Multitasking, over 100 new features in iPhone OS 4

Bangalore: The official launch of Apple's developer preview in the iPhone OS 4 with integrated ads, location, and multitasking, promises that most users will have access to it by this summer. Its integration of mobile ad platform into the OS and will provide a way to keep free apps free. Current users of the iPad, iPhone 3GS, and the third-generation iPod touch will all have access to the new updates. However they will not be able to take advantage of some of the capabilities of the new OS. It has not mentioned how the new operating system will be distributed or if the company would charge for an update as repoted by Mark Hachman of PCMAG. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs says that the new version is called "the next generation of the most advanced mobile operating system in the world" contains several enhancements to the OS that users have been asking for, including "tentpole" improvements like multitasking, background task completion, and background location. In total, over 100 new user features are added. APIs, including the ability for developers to access the calendar, photo library, camera data, auto-geotag photos, automatically spell-check data, and other functions, Apple chose to highlight several as "tentpole features" that developers could hang new applications around: multitasking, folders, enhanced mail services, an iBooks reader, enterprise features, Game Center, and the iAds platform. Multitasking Multitasking allows apps new capabilities, such as the ability of voice over internet protocol applications like Skype to run in the background, even when the device is locked, and notify users that a Skype call is incoming. In the case of Skype, a red bar will appear at the top of the screen, alerting users that a Skype call is active, and allow users to perform other tasks, such as surf the Web, Skype executives said. Services like Pandora or GPS apps like the TomTom navigation app can now be streamed as background apps without the audio cutting out. Background apps will also upload and download in the background as well. Location services can also be configured to use cell towers, rather than the power-hogging GPS chip. iPhone OS 4 will notify users when an app is trying to discover their location, log that data, and allow users granular, app-by-app control of how that location data is used, said Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of iPhone software at Apple. Folders Apple's creation of folders hearkens back to the earliest days of the GUI it helped pioneer. But the folder creation also allows users to store more apps on their home screen by hiding them within folders, which are created by dragging apps on top of one another. A folder is then automatically created with a generic umbrella name describing those apps. Users can also now change the wallpaper on the home page. Enhanced Mail Enhanced Mail, will allow the creation of a unified inbox, with threading and the ability to open attachments. IBooks The addition of the iBooks bookstore to the iPhone OS, an app that originally came bundled with the iPad. The iPhone OS will wirelesssly sync the user's bookstore and current page read between devices. Enterprise features Apple added support for the Cisco and Juniper VPN services to the OS, as well as Exchange 2010, which can support multiple accounts. It also has the ability to push their own internal applications out to their employees. Game center The creation of "GameCenter," will take some of the enhancements of social networking services and games and provide them to the iPhone ecosystem. IAd IAd, will have the most lasting impact. It will combine the capacity of the Web to provide interactivity, with the ability of TV ads to generate emotion. Apple will keep 40 percent of all ad revenue, ceding the other 60 percent to the developer. By theoretically placing an ad every three minutes in front of a user multiplied by the 80 million iPhones and iPod touches sold to date.