Last minute iPhone OS 4.0 guesses

by Justin Horn on Apr 8th, 2010 @ 12:52 pm

Gruber just made his last min 4.0 post which he lays out his well informed guesses. He lays out pretty much everything I’ve been thinking so I’ll review his guesses and add my thoughts.

Third party Background apps?
Yes, I really thought this was coming in 3.0 so it feels a bit overdue.  I think it will be limited to only the iPhone 3GS and the 4th gen model.  Even possible that the 3GS will only have limited multitasking compared to the 4th gen model…they need some selling point to upgrade to new hardware every year right? If not true background apps, I also think (as lots of others, including Gruber have suggested) some more efficient ”start / stop” of apps will come into play. So even if I’m wrong about multitasking, hopefully switching back and forth between apps will be quicker.

iPhone OS 4.0 only for iPhone and iPod touch, iPad will have to wait for 4.1?
I understand Gruber’s argument, but the fact that they are so closely related I think they will be able to release iPhone OS 4.0 at the same time for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. I mean they do have another 3 months or so right?

iPhone OS 4.0 to no longer support first gen iPhone?
One thing we know for sure, if there is one it won’t be free…probably $10. It is quite possible that they will no longer support the first gen iPhone as most of the new features such as background apps wouldn’t run very well on the hardware anyway. I’m on the fence about this one, but since I have to guess as the title of this post says I’m going with they will have some sort of update for the first gen iPhone even if it doesn’t support all the features (like MMS now).

No iPhone 4th gen hardware info?
Pretty much a no brainier.  One interesting point Gruber brings up is the 4th gen iPhone going to high res and how that could play into better looking iPhone apps on the iPad.  I hadn’t thought of this before, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense and it’s making me buy into the iPhone HD more.

And one thing Gruber doesn’t bring up that I would like to see…

New notifications system?
As much as I think I want background apps I actually think I would have far more use day to day from a better notification system. Text, Push notifications, push emails, etc. aren’t handled very well on the iPhone. I’m not sure the Palm Pre has the best way, but it’s definitely better than what we have now on the iPhone. Apple has had another year to see how the current system doesn’t work and 1 year with real world testing of the push notifications. I’m thinking 4.0 will finally bring some update to the notifications system. Maybe some sort of special page, like the search page, will do the trick…kind of like the Facebook app notifications.

Follow me on Twitter @justin_horn

Comments Off
iOS 4, iPad, iPhone

Comments are closed.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.