Apple Announces iPhone OS 4.0 [Video Demo]

Earlier today Apple unveiled the next generation of iPhone firmware "iPhone OS 4.0" at an event held at their One Infinite Loop Campus in Cupertino.

iPhone OS 4.0 Features List

Here’s what Apple has come up with in iPhone OS 4.0. Checkout the complete list of iPhone OS 4.0 features. Lets start with the 7 big features of iPhone firmware 4.0.

Multitasking

One of the big and most anticipated feature of the iPhone OS 4.0 that was announced is Multitasking, to activate multitasking on iPhone Os 4.0 double click the home button and a window pops-up that shows all the apps that are running. Like a dock you can call up, user can also go to the home page. The simple UI puts all the apps that are running at the bottom and provides a list you can scroll through.

Listed below are just some of the eye-catching multitaking services Apple is providing as APIs to developers:

• Background audio
• VoIP
• Background location
• Push notifications
• Local notifications
• Task completion
• Fast app switching

Check out the video below to see multitasking in action:

iAd – iPhone Mobile Advertising Platform

Another big feature of iPhone Os 4.0 is the most anticipated mobile advertising platform iAd. Apple has a plan to earn more via iAd platform with a 60/40 revenue split. This is what Steve Jobs said about the iAd:

When you look at ads on a phone, it's not like a desktop. On a desktop, search is where it's at. But on mobile devices, that hasn't happened. Search is not happening on phones; people are using apps. And this is where the opportunity is to deliver advertising is. [...] The average user spends over 30 minutes every day using apps on their phone. If we said we wanted to put an ad up every 3 minutes, that's 10 ads per device per day. That would be 1b ad opportunities per day.[...] This is a pretty serious opportunity, and it's an incredible demographic. But we want to do more than that. We want to change the quality of the ads too.[...]You know the ads on the web -- they're eye catching and interactive, but they don't deliver emotion. What we want to do with iAds is deliver interaction and emotion.

Steve Jobs also demonstrated a completely interactive ad, almost like a sub-app inside the application. He Embedded video, then just tapped on a poster and added it as wallpaper.

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Enhanced Mail

The first feature introduces under Mail enhancement is unified inbox. All of your mail is in one inbox. So, you can add more than one Exchange account. Now if you want to focus on one account, Apple has added fast inbox switching. You can also organize by thread in iPhone Os 4.0. Apple has also added open attachments ability in the Mail.app in iPhone OS 4.0. But you need a 3rd party app to view the attachment.

So, here’s what’s new in Mail.app:

• Unified inbox
• Multiple exchange accounts
• Fast inbox switching.
• Threaded message
• Open attachment with apps

Enterprise

Here are the features for Enterprises added in the iPhone firmware 4.0.

• Better data protection
• mobile device management
• wireless app distribution
• Support for multiple Exchange accounts
• Exchange Server 2010
• new VPN options.

Game Center – Social Gaming Network

Apple introduces social gaming network in iPhone OS 4.0 to strengthen it’s gaming platform. Bye Bye Plus+ and Open Feint.

iBooks for iPhone OS 4.0

Yes, apple has introduced iBooks for iPhone via iPhone OS 4.0. Using iBooks, you can buy your books once and read them anywhere. You can wireless sync your books between platforms.

Folders

Apple has introduced Categories like features in iPhone OS 4.0 named Folders. You can put similar apps into a folder. To do so, simply tap and hold an app, it will start jiggle, just drag one app on top of another and it instantly makes a folder. It also automatically names the folder based on the categories of these apps, or you can rename. The folder icon becomes a multi-icon icon.You may create as many folders as you like and drag this around anywhere you want. You can also put a folder in the dock.

The folder feature enables you to use over 2000 apps, before iPhone OS 4.0 it was 180 apps.

5x digital zoom

Could this hint at a higher quality camera in the next hardware? 3.2 megapixels seems a bit low for 5x digital zoom.

Bluetooth keyboards

Another carryover from the iPad, Bluetooth keyboard support will finally come to iPhone 4.

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There were over 1500 new API's announced, some of the other features included: Gift apps, Spell Checker, File and delete Mail search results, Home screen Wallpaper, Places in Photos, Top to focus video,Web search suggestion,Search SMS/MMS, iPod Out, Card DAV, Sync IMAP, Notes, Birthday Calendar, Choose image size in mail messages, Persistent Wifi, Top hit in search, Larger Fonts for Mail/SMS and alerts, Nested Playlist and more…

iPhone OS 4.0 beta is available to developers only but we will try to grab you a copy of iPhone firmware 4.0. The firmware will be available to the masses this summer along with the iPhone 4G which is expected to be unveiled at WWDC 2010. OS 4.0 will also come to the iPad this fall.

iPhone OS 4.0 will be released for the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen. And, as for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen, they will have almost all the bells and whistles but there are some things they won’t run, like multitasking.