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iPhone OS 4.0 Event…. #iPhone #SteveJobs #Apple #iPad

This was a huge deal, iPhoneOS 4.0. Come on! All of us iPhone users were very much awaiting this. Now we have so much info from the Steve Job and Company presentation that points possibly to many things we had always hoped for. Right of the bat, like a movie rule, "Ladies and gentlemen, please switch your devices to silent mode."

So we continue..........

First thing they start off with is that the iPad is shipping. That's great, but we are a little torn between the new iPad and the new iPhone OS 4.0...What do we talk about, and what will we hear!?

Well Steve goes on just for a bit about the iPad. (Fine we're interested). and he says, "The first day we sold 300,000 iPads, and I want to update you...as of today we've sold about 450,000." Awesome! Jobs also says, "I'm told Best Buy is out of stock...We can't make enough of them"

Next, iBooks. One of the first things discussed. Over 600,000 iBooks have been downloaded and the iPad is barely a week old.

Then we hear, Over 4 billion apps downloaded of the 185,000 apps in the App Store. So to add to those figures, Jobs says the following - "We have over 3500 iPad apps in the store. These apps on the iPad are just amazing. I want to show you some screenshots of some of the apps. You'll be surprised how great these are if you haven't seen them." He then proceeds to do as he promises and show a few slides of apps on the iPad.

Now, we'll move on to the iPhone! First statistic, iPhone has 64% of the mobile browser use share, all else is half. Steve keeps on with statistics..."We've sold over 50m iPhones to date, and if you add the touch, over 85m iPhones and iPod touches. If you're a dev, that's a plum market to go after"

Finally, Mr. Jobs lets us all know that Apple is releasing a developers preview of iPhone 4.0. Over 1500 API's, access to calendars, library, quicklook. Releasing a framework called Accelerate (accelerated math functions).

Now on to user functions, which the majority of iPhone fans are looking for. Am I right?? See list:

1. Create playlists
2. 5x digital zoom
3. Tap to focus on video
4. Gift apps
5. Geotagging places in the photo app
6. Change the homescreen wallpaper
7. Bluetooth keyboards
8. Spell checker

Still no word on multitasking. Waiting.............Here we go! Time for the "tentpole features"...I'll be quick with these.

7 Features

1. Multitasking - Background audio, VoIP, Push notifications, Local notification, Task completion, Fast app switching.
2. Folder App - Drag Drop UI, Intelligent naming, now you can have 2160 apps on iPhone
3. Enhanced Email - Unified inbox, Multiple exchange, Threaded messages & Fast switching!
4. iBooks Support - EBook Reader, iBookstore, Buy once read anywhere, Sync page & bookmarks
5. Enterprise - Data protection, Mobile Device Management, Wireless app distribution, Multiple exchange accounts, Exchange server 201, SSL VPN support.
6. Game Center - Social gaming networking, Invite friends, Matchmaking, Leaderboards, Achievements
7. iAd – Mobile Advertising - Interactive ads, Ads within app, ads built into iPhone OS, Apple sell and host ads, 60% revenue to developers

Lasts words I heard before the Apple team went to break was: "We are releasing it for end users for iPhone and iPod touch for users this summer. For the 3GS and iPod touch 3rd gen. and for iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen, they will run many things, but there are some things they won't run, like multitasking." - (Not happy about the no multitasking for 3G, personally)

See below Engadgets Q&A section of the event:

11:07AM Q: Given that multitasking will increase data usage, how do you think AT&T will handle that? A: (Jobs) I'm not sure that's a correct assumption.

11:08AM Q: But what about Pandora? A: (Jobs) I don't think you're right. It doesn't use that much data.

11:12AM Q: Will there be an ad approval process? A: (Jobs... super long pause) Um... well there's going to be some process... but these people are paying to run ads. So, I'm not sure it'll be anything other than a light touch.

11:14AM Lots of talk about iAd... which isn't quite Engadget's bread and butter.

11:22AM We just asked Steve and co. about the lack of anything that can keep track of a timeline for something like a Twitter or IM app. Scott says that the new save states for applications will be much better than the current situation. Steve also said that they stand behind push notifications and still think it's the right choice for this platform. Then we asked about widgets or glanceable information and why it hasn't been implemented on this platform or the iPad. "Apple sort of pioneered the idea of glanceable information like widgets and it seems to me you've gone to great lengths to avoid something like that in this new OS. Can you tell me a little bit about why you've decided that? With something like the iPad, it seems perfect opportunity where you have a lot of real estate." Steve: "We shipped on Saturday, and rested on Sunday." (lots of laughs) We pressed and asked if it was possible. Steve: "Anything is possible."

11:23AM Also, when Steve was asked if there were plans to add Flash or java, his response was a flat: No.

11:26AM Uh, wow. "What are you doing about distracted driving?" Really man? Really?

11:27AM How is Apple going to stop us from driving our cars into houses, trees, or people? With a strict, secretive approval process... that's how.

11:29AM Ryan Block from GDGT: What about running unsigned apps? Steve: You know, there's a porn store for Android. Anyone can download them. You can, your kids can. That's just not a place we want to go.

11:29AM Wow. Just wow.

11:32AM Steve was asked about the iPad. Steve: "When people look back... this will be a huge thing in the history of personal computational devices."

11:35AM Q: How will the App Store change with 4? Discoverability and organization is a problem. How will you improve that? A: (Steve) The App Store is not part of iPhone OS 4, it's a service, and it is programmed mostly on the server side. We can enhance it without waiting for a major release. We can constantly improve it. We have to be careful that we don't bring the service down -- as you've noticed it has a very high uptime. In terms of discoverability, we've added Genius, but I also see an infrastructure starting to evolve to help people find apps. What I see happening is that there's a lot building up outside and around the iPhone, that are starting to provide some of that recommendation.

11:35AM Scott: Game Center is going to help spread the viral information about those apps.

11:38AM Q: Are you concerned about leaving out your older customer base (with the lack of features for older devices). A: (Steve) Well, a lot of these products that are out there are the most recent products. The old devices will get the update, but they'll miss some of these features like multitasking. If that's an incentive for them to upgrade to a new device... terrific.

11:40AM Q: How do you close applications when multitasking? A: (Scott) You don't have to. The user just uses things and doesn't ever have to worry about it. (Steve) It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it.

11:40AM Steve: "Okay, thanks for coming. Thanks!"

11:41AM Okay, that's it for us. Time to get lunch! Thanks so much for reading along, and a big thanks to Justin Glow, Dan Chilton, and the Blogsmith team for keeping us chugging along!