The new iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch operating system is available, and downloading as I write. I’m excited! I plugged my iPhone in to my Mac, fired up iTunes, and… my software was up to date, supposedly. I clicked the button to update, and lo and behold, I was offered the option of downloading and installing, downloading only, or canceling. Which do you think I took?
The update provides more than 100 features, and all kinds of new goodies for app developers, the most interesting from my point of view is multitasking support. Now we have the possibility of at least limited functionality for apps in the background, and quicker app switching.
Another big deal is the ability of creating folders for organizing apps. The limitations of OS 3 are gone, hardware permitting.
Speaking of hardware, this new OS works on the iPhone 3GS, the 3G, iPod Touch (2nd and 3rd generation only), as well as the iPhone 4 releasing this Thursday. Some features aren’t supported on the older devices, but enough will for this to be a big deal.
Original iPhones won’t run the new OS at all, and iPads won’t update until sometime this fall… the latter irritates me no end, but I’ll be patient.
Open iTunes (version 9.2 required), plug in your iPhone, and click on the Update button under Version on the Summary page. The process takes a bit of time, and the size of the download depends on the device you’re updating.
This morning Macworld and others seemed to have no problem updating, but after the iPhone 4 pre-order fiasco last week, I’ll be curious to see if the servers can handle the load. So far so good, for me (2:30 Pacific Daylight Time).
Hey, my iPhone is restarting! The download and update took around 10 minutes, and the restart about 5 more minutes. Guess I should have timed it, but my stopwatch is my iPhone!
Early experiences
Multitasking… not the same as on my Mac, and Apple says it is a battery drainer.
Folders… I have way too many apps anyway, since I’m a crash-test dummy for my clients, but now I can organize the ones I use a lot, the ones I need to test, and the ones I’ll get around to one day. I had to go to Apple’s site to figure out how to make a folder, but it’s easy. Simply drag an app onto another and a folder is created. It’s given a name based on the category of the app, but it’s easy to rename. It works the same way using the Apps tab in iTunes, and is easier to navigate. I recommend giving it all some thought… I spent about 30 minutes, and am only about half-way organized. Once done, tho, what a timesaver!
Now I can have 180 folders, with 12 apps each. That’s 2160 apps, which means that if I use one every minute, I’ll be done in… 3 days!
Something I didn’t expect, even tho I’d read about it, was seeing my “desktop picture” behind the app icons. Not sure how I feel about that. The black background is something I’ve got used to over the last 3 years. I may have to choose a new picture. Even so, it’s certainly more interesting than it was.
Mail app improvements include a unified inbox, which allows us to see all incoming messages, no matter how many accounts they come in to. Threaded messages are supported, and tapping attachments allows separate apps to open them.
iBooks is nice, but I now depend on the iPad for books. Still, it’s not bad. Camera and Photo apps are improved (hardware permitting), and bluetooth keyboard support is very nice. You also can choose between Google and Bing as your default browser search engine.
Conclusion
I LIKE it!
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