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iChatAgent process shows up in iPhone OS 4.0 -- video conferencing coming?
As expected, Apple didn't introduce any new iPhone hardware today; knowing Steve Jobs & co., they still want to save some surprises when they unveil the 4G iPhone later this summer. Could one of those surprises be a front-facing camera with iChat support? Close TUAW reader AW sent us this screen shot that shows an iChatAgent process showing up in iStat ($0.99 in the App Store) on an iPhone running the new iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. The process is new to iPhone OS 4.0 and it suggests that Apple plans to implement iChat on the phone in some form. It seems unlikely that Apple would merely introduce an instant messaging app without support for video conferencing. Although a front-facing camera on the iPhone has been rumored from time to time and it's one of the most requested hardware features for the iPhone, battery drain during video conferencing is always a concern on a mobile device. If Apple has found a way to support multitasking without significant battery drain, it's possible that mobile video conferencing battery drain has been overcome as well. UPDATE: another screen shot from within Activity Monitor (sent to us by reader Mr. X) after the break.
iPhone OS 4 hands-on (updated with video!)
Okay, so we're currently holding our breath while the developer preview of iPhone OS 4 installs on our 3GS -- a process that seems to be, uh, not going so well, but we wanted to share these quick shots we took from the simulator in the meantime. The dock is now 3D, like the one in Snow Leopard and on the iPad, multitasking works just like you'd expect -- you can swipe left and right to see more open apps -- and the Game Center app is present, although not functional. There's also Events and Faces in the Photos app, which you'd expect after the iPad version got them. We've got our fingers crossed that our latest restore attempt is going to work, so check back in a few for a video walkthrough, but hit the gallery below in the meantime! Update: Wonder of wonders, we actually got the bugger working! We're doing video right now, let us know what you want to see -- and check out some on-device shots below. Update 2: Video time! We also added some impressions, it's all after the break. %Gallery-90076% %Gallery-90083%
iPhone OS 4 versus Windows Phone 7: the tale of the tape
So now that Apple's finally addressed (well, sort of addressed) the 800-pound gorilla known as multitasking, it's time to take a good, hard look at how iPhone OS 4 stacks up against Redmond's completely redesigned mobile monster that's destined to hit handsets toward the end of the year. Though the two companies have taken vastly different paths to get to where they are with their mobile strategies today, there are some striking similarities between the platforms; take that multitasking we already mentioned, for example -- both iPhone OS and Windows Phone are looking to keep processor and battery utilization to a minimum by putting the emphasis on managed services for background apps rather than just letting them run roughshod over your fragile hardware. Of course, there are some striking differences, too -- so let's have a look, shall we?
iPhone 4.0 OS Screen shots: custom wallpaper, folders, multitasking, and more!
And they keep coming in! TUAW reader Tom has sent us screen shots showing iPhone OS 4.0's ability to support custom wallpaper (and the new dock style), an open and closed Apps folder containing four apps, multitasking, and a new Calculator icon. Check out all the screen shots in the gallery below! %Gallery-90080%
iPhone OS 4.0: iPad-like spell check
Reader Tom has been kind enough to send in a few images of the new spell check redesign in iPhone OS 4.0.As you can see, Apple has ditched the blue bubbles with the "x" and now gives you the option of choosing between multiple word selections. Stay tuned! We'll have more on the iPhone OS 4.0 preview as the information rolls in!
iPhone OS 4.0 SDK ready for download
And...it's LIVE! The 4.0 SDK for the iPhone OS is now available to developers. Head on over to Apple's iPhone Developer site (login credentials needed) to download the SDK disk image and get started. As with previous beta releases, the new firmware and SDK remains behind an NDA. This NDA will likely remain in place until the 4.0 goes live, which is expected to happen sometime in late spring. The new SDK will support features announced earlier today at the iPhone OS 4.0 roadmap media event.
iPhone SDK 4 beta now available for download
Got your iPhone developer credentials handy? Then you'll want to head straight on over to the iPhone Dev Center, where you can now download the iPhone SDK 4 beta and get a taste of what everyone else will see this summer (or fall). And don't worry too much if you're not among the lucky iPhone devs, we've got you covered on all the details of iPhone OS 4 right here.
Multitasking comes to iPhone OS 4.0 -- but not to the iPhone 3G
You heard that right, people -- iPhone OS 4 just brought multitasking to the platform! Apple says they've figured out how to implement third party multitasking without hurting performance or battery life, and they're demoing it now -- you just double click the home button and see a list of your apps, and you can just tap to switch between apps. The system actually runs the services apps need in the background -- the apps don't need to do them individually, so it's not a "true" multitasking system, but it seems plenty effective. There are seven services: background audio, which allows you to use the standard pop-over iPod controls, Voice over IP, which can receive calls in the background, location services for GPS and social networking (there's an indicator if any service is tracking you), updated push notifications with local notifications, task completion so you can finish things like uploads in the background, and fast app switching, which lets apps sleep and resume instantly. Notably missing? Anything for managing a conversation, like IM or Twitter, which is a big omission. Win some, lose some, we suppose. Update: Here's a big "lose some" -- only the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation (late 2009) iPod touch will support multitasking. The iPhone 3G and below won't -- Steve says the hardware doesn't support it. Sad face. %Gallery-90050% Developing... Make sure to check out the ongoing iPhone OS 4.0 liveblog!
iPhone OS 4 not coming to the iPad until the fall
All that great stuff we just heard about iPhone OS 4: multitasking, tentpoles, app folders, Game Center, iAd -- okay, maybe you weren't all that excited about iAd -- seemed destined to hit the iPad this summer. Surely, right? Instead, rather than finishing with his usual "one more thing" flourish today, Steve Jobs just left a stunned audience with the terse statement that Apple will be "bringing OS 4 to the iPad this fall." That's like... a whole different season from the new operating system's release. Why Steve, why?
iPhone OS 4 unveiled, adds multitasking, shipping this summer
Just a bit more than a year after we first laid eyes on iPhone OS 3.0, Apple is back with the latest big revision of the OS that powers the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. iPhone OS 4 is shipping this summer (iPad in the fall), and the developer preview will be out today. iPhone 3GS and new-gen iPod touch will get all the features, but some features won't make it to the iPhone 3G, original iPhone, and older iPod touches. The biggest new feature is multitasking, which Apple says is going to be the "best" implementation in the smartphone space, though it's obviously not the first. App switching is activated by double tapping the home button, which pulls up a "dock" of currently running apps, and Apple claims it can do this without hurting battery life or performance for the front app. Unfortunately, this multitasking won't be available for devices older than the 3GS and new iPod touch. Multitasking is just one of seven different new "tentpole" features, including Game Center, enhanced Mail, and more... Notable new features for users ("tentpoles" are in bold): Multitasking. Spell check (like on the iPad). Bluetooth keyboard support (again, on the iPad). User-defined wallpaper (a jailbreak favorite). Tap to focus when recording video, just like with photos, and a 5x digital zoom for the camera. Playlist creation and nested playlists. App folders for sorting apps! You can even put an app folder in the dock. Enhanced Mail! You can have a merged inbox view, switch between inboxes quickly, and sync to more than one Exchange account. There's also threaded messaging (at last!) and in-app attachment viewing. iBooks, just like on iPad, only smaller. You can wirelessly sync books between platforms, a la Kindle. Enterprise features, including remote device management and wireless app distribution. Game Center. It's like Xbox Live, but for iPhone games. Includes achievements, leaderboards, and match making. It will be available as a "developer preview," and out for consumers later this year. Developers are getting plenty of new tricks too: New SDK, available today. 1,500 new APIs. Background audio (think Pandora). Background VoIP (think Skype). Background location data, both with live GPS for backgrounded turn-by-turn, and cell tower-based for lower power draw. Local notifications. Like push notifications, but sends a notification straight from the app without needing a push notification server, perfect for an alarm, for instance. Fast app switching. Saves the state of an app and resumes it from where you left off, without dwelling in memory. iAd. Apple says it's for keeping "free apps free." The ads keep you in the app, while also taking over the screen and adding interactivity -- using HTML 5 for video -- up to simple gaming in-ad. Apple will offer a 60 / 40 split on revenue, and users can even buy apps straight from an ad. In-app SMS. Map overlays. Quick look for previewing documents. Photo Library access. Calendar access. Full access to the camera. Video playback and capture. Date and address "data detectors." Automated testing and performance / power analysis (the same tools Apple uses). %Gallery-90056% %Gallery-90057% %Gallery-90058% Make sure to check out the iPhone OS 4.0 liveblog to see how it all went down!
Apple iAd brings ads, cash money to third-party iPhone apps
If you were wondering exactly what Apple had in mind with its acquisition of Quattro Wireless a few months back, the picture gets a little clearer today with the announcement of the iAd mobile ad platform alongside iPhone OS 4.0 today with the company saying that iPhone devs have a billion "ad opportunities" per day. The idea is to keep users in the apps to see interactive, "emotional" ad content as often as once every three minutes -- not to "yank" them out, as Steve puts it -- while developers are rewarded with a 60 percent cut of the revenue. Ads are hosted and served by Apple, and while there'll be some sort of approval process, Steve's describing it as a "light touch," so it probably isn't the same process traditional apps go through. This makes things considerably more interesting for the mobile advertising business as a whole, since Google's been trying to seal the deal on an acquisition of industry leader AdMob for a while now in the face of some pretty intense FTC scrutiny. Certainly seems like this would grease the wheel a little bit, doesn't it?%Gallery-90060%
Apple previews Game Center social gaming platform for iPhone OS
Apple just announced Game Center, which is a social gaming network for the iPhone -- it sounds a lot like Xbox Live, actually. It's has a friend system, leaderboards, and achievements -- and we're guessing it'll blow up out of the gate, given how many games are on the platform. It's being previewed in iPhone OS 4 right now, and it'll launch later this summer. We're hunting for more info, we'll let you know! %Gallery-90058% Make sure to check out the ongoing iPhone OS 4.0 liveblog!
Live from Apple's iPhone OS 4 event!
We're on the ground outside of Apple's iPhone OS 4 event, awaiting the doorbuster stampede we hope to be a part of soon. Keep it tuned here, and check back at the times below for the official start! 07:00AM - Hawaii 10:00AM - Pacific 11:00AM - Mountain 12:00PM - Central 01:00PM - Eastern 06:00PM - London 07:00PM - Paris 09:00PM - Moscow
iPhone OS 4: Our metaliveblog event
<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=67a3acf22f" >iPhone OS 4.0 Apple Event</a> Welcome to today's invitation media event. Today Apple will introduce its iPhone 4.0 roadmap and we'll be metaliveblogging coverage from all our favorite sites -- at least those who were lucky enough to receive golden tickets to the event. Will Apple be introducing multitasking and iPhone exposé? Or other items on our reader wishlist? One way to find out. Join us and see what Apple has on offer for the next generation of iPhone and iPad firmware -- and maybe some hardware announcements as well. Here are the blogs we'll be covering today: Engadget Ars Technica MacRumors Twitter Updates Gizmodo gdgt
Poll: Who's gonna keynote?
Tomorrow, Apple will introduce its iPhone OS 4.0 roadmap. And we'll be there, metaliveblogging our hearts out as the events unroll. The big mystery tonight, at least here in TUAW-land, is who will give the speech. Is this going to be a big-time Steve Jobs keynote? Or can we expect Phil Schiller to pick up the slack? Is it time for Scott Forstall to take his turn in the sun, or is there someone else waiting in the wings? Get on your best predictive sunglasses and let us know who you think will be pitching the 4.0 update tomorrow in the poll below. %Poll-44108%
Dear Apple, did you listen?
Calling all TUAW readers! Tomorrow you're going to find out if Apple listened to the letters you wrote to them. Now in all fairness to Apple, your second letter dealt with the hardware. We don't expect Apple to preview the new iPhone hardware tomorrow, and even if they did, that hardware was probably set in stone eighteen months before release. So we'll have to wait for the 5G iPhone to see if they've heeded your wants there. Now as for the software... I've listed your top twelve general-OS wants from your first letter above. Dare we hope that Apple has hit all of them? Sadly that's unlikely, as 80% of you wanted Flash, but here's hoping for the rest! For the Apple app-specific requests, the list is too long to post here, so I'll let you refer to your third letter to see how Apple did. All your letters can be seen here: Dear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 1 Dear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 2 Dear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 3 And yes, due to popular request, we will be writing more Dear Apple letters on your behalf for Mac OS X 10.7, iWork, iLife, and iPad.
CE-oh no he didn't!: Reggie Fils-Aime says the iPhone OS isn't a 'viable profit platform for game development'
We can't say we'd expect Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime to lavish praise on iPhone OS gaming and the abilities of the iPad, but we figured everyone had to at least acknowledge the effect of Apple's handhelds on the market and the potential of its tablet, you know? Nope -- ol' Reg just told Kotaku that Apple "is not having an impact on Nintendo when you look at our business, our volume, our hardware, our software," and that "clearly it doesn't look like their platform is a viable profit platform for game development because so many of the games are free versus paid downloads." Snap -- although we'd bet plenty of top-tier iPhone game devs like ngmoco would argue that their "freemium" model is working plenty okay. That's not all, though, as Reggie also had some choice words about depth: "If our games represent a range between snacks of entertainment and full meals depending on the type of game, (Apple's) aren't even a mouthful, in terms of the gaming experience you get." Double snap -- we'll leave it to you to argue that one out.
Apple to announce iAd / AdKit mobile ad platform on Thursday?
Here's an interesting little rumor that seems all too plausible: Peter Kafka at All Things Digital says sources are telling him Apple will announce a new mobile ad network based on its Quattro Wireless acquisition on Thursday at its iPhone OS 4 event, a report that jibes completely with what we learned about the iAd / AdKit framework present in the iPhone OS just last week. Kafka also says that Google will undoubtedly cheer the move on, since it's trying to convince the FTC to approve its $750m AdMob acquisition -- the presence of a formidable competitor like Apple in the mobile ad space makes the buyout seem more like healthy business and less like "evil monopoly that owns every ad on the internet and is stalking innocents for their flesh with Google Buzz." Our guess is that Apple will give developers a standard way to place ads in their apps using a new OS service and split the revenue 70/30, just like paid apps in the App Store, but that's just a shot in the dark -- we'll see what happens on Thursday.
What's in the iPhone 4.0?
Willkommen, Besucher von spiegel.de. Möchten Sie ein Übersetzung? Hier drucken. Well, we didn't really expect this to come so soon after the iPad release, but sure enough, Apple is going to show us the iPhone 4.0 operating system this Thursday. That doesn't give us a lot of time for speculation, but I'm sure we'll squeeze it in. As per our reader expectations, various rumors and leaks, and other random news and scuttlebutt, what can we expect to see in a new iPhone OS? Multitasking. Yup. If Apple's going to answer the naysayers, this is when it will happen. Of course, it will be done Apple's way (as we've heard, the new OS will probably still rely on notifications for most apps, and incorporate more of an "app-switching" idea rather than full multitasking), but the iPhone 4.0 will likely be able to run more than one third-party app at a time. A new home screen. This one's probably a little more of a guess, since Apple didn't mix up the home screen, even for its historic iPad. Though, since the iPhone is a smartphone, and since this is one of the most vocal complaints we've heard from actual users of the iPhone, a new screen of information would be very welcome. Better app management. With iPad and iPhone apps now out there, we've all got a lot of apps to deal with. From the longtime idea of "stacks" for apps, to the ability to remove official apps, to app gestures and navigation, the iPhone needs a better way to browse through apps, and it's likely that we'll see it this week. Landscape mode/switch. This one's a shot in the dark from me, but when you play with the iPad, one of the first things you notice is that it's able to adapt to any kind of usage situation; even when you turn it on the home screen, the icons adjust to the way that you want to use it, rather than the other way around. What else can we tell you? With just a few days to speculate, that's probably a good start. We've waited a lot longer than three days to hear about a new Apple product before, but three days has never seemed so long.
Three flavors of iPhone OS 4.x showing up in developer's analytics?
Speaking of iPhone OS 4, check this out: PixelCUBE Studios, which currently holds the #1 spot on iTunes' list of free iPhone app downloads with The Impossible Test, noticed something rather curious in its usage stats. See, PixelCUBE uses Pinch Media to dredge up analytics, and a quick check of the OS versions its users are running (pictured left) shows that not one, not two, but three distinct flavors of OS 4 have turned up: 4.0, 4.0.1, and 4.1. It's not unusual for Apple (or any major software developer, really) to have different teams working on multiple version milestones at the same time, so we don't doubt that this could be real; then again, this is easy enough to spoof in a world where enterprising devs and fun-loving miscreants are bending iPhones to their every whim with creative hacks and lightning-quick jailbreaks. Anyone up for a careful daily sweep of BART trains until we get to the bottom of this?
