Joe Sergeant

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April 13, 2010

Initial thoughts on iPhone OS 4.0

Last week saw the preview event for the upcoming 4.0 version of the iPhone operating system. Paying Apple Developers can download the beta to pore over, so being the chump that I am, that’s exactly what I did.

For now you can only install the beta of OS 4.0 if you are using a Mac, so it was up to the trusty MacBook Air to get the job done. Installing (or should I say “Restoring”) OS 4.0 was a breeze through iTunes. My only caveat was when it came to activate the phone. However, A quick trip to the Apple Developers site to pair my device ID with my developer account and I was on my way.

Primarily I’m a designer before a developer and I have no real experience in developing apps for the iPhone, unless you count web apps. I hope to change this over the coming months, but for now I was curious to see what immediate benefits the end-user would gain from 4.0.

Customisation? Steady on!

Far be it from a “tentpole” feature, the customisable home screen background is the first thing you notice in OS 4.0. It’s by no means an original or groundbreaking feature, but it is a welcome change from the solid black that many have become accustomed to. However, I did feel a little bit embarrassed for Mr Jobs during the keynote when he decided to demo the feature (at least twice) to a crowd of developers. We have also been blessed with a redesigned dock, which now takes design cues from the dock in OS X and on the iPad. It’s a definite improvement on the previous dock, which had started to look a bit dated.

Multitasking, sort of, finally…

The main touted feature has been multitasking, or for the time being at least, fast app switching. At the time of writing there are (to the best of my knowledge) no apps that have been updated to take advantage of Apple’s multitasking APIs. As a consumer I am most excited about background audio, being a keen supporter of Spotify Premium. I love Spotify so much that since installing OS 4.0 I haven’t even bothered to sync any music from my iTunes library, Spotify caters for 99% of my music requirements.

Putting applications into folders, a novel concept

I think my favourite addition in 4.0 is the new folders feature. I don’t know about you but I have a fair few apps and having the ability to organise these now is a godsend. It was a royal pain to try and segment different categories of apps onto different pages in some convoluted attempt to keep everything organised. The functionality and the UI design is pretty much there, although I’m not overly keen on the background texture they’ve opted to use for expanded folders. It’s also a slight annoyance that each folder can only hold a total of 12 applications. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to scroll within a folder, but that’s just me.

There are of course more features in iPhone OS 4.0, I just wanted to provide a quick overview of the ones I’m most excited about.

Nobody’s perfect

I’ve tried to test multiple Exchange accounts, without a great deal of success. This may be a server or account setup issue over a 4.0 bug so for the time being I’m willing to let that slide. Being a beta there are of course bugs; here are just some of the UI ones I’ve stumbled across so far:

• Deleting the most recent photo from your Camera Roll doesn’t update the icon in the camera app
• Sending an SMS or MMS causes the conversation to jump around until it has finished sending the message
• In some scenarios the camera app toggle switch used for selecting photo or video disappears
• Attempting to MMS a photo straight from the Camera Roll results in the “Send” button disappearing

Final (preliminary) thought

4.0 is a necessary and welcome progression of the iPhone software. However, I would have really liked to have seen a revised home screen announced, similar to that of Android and Windows Mobile 6.x. Having a badge icon on top of the relevant icon simply isn’t enough, especially for business users. A bit more customisation with the message alerts wouldn’t go amiss either. Seriously, how hard can it be – we can already customise the ringtone, to an extent.

Say what you like about Apple, I believe they still have a winner with the iPhone. They’ve done what they’re best at; take an existing product and made it friendlier and more marketable to the masses. Having said that, ever since introducing the iPhone the competition has soared and I can’t wait to get my hands on a Windows Phone 7 device later on this year to see how it compares. With Android also gaining more popularity as big mobile manufacturers take the plunge, 2010 is set to be a great year for the consumer.

I can only hope that Apple release a killer hardware update in the Summer to keep the playing field equal, otherwise I fear that not even the mighty app store can prevent them from falling behind.