Yesterday was a big day for all fans of Apple’s mobile phone, the iPhone. Apple has finally published its long-awaited new Iphone OS version , now simply called iOS (by the way, I wonder what Cisco has to say about this; Cisco router’s OS has been called IOS for years).
“I had custom wallpapers in Windows 3.1 back in ’94”
Since I am owner of the 2nd generation iPhone, my handset did not get all the features mentioned by Jobs earlier this year (to avoid confusion: firts generation is iPhone 2G, second gen is the 3G, while 3GS is a third generation device). Multitasking is one of the said features. I’ve been a fan of Windows Mobile for at least seven years now, and multitasking was always there, just like in the “big” Windows on the PC. Granted, if you do not pay attention to how many programs are running in the background, the device will gradually slow down. When it slows down to a complete halt – you have to do a soft reset to clean the memory and basically reboot the Windows Mobile OS. I can understand that Apple did not want iPhone users to suffer from these issues. What I cannot understand are some other features removed from 3G iPhone, hence the “Sad Panda Face” from the post title.
- No home screen wallpaper under the icons. Apple will surely claim it is due to limited memory and slow 400 MHz CPU (but I had custom wallpapers in Windows 3.1 back in ’94 – on my first PC 66MHz 486 DX2).
My favourite wall in '94 - No support for Bluetooth keyboard – again, I’m sure Apple is going to invent some reason why I cannot use a foldable Bluetooth Freedom Keyboard with my phone (which worked just fine in Win Mobile and Symbian 3-4 years ago)
- Ability to lock the screen orientation – since it is in the multitasking menu, it does not work on the 3G iPhone
“iOS 4.0 still delivers some small goodies”
Now the good stuff, because iOS 4.0 still delivers some small goodies. Most important: folders. You can grab up to 12 icons and put the together into a single bin that takes less space. All my 6 pages of icons now only take 2 pages. You might ask why limit of 12 icons in one folder, but once you saw the screenshot, you will know why.
Another great feature is the geotagging in Photos application. It was actually always there (every time you take a photo with your iPhone, location is saved in picture’s metadata). Now you can look at the map and literally see where did you take all those photos.
Business iPhone users will be very glad to know, that improved email client also made it’s way to iPhone 3G and allows to see all messages from all accounts in one big inbox (you can still browse messages by account as usual), there is an option to see the list of messages, or in a threaded way as seen in modern Windows Mobile or in Gmail.
And at last, something that should be in iPhone OS 1.0: character count for short messages (even my old Siemens handset from 2001 has that). Almost forgotten: the docking bar in the bottom of the screen received a minor facelift and now looks more like Apple UI known from MacOS and iPad.
“Only two latest generations are fully supported by Apple”
Apple seems to keep their upgrade policy, which was first introduced during iPhone OS 3.0 deployment. iPhone 2G did not receive the native MMS capability, which could easily be enabled after jailbreaking the handset and replacing one of the binaries. The same applies to the features which are not available on iPhone 3G in iOS 4.0 – they can be enabled in jailbroken devices. Simply put, only two latest generations are fully supported by Apple, in this case iPhone 3GS and brand new iPhone 4. Too bad. Sad Panda Face.
EDIT 28.06.2010: Sent the same feedback to Apple. It probably won’t help, but I can always try.