Just on the heels of the iPad launch Apple today hosted some media to talk about their new iPhone Operating System: iPhone OS 4. Overall it looks like there will be some really cool things that can be done with the new OS 4, but there were a few things that really stood out to us from a user experience perspective.
We are going to get a copy of the Developer Preview and play with it over the weekend and provide a backdoor perspective next week. But, for today its all about the end user:
New Features
According to one of Steve's slides over 100 new features will be added in OS 4 here are some that stood out to us:
- Tap to Focus Video
- 5x Digital Zoom (about time!)
- Places in Photos
- Home Screen Wall Paper
- Search SMS/MMS Messages
- Web Search Suggestions
- CalDAV Invites
- Spell Check
- Persistent Wi-Fi
- Upload workouts to Nike+
Tentpoles
Steve Jobs referred to the major changes as his 7 Tentpoles. We won't go indepth into each of them, but we were impressed that only one of them was really lame.
Multitasking
While they talked a lot about how they were going to not let multitasking drain the battery…they never really said how. But we were impressed that they finally got around to making it work. If you double click the home button it calls up a little dock and shows the running apps. Pretty sweet. (Photos from engadget)
Folders
This is a LONG time coming. You can now group your apps into folders. Pretty easy to do: Just touch an app and hold it until they do that familiar jiggle and then drag one app onto another and a folder is automatically created. Apple auto names the folders according to the app function or you can rename the folder yourself.
Email Enhancement
This was the most exciting because the mail feature was great if you only have one account…but with the amount of projects many of us are involved with we have multiple accounts and using them all with iPhone hasn't been easy. They have introduced these features:
- Unified Inbox – All incoming emails in one inbox!
- Fast Inbox Switching – In the past it was tough to switch between inboxes (by my count it takes 4 taps just to get to another inbox.)
- You can choose to organize your emails by thread. This will help a lot with work because threads can be separated by several hours and trying to find the various emails can be frustrating
- The ability to open attachments with apps!!!
iBooks
Not a shocker and not much to say. Its natural for them to try and take share away from Kindle for iPhone since they have the bookstore up and running for iPad.
Enterprise
If there is one market Apple hasn't tapped well its the business market. They are offering these improvements to start trying to break in:
- Mobile Device Management
- Wireless App distribution
- Multiple exchange accounts
- Exchange Server 2010
- SSL VPN support
Nothing too cool for the average user, but for those whose companies have declined to support iPhone because of security will get to tell them to come up with another excuse.
Game Center
I didn't realize this: Apple has over 50,000 games which is more than 7 times more than Nintendo DS and Sony PSP combined! WOW! The game center will allow you to play games with friends across the network, online leaderboards, invite friends to play, capture achievements, etc. They learned from watching games like Words With Friends!
We have long said that people want to be in community…this is why social media is huge.
iAds
Apple announced their new ad program while poking fun at developers that create those horrible in game ads that take you out of the game experience and make you start all over. UGH! (They actually said those ads "suck"!) The only crazy thing is the revenue split: Devs 60% – Apple 40%. WOW!
So, Apple is holding everyone hostage because they own the OS and the hottest phone in the world. Good for them. I still never click on ads in games and I doubt these ads will cause me to do that. I didn't open an app because I wanted to do something else…I wanted to play a certain game.
Most users don't really care about ads so we won't talk much about them here.
Final Opinion
I am pretty excited as an iPhone user. The email functionality should be pretty awesome and the game center should make playing games even more addictive than they are now. OS 4 comes to phones this Summer and to iPad this Fall.
