The iPhone OS 4.0

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Just days after the iPad release, Apple was on the ball to announce the next big update for the iPhone.  The iPhone has always been far from perfect and I can say this because I have owned a first generation iPhone for years- I still do not have picture messaging. The iPhone 4g update seems to be less about new things as it is tying up loose ends. Steve Jobs seems to have listened and is giving us what we have been asking for since day one.

To the surprise of most, a new iPhone was not announced. This is probably good news to you if you have just bought an iPhone and do not want your phone to be inferior just yet. I do anticipate one on the horizon, because 5x zoom was announced to compliment the iPhone's camera. I have always liked the camera on the iPhone and 5x zoom seems like a good idea, but I have a feeling that zoom is too much for a 3.2 megapixel camera. If you are looking to upgrade phones soon, I suggest you wait for the announcement of a newer iPhone that will inevitably have a higher megapixel camera.

Something which I made a small rant about when the iPad was announced was the lack of multitasking. Clearly, a gadget such as the iPad should have had that from the start, but at launch it was not included. The new update will change that for the iPad and the iPhone and no longer will opening and closing apps be such a hassle. Steve Jobs stated this morning that it had always been a problem with the drainage of battery and any iPhone user who has their phone jailbroken to handle multitasking will agree.

Double clicking the home button will serve as a way to navigate through all running apps on your iphone. The process for switching back and forth is described as very simple. Every running app mainintains the state it was in instead of starting from scratch. There is a tray in which the all running apps will sit in a frozen state. Also, in app text messaging will be available when the update launches. A nice little feature if you hate closing your app just to reply to a text message or two.

The new “folders” allow a user to group all like apps together making it easier to find the app you’re looking for. Right now, I have my like apps grouped together rather sloppily on my iphone from three pages of crappy free games to two pages of useful apps like yelp and phoneflix. Folders now neatly compile all apps together neatly for quicker use. The iPhone was once limited to 180 apps and now with folders it multiplies to 2160 available app choices.

A user can now have two separate wallpapers for their iphone: one for the lockscreen- the wallpaper you already have- and one for the home screen like the iPad. This has been a minor pet peeve of mine for a while and I hear Steve Jobs is really standing behind this "breakthrough" feature.

The new gamecenter will serve as a new way to play games on the ipho ne. gamers alike will rave for this because like current games systems matchmaking and achievements are now available on your phone. Now you can challenge friends to games and be paired up with that pomnpus white kid in Virginia that can beat you at Call of Duty. This is a feature that will become available later on in the year.

iAd is Job's way of being humble to all app developers. With a free app you will get a lot of BS advertising that most likely you do not care about. Apple is looking to fix these ads for the people that have had to repeatedly press skip in their favorite games. Steve Jobs is looking to obtain the masses with ads from mainstream sources like Nike and Disney. There are  plans to have videos, games, and downloads available in most apps and it will entice many. The sample of a Nike ad shows Nike shoe history, custom shoe builder and streaming videos. Targets ad allows you to build a custom dorm room. You are probably thinking this sounds hokey and you are right- it does. I want to play games not build shoes or a dorm room for a college I may never attend. Fair enough. Just click the black X in the corner and go back to playing Action Hero.

A few of you will not get everything and some, like myself, will not get anything. If you have an iPhone 3gs then you will get everything the new update has to offer and if you own an iPhone 3g then you will get everything accept multi-tasking. If you have a phone that still runs on the EDGE network, then sorry kid, it looks like you are being forced to upgrade. The iPad will get this update in Fall.

Thanks to Gizmodo for the live blogging during the event.