later this summer.

Now all we need is an elegant way to share and wirelessly sync those documents across multiple devices and users. MobileMe 2.0, souped up iWork.com 2.0, where are you?

Mail

Mail gets a unified inbox. Let's write that again -- Mail gets a unified inbox. For those with multiple email accounts whose previous iPhone experience involved tapping into and out of those boxes many, many times a day this is a hugely welcome addition.

As with Calendars, Notes, etc. you can tap a button on the top left, in this case Mailboxes, to back into a selection screen where you can then go into All Inboxes, a specific account's inbox (which is considered fast inbox switching), or into the complete folder and sub-folder system of a given account (how Mail has worked from iPhone 1.0 to iPhone 3.0).

Once inside, All Inboxes is visually indistinguishable from an account-specific inbox, it simply contains all of their messages.

What is distinguishable are the small carets (technically greater-than symbols) to the right of replies that indicate a message is part of a thread. A number, typically 2 or 3, accompanies the caret to indicate how many replies are in the thread.

Tapping on a message that's part of a thread doesn't take you to the message but rather to a second list-view, similar to the inbox itself, but containing only the messages from the thread. Tapping on one of them then takes you to the message. A thread view contains a small vertical bar at the top with the subject of the thread and time of the most recent reply. A button to the top left of the message that's part of the thread also contains the subject of the thread and lets you back out and see the thread again. The button then switches to contain the name of the inbox so you can back out again, leave the thread completely, and see all your messages.

So yes, the tap, tap, tap of inbox navigation persists, albeit shifted from moving into and out of inboxes to moving into and out of threaded messages.

Although not yet implemented in the current beta, like iPhone OS 3.2 for iPad, you'll be able to open email attachments in apps. Now there's no iWork (Numbers, Pages, Keynote) for iPhone yet, and the app Apple used to introduce this function doesn't exist on iPhone yet either. Interesting.

Lastly, in previous versions of the iPhone OS, when you wanted to abandon an email, you would hit Cancel and get options to Save (store the email in Drafts), Don't Save (trash the email), and Cancel (go back to writing the email). The naming of these options was likely too confusing so in iPhone OS they've been replaced with a big red Delete button (to trash the email), Save as Draft, and Cancel. And yes, you can still cancel a cancel. (iPad, by contrast, still has Save and Don't Save, but no Cancel since it's in a popover rather than full-screen menu and you can just tap away to cancel).

Safari

More iPad to iPhone cross-polination means we get search auto-complete from both Google and Yahoo! in iOS. As you type, suggestions appear in a list view below. And as with the iPad, while Google and Yahoo! branding remain in the search boxes, they no longer get brand advertising on the keyboard -- it simply remains labeled Search now regardless of which engine is set and default.

As usual, Apple seems to be increasing Safari's HTML5 support. While HTML5 video would work under iPhone 3.1.3, it would launch the full screen QuickTime player to do so. Under iOS, it seems to play in-line as well [MobileGeekdom], like it does on the iPad.

If history is any indicator, Apple will likely also integrate whatever advancements WebKit and the Nitro JavaScript engine make between now and release this summer.

iPod

When you have a song playing in the iPod app and you tap the album art, in addition to all the previous controls that popped up, you now get a dark overlay with white text giving you the info metadata of the song or podcast. This is another iPad bring-over, though not the most attractive one by a long shot. (Remember, it can be turned off in Settings).

Album art has been added to album views, jazzing up the track lists. [Gizmodo]

And in yet another iPad-like update, on-th-go playlists are dead, long live... just regular old playlists. You can add them via an item in the playlists list, at which point you get a popup that asks you for a name. Next, you tap on any songs you want to add, and when you're done, you have a new playlist. If you're not happy with it, or any playlist, just swipe to bring up the usual red Delete button and annihilate it.

Nike+

You can now send you run data directly from the iPhone. [When Will Apple]. Under History, tap Send to Nike+ and you're off and running (sorry). You're then sent to Safari so you can login to Nike+ and see your data.

Game Center (Preview)

Game Center is Apple's entry into the social gaming network space (think Xbox Live or Playstation Network for iPhone OS devices). With Game Center you'll be able to invite friends to play, use matchmaking to challenge other players, gain achievements, and have your scores displayed on a leader board.

Game Center won't launch with iOS this summer, but is scheduled for release "later" this year.

iBooks

Though not a built-in app (you'll need to go get it from the US App Store when it becomes available), as part of iOS Apple announced they were bringing iBooks to the iPhone.

Not Concluded

This preview won't be concluded until Apple concludes iOS with its final release this summer for iPhone and iPod touch, and this fall for iPad (unless that becomes iPhone 4.1).

iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS owners should get it for free as Apple's 2-year accounting procedure allows. That there's been no word about iPhone 2G owners could mean it's either not going to be available for the oldest hardware, it won't be free, or... there's simply been no word yet. Likewise, there's been no word on iPod touch pricing though it was $9.95 for iPhone 3.0. There's been no word on iPod touch G1 availability either, however. Apple's SDK agreement has revealed that iPad users who bought with 3.2 will get 4.0 for free but not subsequent major updates (i.e. iPhone OS 5 in 2011).

Again, there will be roughly 6 to 8 betas released on a roughly bi-weekly schedule from now until WWDC 2010 when we'll likely hear about the final version, whatever extra features will come with the next-generation iPhone (current rumors suggest iChat video), and get a final release data -- likely also to coincide with the next-gen iPhone release date.

We'll update this preview as more and better information becomes available, so if you notice anything we missed or just plain got wrong, send it in or let us know in the comments.

Note on Using Beta Software

If you're not a developer, don't even think about putting iOS beta on your main iPhone. Betas are for testing purposes and could contain any number of bugs and performance issues, could stop working or require updates when you may not have access to one, or otherwise give you problems when used in a manner for which they're not intended. Stay away.

[Thanks to everyone who contributed screenshots and descriptions for this walkthrough]

In the iPhone 4 beta, when you delete an app you are not asked to rate that app as you are in iPhone 3.0. Whether this functionality has been removed from the iPhone OS going forward, however, or is merely removed from the beta so people don't rate apps based on beta behavior is unknown.

Many developers have long had issue with the "rate on delete" function introduced in iPhone 2.2. Making it easiest to rate an app when you were removing it was thought to unfairly favor lower reviews.

We'll have to wait until this summer's official iPhone OS 4 release to see if it stays gone. In the meantime, let us know what you think. Did you use rate on delete? Did it make it easier to rate lower quality apps? Did you go to the App Store to also rate your preferred apps? And do you want to see rate on delete removed or do you hope it's back in the final release?

[MacRumors]

9to5Mac has hit the motherlode of code references when it comes to iPhone 4.0 iChat video secret strings and references, including what looks like moderators, chat room, encryption, and more.

Presumably moderation would let Apple prevent their hosting of ChatRoulette-style not-safe-for-families fun, especially if iChat hooks into the Game Center social network.

This is how it was with video recording and iPhone 3.0 on iPhone 3GS, so we're getting more and more confident this is what will be come this summer with iPhone 4.0 and iPhone G4 (not iPhone 4G!), hopefully with a front-facing chat cam. iPod touch G4 and iPad G2 would also need camera upgrades (in their cases to actually, finally, getting cameras of any kind), likely in September 2010 and March 2011 respectively.

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Join Rene, Phil, and Keith for post-iPhone 4.0 event analysis on multitasking, app folders, iBooks for iPhone, Game Center social network, mail enhancements, enterprise enhancements, iAds, and more. Listen in!

Want to be part of the show?

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• Example: “Hi, this is Jon Rubinstein from Sunnyvale, my favorite app is... um... dunno, but my favorite podcast is TiPb Live!”

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You -- iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

While iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0) still won't let you delete built-in Apple apps you don't use (looking at you Weather, Stocks, Compass, etc.!), with the new Folders functionality you can group them together hide them away, effectively wasting only one icon space instead of many.

Just hold your finder down on an offending app until it begins to jiggle then drag it on top of a second offender and voila!, a Folder is born. Name it something cathartic, then start dropping the rest of the worst in until they're all safely hidden away. Set the Folder icon in the middle of screen somewhere down the line and forget it.

And there you go, an almost annoyance free home screen!

When you add an IMAP-based email account (including MobileMe and Gmail) to iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0), in addition to the previous options you now get a toggle for "Sync Notes".

Notes syncing was famously listed as an iPhone 1.0 feature but then mysteriously vanished only to return in iPhone 3.0 as an iTunes-limited option (i.e., not push or over-the-air).

Apple's desktop Mail client includes special folders that serve as repositories for notes, so perhaps this is now (finally) being echoed on the iPhone.

Whether or not this gets tied in to the actual Notes app remains unknown (it doesn't seem to right now, but it may just not be working yet). It also doesn't seem to be an option for Exchange accounts (yet?).

If you discover anything else about iPhone 4 Notes sync, let us know!

[Thanks anon for the tip!]

With the apparent iPhone 4.0 SDK ban on cross-compiled code, Adobe has begun firing back at Apple. The New York Times Bits Blog carried the following statement from Adobe:

We are aware of Apple’s new SDK language and are looking into it. We continue to develop our Packager for iPhone OS technology, which we plan to debut in Flash CS5

The TheFlashBlog (which readers might remember from iPad porn posts past) took it far more personally:

What is clear is that Apple has timed this purposely to hurt sales of CS5. This has nothing to do whatsoever with bringing the Flash player to Apple’s devices. That is a separate discussion entirely. What they are saying is that they won’t allow applications onto their marketplace solely because of what language was originally used to create them. This is a frightening move that has no rational defense other than wanting tyrannical control over developers and more importantly, wanting to use developers as pawns in their crusade against Adobe. This does not just affect Adobe but also other technologies like Unity3D.

[...] Now let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.

The timing does seem interesting. Apple could have put this in iPhone 3.2 for iPad. They could have skipped iPhone 4.0 betas and put it in the final iPhone 4.0 GM release (rendering wasted all the apps (time and money) developers had built using CS5 between Flash release and iPhone 4.0 release).

The timing could be to hurt Adobe CS5 sales (though certainly lots of creative professionals use CS5 for reasons that have nothing to do with Flash cross-compiling) or it could be an advance warning to developers not to use those tools because they won't be allowed (or perhaps even compatible) with the final iPhone 4.0 release. Spending several months making an iPhone app in CS5 and then not being able to run it under iPhone 4.0 would be worse.

Ultimately, the language used by Apple is unclear and everyone is going to waste a lot of time and worry until it's clarified.

iPhone 4 is already readily available over the internet. Somewhat less than honorable “developers” are even offering to “sell” access to the 4.0 beta. This has led to a lot of users getting, or at least thinking about getting, the 4.0 beta for their own iPhones (it's currently not even loading on iPod touches -- and forcing complete restores for recovery, so don't even consider that at the moment!). Well before you take the jump think carefully. And think twice!

Read more after the break!

This is not finished software. This is a beta, and not in the Google/Gmail perpetual meaningless beta sense. This is a true beta in that it is not meant for production iPhones, used as primary devices, out in the real world. Who knows what kind of de-bug, trace, non-optimized, or generally not finished code is running in the current, and first iPhone 4 beta. If you’re a legitimate developer, using 4.0 on a test device to check for compatibility for your apps and report bugs back to Apple is one thing. To think you can use it for regular, day-to-day use is quite another.

First kiss iTunes backups goodbye and don't expect working multitasking as no 3rd party apps have been updated to support it. 4.0 may be slow. Lists may disappear. Sound may cut out. Connection may time out. Battery time may worsen. 3rd party apps may crash or otherwise not work well. And you may need to reset your iPhone daily, if not several times a day, to work around the beta nature of the current build. You get the idea and that’s what happens with a real beta.

Also, these beta’s expire, and if you don’t have quick access to the next beta, you’ll be without your iPhone — and that’s assuming Apple doesn’t wait hours or days between expiry and the next beta release. And dropping back down to the previous build isn’t always easy or possible.

So, yes, iPhone 4 has lots of amazing features, and we hope very much it will be killer stable come “summer”-time when Apple releases it via iTunes for everyone.

Until then, read our iPhone 4 coverage. Watch Apple’s video. If you’re not into testing pre-release software, if you’re not patient, if you need a reliable, primary iPhone, if you want it to “just work” think twice before loading the iPhone 4 beta. Then think again. One look at our developer forum shows it isn’t a smooth ride.

(And tech pundits who’ve told readers and listeners it’s no big deal, and to go for it, should also think twice and remember they’re often cutting edge users themselves, with many devices to fall back on — not the case for everyone.)

Yesterday's iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event gave us 7 new "tent-pole" features, 1500 new APIs for developers, and once again took Apple's mobile OS a step closer to feature parity and a step further towards elegant functionality... but we didn't get everything we wanted. And no matter how hard we tried, we found we didn't even get everything we needed. In other words, iPhone 4.0 is still missing out in some key areas. Even though we got some good stuff, this is what we didn't get:

• No new Home Screen/SpringBoard. We understand that Apple has 85,000,000 legacy users now trained on the iPhone Home Screen system (aka the same app launcher metaphor going back to the days of PalmOS). We knew when Apple said as much during the iPad announcements that they weren't going to confuse that "already trained" customer base. It's the price of being an established OS, after all. So Apple didn't radically re-invent the Home Screen. They did make it layered -- it can lift up to show you multitasking apps and slit open to show you apps inside folders -- but that's it. And part of "that's it" means...

• No themes. You get wallpaper and that's where your customization ends. You still can't remove built-in apps (though you can hide them in a folder so they take less space). You can't chance the look of icons. There's no animated backgrounds to be had. More disappointingly, however...

• No widgets. Want to know the latest weather, Facebook or Twitter updates, or stick a big clock on the screen? There's an app for all of that, sure, but you have to go into and out of each individual app and the Home Page remains a giant grid of uninformative icons. Android and Nokia have had widgets for a while now, webOS lets you flick between live Cards, and Windows Phone 7 will have live tiles. iPhone... will be waiting on 5.0? More's the pity too because...

• No new notification system. We got local notifications, so there's some measure of offline alerts, but they're trapped in the same single, modal, popup hell that's existed since iPhone 3.0. (And it's particularly ludicrous on the iPad!). Again, still, if you get a couple SMS, a few Twitter DMs, a game challenge or two, and calendar reminder, and then an IM, you'll only ever know that IM existed -- everything else is completely and utterly destroyed in terms of notifications, and while some apps will badge with a number for unread items, you have to go find them and that's "pull", not "push". Maybe this is also a 5.0 feature...

A lot of other stuff failed to put in an appearance as well.

• Apps can now embed SMS, but why isn't that a system-wide, OS level, quick-reply API included in the alerts?
• Calendar still has no week view. iPad calendar rotates to landscape, why can't iPhone?
• Photos gets Faces and Places, but no MobileMe or other syncing abilities. It's 2010, isn't it?
• Weather is still 1.0. Even stocks has been updated. Compared to HTC's weather, it's in the dust.
• Settings are still bound to an app. You can't tap the title bar to quickly toggle Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or any of a half-dozen other useful things.
• Mail gets universal inbox, threaded messages, and fast switching, but still no IMAP IDLE (at least GoogleSync can now be used alongside ActiveSync, but still...)
• Safari still lacks Flash, Java, or any other plugin and likely always will. But it should really have gotten in-page text string search.
• iPad gets orientation lock via a hardware switch where the iPhone's mute switch is located. How about at least a software gesture?
• What about a universal "back" gesture while we're at it as well? Tapping the title bar auto-scrolls a list to top, couldn't swiping from right to left take us back to the previous screen, in every app?

iPhone 4.0 was full of functional goodness, no doubt about it. Perhaps we'll even see one or two more come WWDC in June (Mobile iChat video?) Even given Apple's size, there are limitations of time and resources that mean they have to choose what features get done now and what get left for later. You can't have everything immediately. Did doing multitasking come at the expense of doing notifications this time around? (or did iAd?) Maybe. But that's for Apple to decide and for us, the users, to take them to task over.

And, oh yeah, there's still no built in task app (or sync).

Anything else missing from iPhone 4.0 that really ought to have been in there?

Just hours after it's beta release, iPhone OS 4.0 has been jailbroken and iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd has the video to prove it. The method of which this was done will remain kept under lock and key until it's release this summer. Something else to keep in mind is that there is no guarantee that Apple won't throw in a monkey wrench to shake things up between now and the final build.

How many of you are already thinking about jailbreaking 4.0 when it goes live?

Video after the break!

TUAW was slipped a screenshot today showing something called iChatAgent running on iPhone 4.0. iChat is Apple's instant message client for Mac OS X that includes voice and video chat, among other features. Rumors of a Mobile iChat for iPhone that would include webcam-style video chat date back to 2008, and were most recently seen in (and then taken away from) iPhone 3.2 for iPad.

Will we finally see an honest-to-Jobs Mobile iChat video this summer at WWDC along with a next-generation iPhone (don't call it the iPhone 4G!) featuring a front-facing camera?

We're not getting out hopes up anymore. Really. We swear...

Spotlight in iPhone 4.0 takes a %&@ good on-device search that could find your apps, contacts, and other personal data, and makes it a ^%^(&$ fantastic on-device and web-resource search that can also send text strings out to the internet -- spelled Google and Wikipedia and bring you back the results.

First, yes, Google is still the default search engine, so that coffee break obviously worked. Second, yes, those Wikipedia strings that were discovered in previous iPhone 3.2 betas looks like they've finally surfaced.

Now if we could just search Twitter for real-time results... (Yeah, give us two services, we want twenty!)

[via Engadget]

Apple.com has posted not only a page touting over 100 (!) new user features for iPhone 4.0, but streaming video of today's iPhone 4 Sneak Preview event is also now available, as is the higher quality download in Apple's Keynote podcast feed [iTunes link]

[Rah-roh! Looks like the iTunes download freezes about 20 min. in, right when the Pandora demo is starting. Avoid until Apple fixes. We'll update when they do!]

Check 'em out and tell us what you think!

iPhone 4.0 beta 1 is now available to developers via http://developer.apple.com/ and it doesn't just bring the 7 "tent-pole" features announced so far for consumers, it brings 1500 new APIs to developers including some we've been waiting for for a long time:

• Date data detectors
• Calendar access
• address data detectors
• Automated testing
• Block based animation
• iPod remote control accessories
• In-app SMS
• Regular expression matching
• Performance profiling tools
• Accelerate (2000 API's for hardware accelerated math functions)
• Date formatters
• Spell check
• Photo library access
• Image I/O
• Embed PDF metadata
• Draggable map annotations
• Half-curl page transition
• Quick look
• Power analysis tools
• Full map overlays
• Call event notification
• Full access to still and video camera data
• ICC profiles

While Apple announced 7 tent-pole features for iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0) including multitasking, folders, mail enhancements, iBooks, Enterprise features, Game Center social network, and iAd mobile advertising platform, it's important to remember we won't get the final feature set for iPhone 4.0 until Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) this June.

Last year Apple showed off a lot of features for iPhone 3.0 in March, but it wasn't until WWDC that we saw features specific to the new iPhone 3GS hardware -- video recording, VoiceOver, compass, Voice Memo app, etc.

If iPhone G4 (not 4G!), also likely introduced at WWDC in June, has extra hardware like a front-facing camera, we won't see Mobile iChat video announced until then...

The waiting is over, the iPhone 4 sneak preview event is done, the features (so far) are known, and all that's left now is to ask you -- are you happy with iPhone 4.0? Did you get what you wanted, enough of what you wanted, or did you leave feeling unsatisfied?

Let us know in the poll and expound in the comments!

Apple has announced iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0), available for developers in beta form starting today and arriving for iPhone and iPod touch users sometime this summer, and iPad users in the fall. Highlights of the latest version of the mobile OS that powers the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad include the following 7 "tentpoles":

1. Multitasking (iPhone 3GS/iPod touch G3 only)
2. Folders with intelligent naming
3. Mail with unified inbox, multiple Exchange accounts, threaded messages
4. iBooks for iPhone
5. Increased Enterprise support in iPhone 4.0
6. Game Center social network
7. iAd mobile advertising platform

iPhone 4.0 will also bring iPhone 3.2 (iPad) features like spell checking, Bluetooth keyboard support, Home Screen wallpaper, a 5x digital zoom (and tap to focus for video), as well as 1500 new API for developers (like -- finally! -- calendar access!)

How's that list looking to you?

Steve Jobs thinks current mobile advertising sucks and Apple's answer for iPhone OS 4 is iAd, an HTML5 platform that gives developers a 60% cut of revenue and provides... what basically looks like ads as apps.

iAd will provide developers with an easy-as-Xcode way to place advertising in their apps, both paid and free. Apple is setting a high bar for their ads, however. No simple Google-style text, annoying punch-the-monkey, or jarring transition out of the app and into the browser, they claim to want great looking, highly interactive, emotionally compelling content that will connect with rather than alienate users. Served every 3 minutes. Yeah...

Functionally these are built in HTML5 (no Flash need apply) and seem to work as apps-within-apps. Tapping on a banner brings up a full-screen ad-as-webapp and examples shown included plenty of animated UI effects and content that ranged from videos to freebies like wallpaper, to free and paid apps you could download from within the ad (no trip to the App Store needed). An exit button is persistent at the top left so users can quit the add at any time.

Apple will be selling and serving the ads, so all we can do is hope they're unobtrusive and actually reach the quality levels presented. For paid apps that also try to include in-app iAds, that bar will rightly be very, very high.

While third parties have developed several of their own social gaming networks for the iPhone and iPad, Apple entered the space themselves today with iPhone OS 4 and their Game Center Social Network. (Think Microsoft Xbox Live or Sony Playstation Network for iPhone and iPad apps).

With Game Center you'll be able to invite friends to play, use matchmaking to challenge other players, gain achievements, and have your scores displayed on a leader board.

Game Center won't launch with iPhone OS 4 this summer, but is scheduled for release "later" this year.

Continuing the long journey begun with iPhone 2.0, Apple has once again raised the bar on Enterprise support for iPhone 4.0 adding better data protection, mobile device management, wireless app distribution, multiple exchange accounts, Exchange Server 2010 support, and SSL VPN support.

More as this develops!

[Image via GDGT]

Midway through the big iPhone 4.0 announcements today and Apple has just introduced iBooks to the iPhone, bringing it up to eBook par with its big iPad brother launched last weekend.

[Image via Gizmodo]

As part of the iPhone 4.0 announcement today, Apple introduced an updated Mail app that includes (as rumored) support for a unified inbox (so all your new home, work, etc. email shows up in one place). Also introduced was threaded conversation, multiple Exchange accounts (hello Exchange + Google Sync), and fast inbox switching.

Does that solve all our iPhone email woes?

More after the break!

For those with multiple email accounts whose previous iPhone experience involved tapping into and out of those boxes many, many times a day universal inbox is a hugely welcome addition. As with Calendars, Notes, etc. you can tap a button on the top left, in this case Mailboxes, to back into a selection screen where you can then go into All Inboxes, a specific account's inbox (which is considered fast inbox switching), or into the complete folder and sub-folder system of a given account (how Mail has worked from iPhone 1.0 to iPhone 3.0).

Once inside, All Inboxes is visually indistinguishable from an account-specific inbox, it simply contains all of their messages.

What is distinguishable are the small carets (technically greater-than symbols) to the right of replies that indicate a message is part of a thread. A number, typically 2 or 3, accompanies the caret to indicate how many replies are in the thread.

Tapping on a message that's part of a thread doesn't take you to the message but rather to a second list-view, similar to the inbox itself, but containing only the messages from the thread. Tapping on one of them then takes you to the message. A thread view contains a small vertical bar at the top with the subject of the thread and time of the most recent reply. A button to the top left of the message that's part of the thread also contains the subject of the thread and lets you back out and see the thread again. The button then switches to contain the name of the inbox so you can back out again, leave the thread completely, and see all your messages.

So yes, the tap, tap, tap of inbox navigation persists, albeit shifted from moving into and out of inboxes to moving into and out of threaded messages.

Although not yet implemented in the current beta, like iPhone OS 3.2 for iPad, you'll be able to open email attachments in apps. Now there's no iWork (Numbers, Pages, Keynote) for iPhone yet, and the app Apple used to introduce this function doesn't exist on iPhone yet either. Interesting.

Lastly, in previous versions of the iPhone OS, when you wanted to abandon an email, you would hit Cancel and get options to Save (store the email in Drafts), Don't Save (trash the email), and Cancel (go back to writing the email). The naming of these options was likely too confusing so in iPhone OS they've been replaced with a big red Delete button (to trash the email), Save as Draft, and Cancel. And yes, you can still cancel a cancel. (iPad, by contrast, still has Save and Don't Save, but no Cancel since it's in a popover rather than full-screen menu and you can just tap away to cancel).

Apple today introduced Folders for the iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0) Home Screen/app launcher interface.

To use Folders, you start by tapping and holding an icon until it jiggled (like you would to move or delete it). You then drag one icon on top of another and they combine to form a Folder -- a bordered icon with small versions of the contained icons. Folders will name themselves based on the category of the apps you drag into them, or you can edit the name yourself.

Folders behave like any other app -- you can move them around and even place them in the dock for any-screen access. When you tap one, the screen splits open and slides vertically apart to reveal a grid of the apps inside.

This increases the number of apps you can store on your iPhone's 11 Home Screen pages from 180 to over 2000.

But it's still an app launcher at its core, of course. Though, when asked about Widgets Steve Jobs did say Apple implemented them early on in Mac OS X as Dashboard, and simply hadn't had time to do anything with them on the iPhone. (Yet?)

So, does this solve your app managements issues? Or did you need more power? More eye-candy?

Pics and video after the break, or read our complete iPhone OS 4 preview for more!

YouTube link

Apple today announced support for multitasking in iPhone 4.0, which go to developers today and the public this summer. CEO Steve Jobs admitted Apple wasn't first to market with multitasking, but like with cut, copy and paste from iPhone 3.0, he thinks Apple's implementation is best.

Multitasking will be supported for iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 (both released in 2009) but not previous generations like iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G due to hardware limitations. (Presumably it will run just fine on an iPhone G4 this summer...)

In terms of the UI, double-clicking the home button raises the current window and shows you actively running apps in the dock. You can scroll through those apps and rapidly switch between them. State is saved so apps appear persistent to the user. (For example, if you leave a game and come back, you no longer start over -- you start where you left off.)

Inside, Apple's SVP of iPhone Software, Scott Forstall explained they looked at existing apps and distilled 7 services those apps needed to run in background, then provided them via API. According to Apple, these are:

1. Background audio - Allows your app to play audio continuously. So customers can listen to your app while they surf the web, play games, and more.
2. Voice over iP - Your VoIP apps can now be even better. Users can now receive VoIP calls and have conversations while using another app. Your users can even receive calls when their phones are locked in their pocket.
3. Background location - Navigation apps can now continue to guide users who are listening to their iPods, or using other apps. iPhone OS 4 also provides a new and battery efficient way to monitor location when users move between cell towers. This is a great way for your social networking apps to keep track of users and their friends' locations.
4. Push notifications - Receive alerts from your remote servers even when your app isn't running.
5. Local notifications - Your app can now alert users of scheduled events and alarms in the background, no servers required.
6. Task finishing - If your app is in mid-task when your customer leaves it, the app can now keep running to finish the task.
7. Fast app switching - All developers should take advantage of this. This will allow users to leave your app and come right back to where they were when they left - no more having to reload the app.

Pandora said it took 1 day to recode and enable background in their app. Skype is also shown (which may explain their delayed 3G launch?)

Overall, it appears like Apple has once again abstracted a concept from low-level and developer-centric to higher level and OS-managed. Like Grand Central does for multi-core dispatch in Mac OS X, or CoreData, CoreAnimation, etc. do across Apple's platforms, it does the heavy-lifting and tries to maximize user experience at the same time.

Our question for you is, does this beat Palm webOS cards or Android multitasking? Is it enough to make you happy?

Pics and video after the break, or read our complete iPhone OS 4 preview for more!

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iPhone OS 4 beta 2 fast app switching animation:

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Done21.com has discovered something interesting in the online iPad user-guide: a new JavaScript framework they've dubbed AdLib (after its filename) that allows for very native app look and feel in the decidedly web-based app.

AppleInsider notes that it appears to be related to the PastryKit framework used for the iPhone user-guide (which stands to reason), and the TuneKit framework used for iTunes LP and iTunes Extra. And that the name may tie-in to the iAd rumors, and to internal efforts on Apple's part to raise the bar of web apps and diminish the need for plugins like Flash and Java.

Could we find out more at Apple's iPhone 4.0 event tomorrow? We certainly hope so. As much as some decry the closed nature of the App Store, developing for Safari is wide open and a new class of better, faster, stronger web apps is ultimately good for everyone.

Video after the break!

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Tomorrow at 10am PT, 1pm ET, Steve Jobs puts sneaker to stage and, along with SVP of iPhone software, Scott Forstall, gives us a sneak preview of the highly anticipated iPhone 4.0. No one outside Apple knows exactly what new features and paradigms iPhone 4.0 will offer. However, tradition demands we make our best guesses and ask you to do the same.

This isn't what we want, mind you. We told Apple what we want back on December 25, 2009: multitasking, better notifications, widgets for the home screen, instant access to important settings, themes, gestures like pervasive pull-down-to-refresh, system-wide "back" implementation, orientation lock, and resolution independence, along with a ton of great reader suggestions in the comments. We've also asked for a Finder app, like the Photo but to store document files.

This is what we think we'll actually get, given the rumors and the direction Apple looks to be going. This is us, TiPb staff and TiPb readers reading the tea leaves...

iPhone 3.2 (aka iPad) features

This is the most obvious, really (and we've written about it before). All the little tweaks and enhancements Apple has made to the underlying OS, like adding "replace" to cut, copy, and paste, adding spell check to auto-correct, adding dictionary lookup to text select, etc. Wallpaper for the Home Screen, week view in Calendar and the other, sometimes small but still important, chance to the built-in apps, should be there as well. So should Bluetooth keyboard support. Oh, and iBooks.

Better Mail handling

Steve Jobs himself reportedly responded to an email saying a "universal inbox" was coming. That means, like Mac Mail but unlike current iPhone Mail, users with multiple accounts would have the option of seeing all their new messages in one place and not have to tap into and out of multiple folders every time they wanted to check every new message in every account. (Yes that sentence was crafted to feel as laborious as the current process!). Whether we'll see more than that -- IMAP IDLE, multiple exchange accounts, "synergy"-like messaging integration, etc. is unknown.

Multitasking (of a sort)

We've been hearing this for a while now -- that Apple will offer some level of multitasking in iPhone 4.0. We've even seen it in the shadows. The three use-cases that it could cover are background tasks (listening to streaming internet radio while you browse Safari, keeping navigation running while you check Mail), fast task switching (going from Notes to Contacts and back), and multi-window workflow (dragging data from one application space into another).

While the "Pandora" model could easily be handled by allowing streaming accounts to be entered inside iPod (which already has background access going back to iPhone 1.0), the navigation model won't be solved unless there's a more universal background implementation. However, Apple has always put stability and mainstream user friendliness ahead of power-user functionality. A compromise seems most like -- full background access for a highly limited number of applications.

Fast task switching was accomplished in large part by the speed of iPhone 3GS. What remains missing is the consistent saving of state by apps on exit (if you leave a twitter client or a race game and then go back it should be at exactly the place you left it), and a more elegant way to quickly move between apps -- swiping between two apps 11 screens apart isn't very Apple. The rumor here is for a Mac OS X-style Exposé implementation where a double-click of the Home Button would cause the current screen to fly out and a grid of active (background) apps to fly in. That sounds much more Apple.

Multi-window drag-and-drop may not be obvious given the small size of the iPhone, but given how Palm's webOS Cards view presents apps -- and how the iPhone Safari Pages view does likewise -- is remains a tease. Still, we don't expect it. Not yet.

New home screen (SpringBoard)

SpringBoard is the internal name of Apple's Home Screen UI, which right now consists of an 11 page-wide application launcher grid with SpotLight search bolted on to the right. Rumors have persisted since before iPhone 3.0 that Apple has a new SpringBoard experience waiting in the wings. Again, there are several elements that could be at play: better organization, glance-able information, themes.

We're not wishing here, so no grandiose "Apple will re-invent the metaphor for home screens with some ingenious new approach". We're looking at what Apple has already done for clues as to where they're going. Stacks, then, where groups of similar apps are combined together until a tap expands them into a grid-launcher would be reasonable. Likewise, Dashboard where useful, glance-able information is always just a tap (or swipe) away. Dashboard could even integrate SpotLight, allowing it to replace a singletasker with a multitasker (how fitting). It could function similarly on the Lock Screen, for ultimate glance-ability.

We don't see themes, however. Though they'd be a boon to users and designers/developers alike, they don't seem very Apple (beyond the home screen wallpaper already mentioned).

Improved notification handling

We've beaten this one to death -- if you get a constant stream of SMS, IM, game challenges, or any heavy amount of notifications each new one obliterates the one before meaning all but the most recent functionally never existed and hence never notified you of anything. Both Android and Palm webOS do this more functionally, though developers have complained to us that it may be too complex for the mainstream market Apple is targeting (too much management for mom). Could Apple create a more robust yet still drop-dead-simple notification system for the iPhone? Sure, and given how fast and far push notification has been adopted, we think it's likely they will.

The simplest solution would be a Notification app (please, no smiley face logo) that listed all new notifications. When you've received multiple notifications, the dialog would show the most recent but also inform you of how many others you've missed, and an option to "see all" would be presented.

But that would likely make no one happy. This more than multitasking might be the most difficult nut to crack, and may end up being part of that new Home Screen mentioned above. That's closer to guess work than we're comfortable with for this post, however, so we'll just leave it there for now.

iAd platform

"iAd" was rumored to be shown off on April 7, and April 8 is just a day later. Apple's mobile advertising platform could certainly be part of the iPhone 4.0 SDK feature set unveiled for developers. Gossip says Steve Jobs wants to do for mobile advertising what iTunes did for digital music -- make it not suck. We certainly hope so. Punch-the-monkey with push notifications is certainly not the new Home Screen experience we want.

iTunes.com

It's fairly certain iTunes is moving to the cloud and becoming something akin to iTunes.com. We'd love to see streaming video from Apple, MobileMe "whispersync" to keep our place between iPhone and iPad, and other great, media-centric features. But Apple typically saves those for September to coincide with the new iPod touch and lately, new iTunes releases.

###Mobile iChat

We put this here just for Chad. We still think Mobile iChat (text and audio/video) is coming but not until the 4th generation iPhone is revealed at WWDC 2010. Apple usually holds a few new OS features back to show off the new hardware (like Compass, VoiceControl, etc. last year). Patience, Chad!

MobileMe 2.0

Beyond "whispersync" MobileMe has fallen so far behind Google services, DropBox and others that Apple really has to up its game here. Photo sync, cloud backup, and other features have gone from nice-to-have to must-have. Again, however, that feels more like a WWDC 2010 Phil Schiller announcement to us.

One more thing...?

That's what we think is most likely to come with iPhone 4.0 tomorrow, but Apple has shown they can always surprise us (who expected the long, long list of previously missing features rattled off at the iPhone 3.0 event?). What are you expecting to see?

Apple's iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event invitation features the number four, though its shown in the corner, mostly cut off, identifiable only by its shadow.

The iPhone 2.0 event featured a road map apropos of the SDK introduction. The iPhone 3.0 event featured blueprints, perhaps a nod to the construction going on within the OS.

What then to make of iPhone 4.0's artwork? Dieter stared at it for a couple minutes to glean what he could and came up with this: the 4 is in the background. Shadows are typically in the background.

Are we reading too much into it? Are you reading something different? Share your best guesses in the comments!

Apple will be holding their iPhone 4.0 event, tagged "Get a sneak peak into the future of iPhone OS" on Thursday, April 8. Yes, that's this Thursday.

Apparently Apple can go from iPad launch to iPhone OS sneak preview in 5 days flat. Wow.

More as this develops...

[Engadget, thanks for the tip Damon!]

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Chad and Rene discuss the iPad launch, iPhone 4.0 and iPhone G4 rumors, Steve and Eric having lunch, iPhone on Verizon again, and all the week's news. Listen in!

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AppleInsider is adding to the multitasking rumors we've been hearing for a while now, saying iPhone 4.0 will finally extend the same benefits to 3rd party apps that Apple's own Mail, Phone, and iPod apps (among others) enjoy.

Using a key combination, such as the double Home click that now triggers Spotlight or Camera (or whatever you choose in Settings), the current app would zoom out and you'd get a grid view of all running apps, similar to Mac OS X's Exposé feature. Tap an app, it zooms in, and you're good to go. How many apps will be allowed to run at once, and whether or not multitasking will work on older, RAM-starved iPhone 2G and iPhone 3G devices is unknown. (iPhone 3GS has double their RAM, and we're hoping the 4th gen iPhone doubles that again for buttery smooth multitasking).

Whatever the implementation, Apple has a to make sure the new functionality is enough for power users but not too confusing for the mainstream. Apple's success to date has largely been based on their ease of use as much as their ecosystem so keeping that is key.

Also mentioned again is the Universal Inbox Steve Jobs "confirmed" previously, where you can see all new email messages in one view and not have to tap into and out of each account (if you have work, home, school, or any combination of multiple emails).

Lastly, they claim Apple will allow you to pin contacts to the Home Page for speed dialing, much as you could previously pin web page icons for speed browsing. Just tap the husband, wife, friend, or partner's picture and you're off an dialing.

We still have no idea when we'll see iPhone 4.0, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for a post-iPad beta launch and a typical summertime release. Right, Apple?

Daring Fireball often blurs the line between carefully concealed wink-nudge leak and flat out facetious commentary, so with that in mind John Gruber has this to say about the 4th generation iPhone (which still won't be called iPhone 4G!):

• Apple A4-family system-on-a-chip. Nothing on whether that would be the ARM Cortex A9 multicore CPU with brand new PowerVR SGX GPU we've been drooling over, however.
• 960x640 display. That would be bigger than even the bigger DROID Google Android phone, but fit perfectly with the mediocre pixel-doubling announced for current iPhone apps on the iPad's 1024x768 display.
• Front facing camera. Which would mean all those iChat Video rumors we've been hearing about forever would finally come true, albeit after the HTC EVO 4G broke the barrier.
• 3rd party multitasking in iPhone 4.0. Yeah, that one we've got covered going way back. Which just don't know how they're going to implement it yet?

Again, this could just be Gruber cracking wise at the WSJ's Verizon-rumoring expense. However, a lot of this might also be considered obvious things Apple "has to do" to stay competitive. Yet Apple hasn't exactly been pushing the hardware specs since the iPhone 2G back in 2007. Steve Jobs was rumored to have said the next iPhone will be an A+ upgrade. Is the above a good start?

UPDATE: Engadget says they're hearing it will launch on June 22 and be called the iPhone HD. Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

MacRumors got a look at the licensing agreement and noticed the following little gem with regards to free (like iPhone) vs. paid (like iPod touch) updates:

Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free. For example, if your iPad originally shipped with iPad 3.x software, Apple would provide you with any iPad OS software updates it might release up to and including the iPad 4.x software release. Such updates and releases may not necessarily include all of the new software features that Apple releases for newer iPad models.

In other words, if you get the 1st gen iPad with iPhone 3.2 on it this weekend, you'll get iPhone 4.0 for free sometime later this year (we hope!) but will have to pay for 5.0 sometime in 2011. (The last iPod touch upgrade was $10 -- not as nice as free but well worth it given the functionality added).

What do you think, fair or foul?

While Apple will almost certainly release a 4th generation iPhone this June or July, it won't be an iPhone 4G because 4G LTE networks in the US won't be up and running in significant enough quantities until 2011 or 2012 but Sprint is slowly rolling out a competing 4G WiMax network and has just announced a competing uber-phone to go with it -- the Android 2.1 powered, Sense UI shellacked HTC EVO 4G.

Our buddy Phil Nickinson from Android Central is on the ground at CTIA 2010 and bringing us back the full Sprint EVO 4G video and hands on, but suffice it to say, once again HTC is just showing off. The specs are obscene. Total. Gadget. Porn.

First and foremost, the thing is a beast. A 4.3-inch LED touchscreen -- same as the HD2 -- and the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor. A gigabyte of ROM and 512 of RAM round out what's under the hood.

Like taking pictures? There's an 8-megapixel camera and dual flashes -- for sheer candle power -- to take care of that. Wanna record moving pictures in 720p? No sweat. Plus, there's a basic 1.3MP camera on the front of the phone -- pretty much a first for a U.S. carrier-sanctioned device. Now you just have to have apps that support it.

Of course, if you record in HD, you might as well have HD playback, right? And for that, there's a mini-HDMI port, so you can go straight from the Evo 4G to an HD television. There's a cute little kickstand, too, which makes the Evo 4G great for watching movies.

Now Steve Jobs is rumored to have said the iPhone G4 (not iPhone 4G!) will be an A+ upgrade, but what does that mean? Will the lack of 4G networking hurt them? We doubt it. Will less-than-EVO specs?

Apple has repeatedly said they believe software -- not hardware -- is their key advantage, so will they even try to match specs with HTC or are they hoping iPhone 4.0 (with its rumored multitasking) will be enough to stay ahead of even beefier handsets?

We know Apple has to bring it in 2010, but the bar for that bring might just have been raised again. Take a gander at the new king of iPhone competition (for this month at least) and let us know what you think!

Apple CEO and part time CSR Steve Jobs is on a roll replying to the faithful about the state and status of their beloved gadgets, this time giving word on Google Docs to iPad, and a universal inbox for iPhone Mail and a confirmation on free ePub eBook support for iTunes and iBooks.

First up, TUAW tells us:

Late last night, a TUAW reader sent us an email that was reportedly from Jobs. The reader asked if there was a way he could transfer his Google Docs to his iPad through iWork.com or iDisk. Jobs' reply? "Yes."

Reader Julio R. asked Steve if we can expect a universal mailbox on the iPhone. His answer? "Yep."

iPhone 4.0 perhaps?

Also, TiPb Facebook friend Andrea N sent us word that he double checked with Jobs about free ePub books (like those we mentioned yesterday from Project Gutenberg) working on the iPad. The response? Another "Yep".

While the brevity (even terseness) of Jobs' emails entertain at times, it's amazing to see him respond at all, let alone so frequently. (Though we'd love to see Ballmer and Schmidt responding from their BlackBerry Nexus Ones and Windows Phones respectively...

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Chad and Rene discuss iPad pre-orders, GDC 2010, iPhone 4.0 rumors, Google vs. Apple, Windows Phone 7 series, and all the week's news. Listen in!

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One year ago today Apple held their iPhone 3.0 SDK Sneak Peak event and released iPhone 3.0 Beta 1, giving all of us our first look at cut, copy, and paste, MMS, tethering, Spotlight search, Voice Memo, in-app purchases, turn-by-turn navigation, stereo Bluetooth, pervasive landscape keyboard, P2P gaming, and whole bunch more.

Now, a year later, we've gone to version 3.1.3 release and 3.2 beta, from 30 million iPhone and iPod touch devices on the market to over 75 million (and 150 thousand iPad pre-orders), and don't even get us started about the apps.

So happy birthday iPhone 3.0, and if it isn't indelicate of us to say, should you see iPhone 4.0 lounging around the Apple labs, please do tell it to hurry along and send out invites for its debut. We're about ready to celebrate the next big preview.

[via @bengilliam]

AppleInsider is reporting that they are hearing from reliable sources to expect multitasking in Apple's iPhone 4.0 software. This is not the first time we've heard about multitasking being included in 4.0 but if it does hold up to be true it should silence many of the iPhone haters out there while making all iPhone owners jump for joy.

The iPhone currently does do some very minimal multitasking with apps such as email and iPod, but those of you with jailbroken devices are well aware that the iPhone can handle full blown multitasking with ease. Apple has just been shy to enable it since day one claiming it would bring poor battery performance along with various security threats.

The sources also claim the 4.0 software is still a long way off from being finished (this summer) so show some patience as good things come to those who wait.

Anyone else excited for some iPhone 4.0?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Following on Daring Fireball's suggestion that iPhone 4.0 might bring the Calculator, Clock, Stocks, Weather, and Voice Memo to the iPad, The Loop Insight argues that it might just be iPhone 4.1 instead:

Phone OS 4.0 will include lots of new features, just like you would expect to see from Apple. However, It doesn’t make sense for Apple to unify the two operating systems for 4.0 with the timeline they are working with.

Rather, I expect Apple to release OS 4.1 in September or October. It will not only address issues with the 4.0 release, but also unify the operating systems.

iPhone 4.0 would presumably hit with the 4th generation iPhone (not to be confused with an iPhone 4G for LTE which is likely 2012). For the last two years, new iPhone software has been released as beta at SDK preview events in March while new iPhone hardware has been debuted at WWDC in June. New iPod touch hardware has followed in September, typically with updated software.

If Apple sticks to this pattern, the above does indeed make sense as getting as many users -- iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch alike -- on the same version of the OS is better for Apple, better for developers, and better for users.

For us, we'll take it one step at a time and wait for that iPhone 4.0 sneak preview...

Why are there no Clock, Calculator, Voice Memo, Weather, or Stocks apps on the iPad? Because Steve Jobs didn't think they worked on the larger iPad screen, according to Daring Fireball's John Gruber.

It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.

Gruber was responding to theories that these apps would instead be offered as App Store downloads, or could be part of some secret widget dashboard implementation. In other words, that it's a design issue, not a technical issue.

However, new UI that would make the iPad an amazing bedside clock (how's that for a Lock Screen), or show Stocks with a variety of graphs and related news and data, or weather for several days and cities at once, certainly seems possible for Apple's UI wizards. Perhaps they simply lacked time to re-do the apps for the already extended April 3 release date?

Perhaps they’ll appear on the iPad in some re-imagined form this summer with OS 4.0, but when the iPad ships next month, there won’t be versions of these apps. At least that’s the story I’ve heard from a few well-informed little birdies.

Speaking of which, any little birdies hear anything about an iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event yet? Or is everyone just focused on getting the iPad out right now?

Source: Daring Fireball