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Title: iPhone OS 4.0 Reaction Round-Up Post by: HCK on April 09, 2010, 05:21:14 am iPhone OS 4.0 Reaction Round-Up
Well, that was quite an iPhone OS presentation, huh? A number of things announced today about OS 4.0 had already been out there in the rumor mill (multitasking and some sort of something with iAd), but nothing is quite like seeing the real thing.If you noticed a sluggishness on the web today, that's because everyone was glued to the presentation, refreshing and refreshing their favorite live blogging and opining away on Twitter. As always when there's big news, come here first. Mac|Life knows what you're after.Our first link is to our very own iPhone OS 4.0 collection of articles, news, and reactions. If we wrote about it today, this is where you will find it all. But let's say you want a few of our most popular stories from the day and you don't want to scroll through every single last one of them looking for it? Well, all right, all right, hold your horses. We've got that too.- Multitasking Confirmed for iPhone OS 4.0 - Yes, yes, and yes, the question everyone's been asking for what seems like forever. Multitasking comes to the iPhone and iPad. And the implementation is sweet and simple, just what you'd expect. - iBooks: Take Them Wherever You May Go - Turns out it isn't just the iPad that'll be getting iBooks, and Apple's decided to emulate the best thing about the Kindle app, syncing your last page read among all your iBooks loaded devices. Sweet.- Unified Inboxes: Finally, A Better Way to View Mail with Your iPhone - With an eye toward ever simplifying the user experience, Apple wants to take your five mailboxes and all the back and forth tapping and turn them into one nice big mailbox. We're not so sure about this one. We love the idea of less screen tapping, but we have things separate for a reason.- Our Best Photos from the iPhone OS 4.0 Event - We sent a crack photographer out to the iPhone OS 4.0 event and came back with this gallery of shots. Granted, not the world's best seats, but with a screen the size Steve was standing in front of, there wasn't a chance we'd miss a thing.- Game Center: Get a Little More "Pew Pew" Out of your iPhone - There had been news of Apple looking to get into the social media game in a big way. Turns out, that just happens to be one of the tentpoles we kept hearing about today. Ready to broadcast to all your gamer friends just how well you were doing in Bejewled? - 10 Things We Want in iPhone OS 4.0 - Our list of wants and dreams written before the big event. How'd we do? Not too shabby. - Folders and Custom Backgrounds Will Be Included in iPhone OS 4 - Here's one that answers one of the questions in the the article above.- Live Blog: iPhone OS 4.0 Event - And lastly, relive the memories of refreshing and refreshing and refreshing our Live Blog. No, really, no refreshing necessary.All right, all right, there's a whole world out there that isn't just Mac|Life (though we know you love us best), and it turns out they had some interesting things to say about the big Keynote as well. For starters, Apple.com would be a good place to start.- Apple OS 4 Event - Watch Steven and the gang as they roll out the new OS in QuickTime and MPEG-4 glory. Relive Steve's poor showing in Tap Tap Revenge. Drool over the new GUI designs. - iPhone OS 4.0 SDK is Live - Okay, okay, you've enjoyed the video, now get your butt on over to the Developer end of things and sign up. Get that dream app you've always had in the back of your mind out onto the screen and into the hands of millions.But let's see what everyone else is going on about.Camera zoom on the iPhone sounds pretty sweet and it's nestled there in the SDK. Check out the screenshots 9to5Mac is sporting. While it seems to be more of a cropping of the visual frame rather than a legitimate zoom per se, we're wondering now about those new model iPhones that should be coming out soon....And you'll have a few more picture editing options as well by the looks of this screenshot also from 9to5 Mac. Make it a wall paper, rotate it, assign directly to a contact.Will the iPhone OS 4.0 really allow camera flash? According to AppleInsider, developers noticed a bit in the frameset that included references to AVCaptureDevice.hasFlash, AVCaptureDevice.flashMode, and AVCaptureDevice.hasTorch. So at least you'll be getting some kind of flash on your iPhone.Because you won't be getting Adobe's Flash on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, not even in developer's creations. Apple has decided to up the ante on how much they hate Flash by including a clause in the new SDK agreement that bans the use of private APIs, including Adobe's. At least, that's how Daring Fireball's John Gruber reads it, according to macnn.comOkay, so not even Flash-designed games. But you might just be getting more than one line on your iPhone. Wait a second. What's that? Once again, head on over to 9to5Mac for a screenshot of the About screen in the OS 4.0 and scratch your head over the addition of the "Line" field. (They've got lots of screenshot goodness there tonight.)Or as an even tastier possibility, check out this tidbit from AppleInsider about iChatAgent being a new background process. According to their source, the code even includes the strings "front facing" and "back facing." Additional front facing camera in the new hardware anyone?In more screenshot goodness, TUAW has an example of what the new spellcheck feature will look like. Imagine the Copy & Paste toolbar that appears...ah, heck, just go have a look. It's pretty.TUAW also talks up iAd, which we have to say we're kind of of two minds about. We don't mind pretty ads so much and plenty of our free apps have them, we're just leery of how far these new interactive ads will go and worry about launching them all the time with our fat fingers.And while we're going to get some of this sweet OS 4.0 lovin going on with our 3G model, we're not going to get everything, including the awesomeness that is multitasking. At this point, that's the only specific thing we hear we're getting screwed out of...but isn't that enough? Okay, related to the last link, this is a hard one for some of us. With our older model 3G iPhones, we didn't want to admit that maybe our babies just aren't up to multitasking. No, we'd rather accuse Apple of conspiring to force us into a hardware upgrade. Electronista sets us straight and humbles us in the process. We're so sorry, 3G iPhone! We still love you!We're sure there will be more screenshots and hidden nooks and crannies out there leaked to the web for our enjoyment. Today is just about over, but tomorrow is another day, and tomorrow will bring with it all kinds of new things to anticipate the summer release. Meanwhile, why can't we iPhone users get a little of that OS 3.2 that iPad buyers have been enjoying the last few days? A little something fresh to tide us over until OS 4.0 ships? If we had to guess, we'd say we'll get it after the 3G iPads have had a few days to mob the Apple servers for apps apps apps. Hopefully. http://www.maclife.com/article/news/iphone_os_40_reaction_roundup |