Apple announces iPhone OS 4.0
Yesterday Apple held a press conference at their corporate campus and introduced iPhone OS 4.0. Anticipation was high as many iPhone users were excited to hear about the new features coming to their phone. The long-awaited multitasking on the iPhone has finally arrived, sort of. Apple has released multitasking APIs for such applications like Pandora and Skype meaning you can still receive Skype calls or listen to music while doing other tasks as well. Some other applications like games can be put on hold when switching applications, then brought back to the same spot when going back to that application. To access open apps, you just double click the home button and a new dock pops up with open applications. The downside is multitasking will only be available on the iPhone 3GS and the iPad, meaning iPhone 3G and original iPhones will be left out of the multitasking action.
Apple has also introduced custom home screen wallpapers. This means that you can set a custom image to be your wallpaper while on the home screen instead of having the standard black background. Another addition to iPhone OS 4.0 is the ability to create folders. If you are sick of having 30 games all over your home screen, this will be of interest to you. By just dragging one app on top of another, you can create a folder to house similar apps. Steve Jobs showed off the iBooks app for the iPhone, which is similar to the one on the iPad. It will automatically sync all your books and pages from your iPad to iPhone and vice versa.
While trying to compete with Windows Phone 7 Xbox interface, Apple has developed Game Center that will allow you to challenge your friends to a game, matchmake with other players, or look at leaderboards. There will also be achievements.
