Apple iPhone OS4 Keynote: More Than Expected
by Bill French on 09/04/10 at 5:00 am
Bill French is an information architect specializing in Internet applications. He is also the co-founder of MyST Technology Partners and Senior Editor for iPhoneCTO.
As expected, Apple announced more accurate iPad sales than respected Piper Jaffrey analyst, Gene Munster indicated earlier this week. According to Steve Jobs, 450,000 iPads have been sold in the first five days. There’s now more than 3,500 native iPad apps in the app store, and enthusiastically, Steve Jobs remarked, “We have some amazing driving games”.
Jobs also indicated the combined iTunes app store now contains more than 185,000 applications, with a total 4 billion applications downloaded to date.
iPad apps downloaded in the first six days total 3.5 million, and more than 600,000 iBooks. Switching gears back to iPhone, jobs was quick to point out that Apple has won the JD Power award for 2010, and on a roll for the last three years.
Since iPhone was created, more than 50 million units have been sold, and more than 35 million iPodTouch units have been purchased.
7 Tentpole Features of the OS4 SDK
Jobs began the presentation by setting the stage for the new SDK; a collection of more than 100 new user features of which seven are key. The key features of the OS4 SDK our primary elements That provide native functionality and access to a variety of services.
1. Multi-tasking
Predictably, multi-tasking support has been added to the SDK, but according to Jobs, in a manner that is both energy-friendly and performance-enhancing. Jobs went on to say that “… while Apple is late to the multitasking game, it will be the best”.
The user interface seems highly intuitive and provides the ability to scroll through applications that are currently running. To achieve this, Apple designers had to expand the utilization of the dock, Separating it into two layers — one that displays docked applications, and another that displays applications which are running. The basic tenets of multitasking include:
- Background audio
- Voice over IP
- Background location
- Push notifications
- Local notifications
- Task completion
- Fast app switching
This new multitasking ability opens the door to a number of new use cases for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It’s now possible to play music in the background with a third-party applications such as Pandora, while composing e-mail in the foreground or perhaps playing a game. More important, time-centric tasks such as receiving a Skype call even when the application is not running in the background, is critical. The Apple team demonstrated this live with a real call to an iPhone. Skype calls can also be maintained while running a different application, so if you’re chatting about something and you need to jump over to a business analytics products such as ClickView, or make a reservation while you have someone on the phone, scenarios like this will be possible in the very near future.
2. Folders
You’re going to love this. Finally a mechanism to clean up your iPhone icon screens, folders provides you with the means to organize all your icons . And this will be incredibly important given that OS4 has expanded the ability to install up to 2000 on your iPhone. Even with a current limitation of 180 apps, folders would come in very handy. How much time you spend looking for an app that you want to run quickly? While the search functionality and OS 3.2 has helped mitigate this problem folders are certainly a better approach.
Folders work exactly how you might expect — a folder itself is an icon on the desktop. Hold it down and it jiggles — drag apps into it and you are done. This will enhance the productivity for everyone that uses iPhone and manages a significant number of applications.
3. Unified e-Mail
The unified e-mail service makes it possible to create a single inbox regardless of how many email accounts are installing your iPhone.This will be a significant improvement in e-mail task productivity.
4. iBooks for iPhone
This was unexpected, but it makes a lot of sense. With iBooks for iPhone you will be able to synchronize you are reading between iPad and iPhone and this includes bookmarks, highlights, and the book resources themselves. iBooks for iPhone will, therefore, include a reader application. So you will be able to read on either device and stay in sync with where you left off.
5. Enterprise Enhancements
Apple continues to try to impress enterprise technology leaders and has implemented a number of new features in OS4 that will help companies better solutions. The high points of Apple’s enterprise enhancements include:
- Even better data protection
- Mobile device management
- Wireless app distribution
- Multiple exchange accounts
- Exchange Server 2010
- SSL VPN support
6. Game Center
Embracing the undeniable fact that iPhone has emerged to become a significant game platform, and the likelihood that iPad will also emerge as a game platform leader, Apple has decided to enhance its presence with Game Center. There are 50,000 game and entertainment titles on the app store today, and this new service, presumably integrated into iTunes, will include a social gaming network, the ability to invite friends, a way to connect with gamers of similar interests, and participate in leader boards and gain recognition for achievements.
7. iAd (Mobile Advertising Network)
With iAd, Apple is entering a new medium, mobile advertising. iAd is intended to integrate advertising experiences into iPhone applications and presumably, iPad in the future. Jobs believes that mobile advertising is fundamentally different – mobile users do not search for goods and services; rather, they want to remain in their apps, and selectively engage with ads that are emotional and interactive an all without leaving their apps.
Overall, OS4 will make a pretty big splash as soon as developers have had enough time to integrate these new capabilities into their apps. OS4 also has the capacity to encourage developers to create new types of apps. The developer preview edition is available today, and support for iPhone and iPod Touch will be released this summer. Support for OS4 will not be available for iPad until this fall.
