iPhone OS 4.0 Predictions
Wow, April is a big month for Apple. iPad release on the 3rd, probably laptop debuts later this month, and iPhone 4.0 announcement coming up on the 8th. Lots to cover. In the spirit of iCodeBlog I present to you a list of stuff to look for in iPhone OS 4.0.
Syncing
- Wi-Fi Syncing – This is something I would love, but as anyone with an iPhone knows, USB syncing takes forever as it is…So this might not happen
- iBooks on iPhone – Amazon has the books you buy from them viewable on Mac Computers, iPads and iPhones, Apple is going to address this almost certainly.
- iTunes Home may be enhanced. An underdeveloped feature in the previous version of iTunes and something people will be using more and more with iPad apps being more expensive.
Interface
- Home Screen enhancements. Look at the home screen on my iPad. What an incredible waste of space! I need to see upcoming appointments, the weather a twitter feed, incoming emails. But right now when my iPad is locked I see 900 x 700 of background art. This seems like it is a hint that Apple will be making their lock screens more customizable to me.
- Spotlight. To give credit where it is due, my brother originally (twitter @sruffenach) mentioned this, now it is all I think about when I use spotlight. Once again there is a huge waste of space. When you ender the spotlight view (iPhone or iPad) once again there is a huge amount of wasted space. At the very least your dock applications should slide up and be available until you type something into the search. I think this is an underused section of the iPhone and iPad OS and we shall see if Apple enhances it.
- New interface elements. The iPad introduced a few new view controllers to the SDK. Things like UISplitViewController, MPMoviePlayerViewController are as of now iPad only. It doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense for some of these UI elements to be on a screen as small as the iPhone, so I think we are going to see the separation of the iPhone and iPad OS’s. Apple is going to need to be careful here on how is makes the SDK’s distinct, as developers will want to have as much time saved developing for either iPhone or iPad. I think we will see Apple’s position on this evolving echo system of SDK’s.
- Application Switching – This speaks to the idea of multi tasking, which I will talk about in a minute. But I see the iPhone OS gaining more rapid application switching mechanisms in coming releases. Right now to go from any one app to any other there are 2 methods; 1. Go to homescreen, pick another app 2. Click a link in an app that automatically brings up another. Applications are going to reach the complexity where several apps on one iPhone or iPad will be able to handle file types like .PDF. I imagine Apple introducing a mechanism to choose the app which you want to handle the file.
- Once again, looking at the iPad, it is likely that Apple pushes the idea of the iPhone working in any orientation. The homescreen is likely to change now when the device is tilted into landscape mode.
Multitasking
- Everyone talks about this, so it seems like will need to mention it somehow. With Android attaching Apple specifically in the Droid commercial this is something Apple will likely tackle. I have a feeling it won’t be complete multitasking. But I most certainly could imagine some tests that an app would need to pass to be “multi task” approved. We’ll see how Apple handles it.
- If this muti tasking thing does happen expect to see the iPhone version of Expose. Apple has already brought aspects of the OS X desktop to the iPhone with spotlight. Expect to see more of thi
Ads
- Apple bought Quattro, an ad company a few months back. Apple already has a choke hold around iPhone app distribution, but no control of ads. With Google buying AdMob, this will most certainly be a topic of discussion.
Misc
- People have been talking printers
- Extended video streaming API in preparation for vid chat stuff
- Faster, faster, faster. As you may have seen, dismantling the iPad reveals a chip very similar in design to the iPhone 3GS chip. The responsiveness on the iPad is much better then that of the iPhone and I imaging that general speed of apps will be a big component of 4.0, as it was for 3.0 and the 3GS.
Thats all I got for now. If you guys have any tips, hunches or dreams about iPhone OS 4.0 let us know in the comments.
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