Aim! Shoot!! Duck!!!

So finally we have the official announcement about the rumored iPhone OS4 & yes, multitasking is now coming! Steve Jobs said, they maybe be late, but their multitasking will be the best. So I guess everyone should rejoice & the naysayers should now be happy, right? Well, maybe. So why am I not jumping for joy now that the biggest stumbling block for me to adopt Apple’s iPhone has been removed? Because the implementation can’t achieve something basic I need. Yes, there’s multitasking but it’s not the usual multitasking everyone knows. In some sense, yes this is actually a smarter way of doing multitasking but at the same time, it’s implementation will mean it can’t be used for all situations, yet. This can of course change in due time.

So what am I so bummed about? I still can’t open instant messaging or Twitter, background it & let it update & notify me when someone replies. You might say that it already does that, using push notifications, & rightly so, even Apple says that, in their opinion, this is the best way to do it on their platform. But then again, push notifications for instant messaging SUCKS!! Try using it & you’ll get sick of it very fast. Save states might help to ease this a bit but anything that needs to load updates from a server will always suffer from delays as you wait for the app to catch up & display it. So yeah, unfortunately, no better solution for this, yet.

However, the rest of the updates in iPhone OS4 are great! The multitasking is actually pretty good, in it’s confined context of use. The background task completion &  save state function will definitely help a lot now that it’s open for all devs to use.  Previously on iPhone OS3, only Apple apps had access to these functions.

App folders is a long overdue feature, since I’ve long used up all 12 pages of app screens on my iPod Touch.  Now I can add even more junk. LOL! And finally, enhanced email app! Threaded messaging view & a merged inbox view! Now this is going to be super useful to me.

There are more updates in the OS but these are what caught my attention as they impact my daily use. Check here for more details of the rest of the updates. Here are a few vids of the new OS in action.

The iPhone OS4 will be out for the iPhone & iPod Touch this summer, or June 2010 to the rest of the world. iPad users will have to wait till fall, or September 2010 for it. Oh ya, one last note, not all features of the new OS will work on iPhone older than iPhone 3GS or iPod Touch 3rd Gen. Specifically multitasking won’t work which is a bummer but not surprising. What other features will not work wasn’t detailed out so I guess we have to wait till June 2010 to find out.

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