iOS4
So we’ve been using iOS4 for about a day, and here is our extensive review on all of Apple’s new features.
Please note: Some features are not available on earlier devices, like the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G. All features work on the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 3G. However, with a little bit of jailbreaking you can enable those missing features on your earlier devices. More on jailbreaking iOS4 in the future.
So without further delay, here is our review on Apple’s iOS 4 that will be accompanying the iPhone 4 during its release (end of June).
Multitasking
Multitasking has been such an anticipated feature for the iPhone, even with the idea of “Push Notifications” as a “reminder” tool. Unfortunately Apple have decided to stop iPhone3G users from using this awesome feature, because they claim the hardware “cannot support the experience”. Whilst that is true, it is a little bit slow on an iPhone3G, it can be enabled by jailbreaking and modifying certain files. More on that later.
But for a 3GS, it was another one of those Apple moments when youʼre using an Apple product to do something you have never done before, and it feels natural, and smooth. Just double tap the home button, and there it is, a little task bar (in the theme of the old dock) just pops up from nothing at the bottom of the screen, with the applications you have running right there in it. No delay, no freezing. Unlike a 3G. So perhaps Apple were right to remove Multitasking for the iPhone3G – it’s not quite there.
Swiping left reveals MORE controls, including a portrait orientation lock, and controls for whatever-music-player-you-have-open-at-the-time, for myself, mostly iPod. But Steve Jobs at WWDC showed off Pandora being controlled by the same controls. And then double-tap the home button or tap above to continue using your app.
Folders
If you’re like me, and you download lots of apps from the App Store, it’s more than likely your homescreen will be cluttered and this makes it impossible to find the one app you’re looking for. Well Folders attempts to solve that!
The idea is simple: drag on App onto another one, and a folder is created! Simple! It’s named based on the categories the Apps are in on the App Store – but you can rename it if you want. So far, I’ve created a “Social”, “News” (containing WebClips too since they can be organised by folders), “Games” and “Utilities”. I’ve also crammed all those apps Apple force me to have that I’ve never used (like “Stocks”, for example) into a folder called “Apple Apps” too. Ace 
This is one of the features that make iOS4 spectacular. In simple terms, it takes 5 or 6 homescreens and condenses them into 2. And I think that’s a feature that will be well welcomed by the iPhone community.
Mail
Mail on iOS has been under construction and now those new features are being unleashed to us all!
The main new feature for mail is the ease of switching between Inboxes, and now, a unified Inbox. This is especially useful if you have more than 1 email address and want to receive all your email on your mobile device. Currently, you need to back out of the Inbox, back out of All Mailboxes, and then select your new account, select Inbox, then the email you want. And reverse those steps to get back to the first Inbox. Which is ridiculous and extremely time consuming. This new feature takes 2 taps – and there is your other Inbox.
Another smart feature comes in the forms of Threaded view. If you are having email conversations – constantly reply to 1 person on the same topic (Usually the subject has RE: in it) then Mail can display all the conversation in a threaded view. This is extremely useful when keeping track of multiple conversations between different contacts!
iBooks
The iBooks app for iOS will not be available until the end of June, when the software is officially released to the general public, but the previews of it at Apple’s WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) this year show syncing between all of your devices running iOS, as well as PDF viewing, notes and bookmarks.
Create Playlists
If you use the iPod application a lot, you’ll know you can create “On-the-go” playlists, but once created and arranged, you can’t edit those playlists. And the same with playlists created on your computer. You cannot edit those playlists without your computer.
In iOS4, you can add, delete and re-arrange songs in playlists, so you have full control of all of your playlists on the move!
The Camera Zoom and Tap to Focus Video features aren’t present on the iPhone3G, and you can’t jailbreak to get them since the camera is unable to record video on the iPhone3G.
However it works perfectly on the iPhone3GS.
Faces & Places
These are features present in iPhoto, part of Apple’s iLife suite for Mac OS X, although its possible to get Places on a Windows computer (since the iPhone captures GPS meta data with every image). However I did manage to get Places working with my iPhone3G. Scroll down to see some screenshots of Places.
HomeScreen Wallpaper
Although technically the iPhone3G is unable to customise the homescreen wallpaper, due to Apple’s complaint that “the hardware does not support the features”, jailbreaking and modifying files in iOS can enable iPhone3G users to customise their homescreen wallpaper, with no effect or loss of battery life since it’s merely an image. It is unbelievable that Apple restricted such a simple feature just to, in my opinion, get the latest hardware. This is the one of the reasons I jailbreaked my iPhone3G, so I could enable the features that Apple restricted for no (sensible) reason.
Spell-Check
If you’ve been using your iPhone loads, you’ll know that there is an auto-correct feature, which can get extremely irritating, like when you type “Gapps” and it automatically replaces it with “Gaps”. Very annoying.
But in iOS4, it’s been replaced with a spell-check, which underlines your “incorrect word”, giving you the option to continue writing or, by tapping on the “incorrect word”, correcting it. More similar to a full OS, really
There is also a new app – the Game Centre, but users can’t do much with that except add friends and set a status of their own. Nothing can be done on the Game Centre… until Gaming apps like WeRule or UNO take it up and away!
So thats our review on iOS4. Thanks for reading, and we think it is definitely worth upgrading to it, as well as jailbreaking it if you’re on an iPhone3G! Remember to comment and follow us on Twitter!
Written by James Dryden with parts of it by Henry Streeten.
