Animation Mentor Student
iPhone OS 4.0 released just around two weeks ago. For many who follow Apple’s products, and for iPhone owners in particular, this was a highly-anticipated update, which promised to add many key features to the cell phone’s operating system, including multitasking, application folders, and more. While I have had a full two weeks to acquaint myself with the new OS, in reality the transition took little more than two minutes. The changes and new features are extremely intuitive to figure out, and I was able to discover most of these on my own without even consulting a features list; the navigational controls continue to be entirely natural and user-friendly. If you have an iPhone but haven’t yet gone to the trouble of upgrading, I suggest you take a moment to make the change.
Upgrading is a breeze, but if you don’t regularly hook up your iPhone to the computer, you may be running old software. To get OS 4.0, simply plug in your iPhone to your computer and open iTunes (you may need to upgrade to the newest version of iTunes). Within iTunes, select your iPhone from the device list on the left. Under the Summary tab, select “Check for Update.” Click Download and Install, and make sure not to disconnect your iPhone until the update has finished. Once your iPhone reboots, OS 4.0 should be up and running.
On the surface, it may appear as though nothing has changed, but once you start to explore the system, the overhauls are easy to discover. For instance, double clicking on the Home button at any time brings up the new Multitasking Menu, which automatically catalogs every app you’ve used (unless you choose to close it in the Multitask Menu). Now it deserves mentioning that this is not true multitasking as you would find on your personal computer, rather iOS 4 multitasking either freezes the app in a save state, of finishes certain tasks in the background. There are upsides and downsides to this approach. On the plus side, this limited approach saves processing power and will not drain your battery unnecessarily, no matter how many tasks you have “running.” Switching between tasks is also incredibly quick, allowing you to return to a partially written email, a save location on an open webpage, or even to your Pandora radio app, which you can now leave playing in the background while moving from one app to another. The downsides? This isn’t real multitasking; so some things just don’t work. For instance, you can’t pause a game, go to another app, and expect to return to the same screen. Every game app I have tried with multitasking has resulted in the game restarting. Finally, iPod Touch 2nd Gen. and iPhone 3G users are out of luck. Multitasking is for 3GS and newer (or iPod Touch 3rd Gen) users only.
Another great new feature that brings the iPhone closer to PC capabilities is the integration of Folders. Finally, you are able to organize apps into categories, resulting in a cleaner, more manageable Home screen. Creating folders and adding apps to them came instinctively. By just holding down on an app as I would normally do to move it, I dragged and dropped it onto another app that I wanted to group it with. As a result, a folder was automatically created that housed both apps; a folder name is also suggested, but you can change that to whatever you want. Adding more apps to the folder is done in the same way, but only 12 apps can exist in a single folder, which is a nuisance, especially if you want one folder that houses all of your games. Nevertheless, this is still a welcome addition, and allows you to now have up to 2160 apps on you iPhone, provided you have the available memory.
The next new feature I ran across is the ability to customize iPod Playlists within the phone. It’s about time. I can’t stress how often I’ve wanted to remove a song from my playlist, or create an exercise playlist featuring upbeat tempos and the obligatory Eye of the Tiger. Before, I would have to return to my home PC and manually change everything within iTunes, and then sync it to my iPhone. Now things are simply a lot easier.
Taking pictures and video has also been improved. The iPhone camera now has 5X Digital Zoom. Finally, you can take halfway decent pictures at large venues, such as concerts and sporting events. The people on stage will now be more than mere dots on your screen, but with only 3.2 megapixels, the quality will of course suffer somewhat. Still, it was a much-needed feature. In addition, Tap to Focus Video allows you to tap the display in order to choose where to focus while recording. Last but not least, Faces and Places in Photos was perhaps the most surprising feature. I had expected this to be a throwaway addition, but it turns out to be pretty darn cool. Going into your Photos application allows you to view photos based on where you took them. Red pins automatically appear on Google maps, allowing you to zoom in and out to explore your photo album by location. Want to show a friend your pictures from the Grand Canyon? Simply slide the map on over to Arizona to view all photos taken there. In most instances, the iPhone pins your pictures down to the exact building or lawn. I have red pins scattered all over Purdue University, and can virtually revisit the concert I attended in Elliott Hall, or the poster presentation I gave in the Purdue Memorial Union. It’s a very cool feature. Occasionally, however, the pins are in the wrong location, due to errors in the GPS. Sometimes this is a mere block off, and sometimes it is off by a couple miles. For the most part though, the locations are spot on.
Other features of note include Custom Wallpaper Backgrounds for your Home Screen (except on the 3G and 2nd Gen iPod Touch), a New Mail App which can combine mail from multiple accounts, iBooks (as seen on the iPad), Bluetooth Keyboard Compatibility (again, not for 3G and 2nd Gen iPod Touch), and Gift Apps (allowing you to purchase apps for friends). Finally, a new built-in Spell Checker will correct those common spelling errors in Gmail, Notes, and other apps that all too often result from the use of a small cell phone keyboard. All these features (and a few more minor additions) make iOS 4 a must-have upgrade. Although 3G users may get the shaft a bit (no multitasking), there are enough new features to make it worth everyone’s while.