Apple Summer 2010 Gadget

source: appleinsider.com
Apple adds buttons to new fourth-generation iPod shuffle
Apple's new fourth-generation iPod shuffle is a marriage of the last two generations, bringing back physical buttons to the company's smallest media player.


The new iPod shuffle will sell for just $49 and comes in five different colors. Like the previous generations, it has a clip so it can be worn.

It looks like the second-generation device, but retains the voiceover capabilities of the third-generation.

"People clearly missed the buttons," Jobs said.

The new wearable iPod shuffle has an all-aluminum enclosure with a built-in clip and comes in five colors: silver, blue, green, orange and pink. With nearly 50 percent more battery life, the new iPod shuffle features over 15 hours of music playback on a single battery charge and offers 2GB of storage for just $49.

"We’re making the iPod shuffle even better by combining clickable buttons and VoiceOver technology, so users can find and enjoy their music without ever looking at their iPod shuffle," Jobs said in a press release. "With its all-aluminum enclosure and built-in clip the new iPod shuffle is a great workout companion, and at just $49 it's a great entry-level iPod that almost everyone can afford."

The new VoiceOver button on top of iPod shuffle allows users to hear the name of the currently playing song and to switch between songs, playlists or Genius Mixes. VoiceOver speaks 25 different languages and even alerts users when their battery needs charging.

The new iPod shuffle now supports Genius Mixes, the iTunes feature that automatically creates mixes from songs in a user’s music library that go great together. Genius Mixes allow users to to rediscover music they already have, but may not have listened to recently.

Features:

• Beautiful and Wearable: It’s small, it’s colorful, and it lets you take hundreds of songs with you everywhere.
  
  
• Buttons: The big, clickable control pad gives you an easy way to play your music.
  
  
• It Talks to You: Press the new VoiceOver button to hear the song title, playlist name, or battery status.
  
  
• Multiple Playlists: Sync different playlists and Genius Mixes and have the perfect music for every mood.

Technical Specifications

Size and weight:

• Height: 1.14 inches (29.0 mm)
  
• Width: 1.24 inch (31.6 mm)
  
• Depth: 0.34 inch (8.7 mm) including clip
  
• True volume: 0.35 cu. inch (5668 cu. mm) including clip
  
• Weight: 0.44 ounce (12.5 grams)

External controls:

• 3-way switch (Shuffle, Play in Order, Off )
  
• VoiceOver button
  
• Control pad

Input and output: 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack for audio and for USB charging

Environmental requirements:

• Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
  
• Non-operating temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)
  
• Relative humidity: 5% to 95% non-condensing
  
• Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

Capacity:

• 2GB flash drive
  
• Stores data via USB flash drive

Battery and power:

• Up to 15 hours of audio playback
  
• 80% charged in 2 hours; fully charged in about 3 hours
  
• Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
  
• Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter (sold separately)

Headphones:

• Earphones
  
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
  
• Impedance: 32 ohms

Audio:

• Skip-free playback
  
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
  
• AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV

Environmental Status Report:

• iPod shuffle embodies Apple’s continuing environmental progress. It is designed with the following features to reduce environmental impact:
  
• Brominated flame retardant-free
  
• PVC-free
  
• Highly recyclable aluminum enclosure
  
• Smaller, more compact packaging (60% smaller, 53% lighter)

new iPod nano with multi-touch display

Apple's new iPod nano will have a tiny multi-touch display that allows users to scroll through their music and use features such as FM radio and Nike+. The new iPod nano, which had been rumored for weeks, was confirmed Wednesday by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs. He boasted that the new device is almost half as small and half as light as its predecessor.

"It's so small, we're able to put a clip on it too, so it's instantly wearable," he said.

Users can swipe through to choose icons including music playlists, artists and Genius mixes. It also has FM radio, podcasts, and the ability to view photos.

Like on other iOS devices, users can move icons and drag them to different pages. The device also allows users to scroll as they do on the iPhone or iPod touch.

The device includes hard volume buttons, voiceover, Nike+ and a pedometer. It works in 29 languages. Multi-touch input can also be used to rotate the screen.

It will be available in six colors, $149 for the 8GB model, and $169 for the 16GB model. The internal battery provides users with up to 24 hours of music playback on a single charge.

"This is the biggest reinvention of the iPod nano since its debut in 2005, and we think users are going to love it," Jobs said in a press release. "Replacing the click wheel with our Multi-Touch interface has enabled us to shrink the iPod nano into an amazingly small design that is instantly wearable with its built-in clip."

iPod nano also features "Shake to Shuffle," giving music lovers the ability to shake their iPod nano to shuffle to a new song in their music library. With its built-in FM radio, iPod nano lets you listen to your favorite radio stations, and live pause lets you pause and resume playing your favorite FM radio shows without missing a beat.

Features:

• Multi-touch display: The best things in life have a soundtrack, and that’s where iPod nano shines. The Multi-Touch display lets you experience your music in a new way. Tap to play anything you want to hear. Swipe the Home screen to browse your music by songs, albums, artists, playlists, genres, or composers. You can even rearrange the icons on your Home screen so your music is organized just how you like.
  
  
• Clip-on design: With the new built-in clip, you can walk, run, ride, or dance with your favorite songs on your sleeve (or pocket, jacket, or bag). The album art of the song you’re listening to fits perfectly on the display.
  
  
• 24-hour battery life: The built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery gives you up to 24 hours of nonstop music. So when you clip on an 8GB or 16GB iPod nano, you’ll have plenty of tunes to make it through your commute, your workout, and beyond.
  
  
• Shake to Shuffle: Now for something completely random. Give iPod nano a shake and it shuffles to a different song in your music library. Shake to Shuffle is perfect for when you’re not in any particular music mood. You never know what you’re going to hear, and you’ll always be pleasantly surprised.
  
  
• Genius Mixes: Say you’re listening to a song you love and you want to stay in the groove. Just tap Genius. It finds other songs on your iPod nano that go great together and makes a Genius playlist for you. For more song combinations you wouldn’t have thought of yourself, create Genius Mixes in iTunes and sync the ones you like to your iPod nano. Then tap the Genius Mixes icon and rediscover songs you haven’t heard in a while — or find music you forgot you even had.
  
  
• FM Radio with Live Pause: Ride the airwaves on iPod nano. The FM tuner shows the artist, song, or program you’re listening to. Just tap to see the radio controls, flick the radio dial to change stations, and tap to set your favorites.
  
  
• Fitness: The new iPod nano design actually helps keep you fit. It’s portable and wearable, which makes it runnable, walkable, and workout-able. Clip it on and control your music with just a tap or swipe of a finger, so you can stay focused without fumbling around. For your run, walk, or trip to the gym, a little iPod nano goes a long way.

Technical Specifications

Size and weight:

• Height: 1.48 inches (37.5 mm)
  
• Width: 1.61 inches (40.9 mm)
  
• Depth: 0.35 inch (8.78 mm) including clip
  
• Weight:0.74 ounces (21.1 grams)
  
• Volume: 0.614 cu. inch (10,056 cu. mm) including clip

Capacity: 8GB or 16GB flash drive2

Sensor: Accelerometer

Environmental requirements:

• Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
  
• Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)
  
• Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
  
• Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

Environmental Status Report:

• Arsenic-free display glass
  
• BFR-free
  
• Mercury-free
  
• PVC-free
  
• Recyclable aluminum enclosure
  
• Smaller, more compact packaging (45% smaller, 46% lighter)

Display:

• 1.54-inch (diagonal) color TFT display
  
• 240-by-240-pixel resolution
  
• 220 pixels per inch

Audio playback:

• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
  
• Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
  
• User-configurable maximum volume limit

FM radio:

• Regional settings for Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Japan
  
• Live Pause feature for pausing a radio broadcast and rewinding (within a 15-minute buffer)

Headphones:

• Earphones
  
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
  
• Impedance: 32 ohms

Battery and power:

• Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery
  
• Up to 24 hours of music playback when fully charged
  
• Charging via USB to computer system or power adapter (sold separately)
  
• Fast-charge time: about 1.5 hours (charges up to 80% of battery capacity)
  
• Full-charge time: about 3 hours

new iPod touch with Retina Display, forward-facing camera

Apple's new iPod touch has the same Retina Display, front facing camera, rear HD camera, and A4 processor as the iPhone 4, all in a size slimmer than last year's media player.

The new iPod touch, along with the rest of the new iPod lineup, will be available next week. All three models of the new iPod touch have the new features, starting at $229 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 32GB version, and $399 for 64GB of capacity.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the new iPod touch can run the same iMovie application that was previously only available for the iPhone 4. Using the rear-facing HD camera, users can shoot video and edit it right on the device.

The new iPod touch also has a forward-facing camera and a microphone, which allow users to do FaceTime with other iPod touch users, as well as iPhone 4 owners.

The fourth-generation iPod touch will also ship with iOS 4.1, which includes Game Center, Apple's social networking application for game players. It also has the three-axis gyroscope, which allows for more precise controls in games.

"We’ve put our most advanced technology inside the new iPod touch," Jobs said in a press release. “Whether you’re listening to music, playing games, making FaceTime video calls, browsing the web, capturing HD video or watching TV shows and movies, the new iPod touch with its Retina display, A4 chip and 3-axis gyro is more fun than ever."

Jobs said he believes that the new lineup of iPods is the strongest that Apple has ever had.

Apple boasted that the iPod touch is the world’s most popular portable game player. The addition of Game Center will allow players to challenge and play friends or be matched automatically with new opponents.

Game Center lets iPod touch users showcase their scores and achievements and discover new games their friends are playing. With the App Store on iPod touch, users have access to the world's largest catalog of apps with over 250,000 apps, including over 65,000 game and entertainment titles to choose from.

Features

• Facetime: FaceTime on iPod touch lets you hang out, catch up, and goof off with friends in an entirely new way. With just a tap, you can see what your friends are up to — literally. Witness a prank in action. Or watch your friend on the other side of the country crack up at your stories from last night — new iPod touch to new iPod touch or iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. And all you need to get started is an Apple ID and an email account.
  
  
• Retina Display: The Retina display on iPod touch brings out the awesome in anything on it. That’s because it’s the highest-resolution iPod screen ever, with four times the pixel count of previous iPod models. In fact, there are so many pixels, the human eye can’t distinguish individual ones. Which makes graphics and images stunningly sharp, and text amazingly crisp. Just like the printed page.
  
  
• HD Video Recording and Editing: “You should have seen it!” is a thing of the past. Because with iPod touch, you’ll always have a great HD video camera with you. Say you’re at a party and you see someone popping and locking. You’re ready to capture the moment in all its glory. In high-definition 720p video. You can record video in low-light settings, thanks to the advanced backside illumination sensor. You can even edit and create your own mini blockbuster right on iPod touch using the new iMovie app — with Apple-designed themes, titles, and transitions. It’s available on the App Store for $4.99.
  
  
• Game Center: It’s time to make a game plan. The new Game Center app on iPod touch lets you add more players to your gaming network. Invite friends to join. Then totally dominate them. Take a look at how your score ranks against your friends and other players of each game. Compare game achievements with your friends. Put together a select group of friends to play with. Or choose to automatically go up against people you don’t know in a multiplayer game. So get in the game. And get your friends in it, too.
  
  
• Music: With iPod touch, you don't just play your music. You hear it, and see it, in entirely different ways. Let Genius search your library and automatically create a mix just for you. Or give Genius playlist a go, and Genius will use a song you really love to find other tracks from your library that go great with it. You can also view album art in Cover Flow. Or shake to shuffle for a fresh take on your music library.
  
  
• Movies and TV Shows: Your favorite movies and TV shows are now playing on a subway train or plane near you. Because you can buy movies and TV shows, or just rent them, right on iPod touch. Shop the iTunes Store and choose from thousands of must-see titles to fill your iPod touch. Then watch them on the amazing 3.5-inch color widescreen Retina display.

Technical specifications

Size and weight:

• Height: 4.4 inches (111.0 mm)
  
• Width: 2.3 inches (58.9 mm)
  
• Depth: 0.28 inch (7.2 mm)
  
• Weight: 3.56 ounces (101 grams)

Capacity:

• 8GB, 32GB or 64GB flash drive

Wireless:

• 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)
  
• Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR
  
• Maps-location based service4
  
• Nike + iPod support built in

In the box

• iPod touch
  
• Earphones
  
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
  
• Quick Start guide

Environmental Status Report

• Arsenic-free display glass
  
• Brominated flame retardant-free
  
• Mercury-free LCD display
  
• PVC-free
  
• Recyclable stainless steel enclosure
  
• Smaller, more compact packaging (17% smaller, 16% lighter)

Display

• 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen
  
• Multi-Touch display
  
• 960-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch

Audio

• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
  
• Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
  
• User-configurable maximum volume limit

Headphones

• Earphones
  
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20,000Hz
  
• Impedance: 32 ohms

TV and video

• H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
  
• MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
  
• Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
  
• Support for 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter; 576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple Composite AV Cable (cables sold separately)

Cameras, photos, and video

• Video recording, HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; still photos (960 x 720) with back camera
  
• VGA-quality photos and video up to 30 frames per second with the front camera
  
• Tap to control exposure for video or stills
  
• Photo and video geo tagging over Wi-Fi

Input and output

• 30-pin dock connector
  
• 3.5-mm stereo headphone minijack
  
• Built-in speaker
  
• Microphone

External buttons and controls

• Sleep/wake
  
• Volume up/down
  
• Home

Sensors

• Three-axis gyro
  
• Accelerometer
  
• Ambient light sensor

Battery and power

• Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery

Playback time

• Music playback time: Up to 40 hours when fully charged
  
• Video playback time: Up to 7 hours when fully charged
  
• Charging times: Fast charge in about 2 hours (80% capacity), full charge in about 4 hours.

iTunes 10 with Ping social music network

The next version of iTunes, available today, includes Ping, a social music discovery tool that allows users to follow friends and artists, helping customers to discover and share new music.

It's sort of like Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes," Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said of the entirely new Ping service. He described it as a social network all about music, built in to the new iTunes, now available for download.

The product is based on discovery, allowing users to see what their friends are listening to and what concerts they're going to.

Users can choose to "follow" artists, as well as their friends, and iTunes will populate a customized top 10 list that represents what their friends are downloading. Users can also see concerts that are coming near them, and inform their friends that they will be attending.

Ping will be open to over 160 million customers, who can sign up immediately. It will also be available to iPhone and iPod touch users through the existing iTunes Store.

iTunes 10 will also ship with a new logo, which Jobs joked reflects the fact that by next Spring, Apple is expected to surpass all CD sales in the U.S. The new iTunes logo dispenses of the CD that was previously featured, and only includes a musical note.

Jobs also demonstrated a new "hybrid" view within iTunes 10, which automatically displays album art when there are five or more tracks from the same record.

"iTunes is the number one music community in the world, with over 160 million iTunes users in 23 countries, and now we’re adding social networking with Ping," Jobs said in a press release. "With Ping you can follow your favorite artists and friends and join a worldwide conversation with music’s most passionate fans."

new cloud-centric Apple TV for $99

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs showed off "one more hobby" Wednesday, with a newly redesigned Apple TV that costs less than half of the price of its predecessor -- $99.

The new Apple TV has a built-in power supply, HDMI, optical audio, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi, all packed into a device that is a quarter of the size of the previous generation hardware.

"It's a fourth the size," Jobs said. "You can hold it in the palm of your hand."

Features

The CEO said that the new Apple TV does away with concerns of storage, as it is based on a rental model rather than purchasing. Users can rent first-run HDTV movies for $4.99, while single episodes of TV shows in HD will be available for 99 cents from Fox and ABC.

"We think the rest of the studios will see the light and get on board pretty fast," Jobs said.

Users can also stream content from an iOS device running version 4.2 or later. Jobs demonstrated streaming the movie "Up," instantly from an iPad over Wi-Fi.

The new Apple TV also offers access to Netflix streaming, YouTube videos, and photos from Flickr. Content can also be streamed from a Mac or PC, and from a MobileMe account. The new Apple TV will ship later this month.

Other features, according to Apple, include:

• Silent, cool, and small: The new Apple TV is quiet, energy efficient, and so small it fits just about anywhere.
  
  
• Less clutter with HDMI: Play audio and video though a single HDMI connection.
  
  
• Apple Remote included: Control Apple TV with the sleek, aluminum Apple Remote.
  
  
• Integration: Includes access to Netflix, Flickr, Rotten Tomatoes, and MobileMe.
  
  
• Photos, music and videos: View your own content on the new Apple TV. And stream content wirelessly via an iOS 4.2 or later device using the new AirPlay technology.
  
  
• Remote app for iPhone or iPod touch . Remote uses the same easy-to-use interface you already use to browse music and video on your Multi-Touch device. So right away, you know how to navigate. If you want to find something specific, use your device’s QWERTY keyboard to quickly tap out the title instead of clicking letters on the Apple TV screen.

"The new Apple TV, paired with the largest selection of online HD movie and TV show rentals, lets users watch Hollywood content on their HD TV whenever they want," Jobs said in a press release. "This tiny, silent box costing just $99 lets users watch thousands of HD movies and TV shows, and makes all of their music, photos and videos effortlessly available on their home entertainment system."

Technical Specifications

Size and weight:

• Height: 0.9 inches (23 mm)
  
• Width: 3.9 inches (98 mm)
  
• Depth: 3.9 inches (98 mm)
  
• Weight: 0.6 pounds

In the box:

• Apple TV
  
• Aluminum Apple Remote
  
• Power cord
  
• Documentation

Environmental Status Report:

• BFR-free
  
• PVC-free (internal cables and components)
  
• Meets ENERGY STAR Version 2.0 requirements for set-top boxes

Processor: Apple A4 chip

System requirements:

• AirPort Extreme, Wi-Fi 802.11b, g, or n wireless network (wireless video streaming requires 802.11g or 802.11n) or 10/100BASE-T Ethernet network
  
• iTunes Store account for renting movies and TV shows
  
• Netflix account for streaming Netflix content
  
• For streaming media from a Mac or PC: iTunes 10 or later; iTunes Store account for Home Sharing

Ports and interfaces:

• HDMI2
  
• Optical audio
  
• 10/100BASE-T Ethernet
  
• Built-in IR receiver
  
• Micro-USB (for service and support)

Environmental requirements:

• Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
  
• Storage temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)
  
• Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
  
• Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

Power: Built-in 6-watt universal power supply

Wireless: 802.11n Wi-Fi (a/b/g compatible), 2.4GHz and 5GHz

Read More..

Should You Upgrade your iPhone to iPhone 4?

source: hardwarezone.com

Ah, the months of June and July when the heady heat of summer breezes in and Apple unleashes yet another iPhone unto the world. When that year-end bonus is still so maddeningly far-away, yet a brand-new iPhone calls to us, beckons us even - oh, consumer frenzy, whatever will we do with you?

Now that we know the iPhone 4 is reaching our little red dot on July 30th, it's time to answer the question on everyone's lips: is it time to ditch your old iPhone and upgrade to Retina display-ed, FaceTiming version 4 - Antennagate be damned?

That's really a question with many things to consider, like if the price is right, how far you're into your telco contract and if you need the new features or not. But fear not, like many things in life, a little history and tech perspective will shed answers for you.

iPhone to iPhone 4

The first iPhone was introduced in 2007, and can be considered 'discontinued' (technical term for 'dinosaur') now that you can't upgrade to the latest iOS (version 4) and beyond. We therefore infer, dear reader, that each generation of iPhone has a shelf life of 3 years, give or take. An easy answer for first generation iPhone users:- upgrade!

(Note: You might want to keep that original iPhone when 2020 rolls around and it becomes retro cool again.)

iPhone 3G to iPhone 4

Apple gave birth to the iPhone 3G in 2008, and it's now two years old. We guess it'll have a usable life of a year more, which by then it'll probably be left out by iOS 5. In fact, upgrading the iPhone 3G to iOS 4 already excludes some of the key features iPhone 3GS users enjoy like multi-tasking. To further exagerate the issue, iOS 4 also seems to make the 3G noticeably slower - no surprise really as the iPhone 3G didn't give much of a performance boost over the original iPhone.

If the price is right and you're finding your iPhone 3G a little creaky when loading apps, we say satisfy your gadget lust.

iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4

The more powerful iPhone 3GS came out in 2009, giving it a couple of years more in its shelf-life if the original iPhone is any indication. It's still a capable workhorse, getting the full features of iOS 4. Should you upgrade? Assuming your contract is for 2 years, that means you've still got at least a year left on it, so if you break it now you could be looking at an extra penalty.

Yes, the iPhone 4 has a faster processor than the 3GS, but it won't be as noticeable a jump as say, going from the 3G (which was as fast as the original) to the iPhone 4. It should still prove capable running the newest apps without giving up the ghost.

We say there's no need to upgrade from an iPhone 3GS unless you really love the new iPhone 4, its speed gains and new features (trust us, when iPhone 6 comes out two years later, it'll be even more luscious than the iPhone 4). Patience, young Padawan, patience.

Keeping Your Old iPhone?

Not convinced you should buy a new iPhone every time one rolls around? We salute you sir! We love long-lasting gadgets and getting the maximum mileage out of them as much as the next eco-loving, thrifty cool person. But the cruel reality is that as the latest iPhone becomes more powerful, iOS and accompanying apps ask more and more out of the hardware, the older models just can't keep up.

So what do you do? Well, read the next page, of course

Say you don't want to get a new iPhone 4 and want to keep your older model - how should you get the most bang for your buck out of it? Well, here's some contrary advice: Depending on which set you own, you might not want to upgrade to the latest iOS 4 (if you have already, then just read the bits below about the latest 4.0.1 update).

The biggest deal about Apple's upgrading process is that it's a one-way street, there is no going back to your previous iOS version after upgrading. If something goes wrong (and it has gone wrong before) then you're simply stuck until the next fix. So read this before you next plug your beloved iPhone into iTunes!

iPhone 3GS

We say upgrade! iPhone 3GS users get the perks enjoyed by iPhone 4 users with none of the speed hits seen by iPhone 3G users. You get multi-tasking, folders, a better email app, orientation lock and so on.

There is one gripe though: multi-tasking seems to drain the iPhone's battery faster, and the multi-tasking panel on iOS4 makes it a hassle to kill multiple apps running at once. How about a universal kill switch, Apple?

Now, about the latest 4.0.1 upgrade. It was supposed to change the signal indicator bars to reflect a more accurate measurement of signal strength. But it seems to cause bugs in the iPhone's photo albums, with some thumbnails showing up as black blocks. iPhone 3GS owners have reported success at eliminating the black blocks by simply rebooting, but 3G owners don't seem so lucky.

Apple say oops?

iPhone 3G

The cons may outweigh the pros if you're carrying an iPhone 3G.

iPhone 3G users don't get the key feature of iOS 4: multi-tasking. This is supposedly because the iPhone 3G's processing power isn't up to handling multiple apps running at the same time. Another visible exclusion is background wallpaper, iPhone 3G users can't customize their backgrounds the way other iOS4 users can.

The biggest gripe of iPhone 3G users though is the noticeable speed hit when running iOS4. It's aptly demonstrated in this video between an iPhone 3G running iOS 4 and iOS 3.1.3:

The iPhone 3G running iOS 4 is noticeably slower. Reading through the Apple support forums, this seems to be a matter of luck, some users seem to be affected, some don't - although we have to say it seems to us that more are seeing the speed drop than not. As with the iPhone 3GS, the latest 4.0.1 upgrade has appeared to cause bugs in iPhone 3G's photo albums, with some thumbnails showing up as black blocks. Reading through Apple's support forums, this problem seems to affect more iPhone 3G users than 3GS and 4 users.

The only real pro to upgrading an iPhone 3G to iOS 4 seems to be the inclusion of folders, so you can tidily organize your apps together.

We say if your iPhone 3G with iOS3 is serving you well, you don't see the need for folders and you don't need to have the latest in everything iOS - then you can comfortably hold off upgrading to iOS4 and have a snappier phone.

A Dose of Cruel Commercial Reality

The cruel, cruel truth is that like a Bullet train, technology waits for no one. While holding off on upgrades to more processor-intensive iOS versions can buy you some time with your older iPhone, Apple is the company that marches boldly onward (killing floppy disks on the first iMac, CD-ROMs on the MacBook Air, Flash on the iPad, need we say more), expecting you to keep up. iOS seems to bear this out, with the iPhone 3G barely keeping up with the upgrade.

So while you may be able to hold off on that hardware upgrade, save a few dollars and hold on to your beloved iPhone today, if you want to keep your investment on the platform (read: all the apps you paid for), you're going to have to upgrade some day. Time to start saving

Read More..

iPhone 4 and iOS vs. Android: hardware features

source: appleinsider.com
With the fourth generation of Apple's smartphone nearing release later this week, some buyers might be curious about alternatives that use Google's Android OS, including the Motorola Droid, HTC/Google Nexus One, HTC Droid incredible, and HTC EVO 4G. Here's how they compare in terms of hardware, part one of a series.

This all happened before
A year ago, the launch of iPhone 3GS was pitted against the new Palm Pre, which had been building up marketing steam over the previous six months. Yet when Apple's new phone launched, the Pre's hype collapsed while the iPhone 3GS set sales records, despite offering few of the flashy new features of Palm's first new webOS smartphone.

Apple's iPhone 3GS offered no web-based multitasking, no inductive power charging slab, no slide out physical keyboard, no removable battery, and no LED camera flash, the features that pundits predicted to be important differentiators of the Palm Pre. Other other hand, Apple's next phone matched or beat the Pre in features that seemed to matter to end users: processor speed, camera quality, battery life, global search, and stereo Bluetooth support.

Since the release of last year's iPhone 3GS, the webOS-based Palm Pre has faded into the shadows, leaving competition with the iPhone to a series of new smartphone introductions from Motorola and HTC running Google's Android OS: the HTC Hero/Droid Eris, Motorola Verizon Droid, HTC/Google T-Mobile Nexus One, the HTC Droid Incredible, and HTC Sprint EVO 4G.

Good enough, or too good?

Google's release of Android OS 2.2 "Froyo" also fueled competitive heat directed at iPhone, although Apple continued selling a record number of iPhones in the first calendar quarter of 2010, and largely focused attention on the new iPad in the second quarter. With Apple now gearing up for the launch of iPhone 4, the question is: will Apple's new smartphone be good enough to stand out in a market bathed in Android news, or will competition from Android devices shatter when iPhone 4 hits the market?

Unlike PCs, which have been dominated by the monoculture of Microsoft Windows for 15 years, most consumer markets are flush with direct, open competition: there are lots of competing manufacturers in cars, motorcycles, bicycles, refrigerators, televisions and other consumer products, so there should be no problem with multiple vendors of smartphones. Everyone should be able to bring products to market and find buyers, if their products are good enough.

On the other hand, Apple has been on a tear over the last decade in introducing products that competitors (including much larger, more experienced, and formerly entrenched companies) haven't been able to match. For nearly ten years of iPod introductions, Apple continually grew with little effective competition from Sony and Microsoft, largely creating the market for hard drive based MP3 players and subsequently taking over the flash memory MP3 player market before releasing the iPod touch, which has no real competition from anyone. The iPhone and iPad have followed similar trajectories, facing a series of ineffectual "killers" that didn't even make a dent in Apple's recession-busting sales records.

Comparing Apples to Androids

One difficulty in making comparison between Apple's smartphone and alternatives running Android is that they're not the same thing. One can compare iPhone hardware features against an Android model, for example, but the value of iPhone 4 isn't just its hardware, it's the integration of its hardware paired with the iOS software designed to make it useful, and its integration with Apple's iTunes and its MobileMe cloud services for media and app management, software updates, push messaging, remote administration, and other features.

Conversely, one can dismiss all of the value of iPhone 4 if using it means, for example, being tied to a single carrier in the US that provides unusable coverage for the user where they live. In such a scenario, picking a far inferior feature phone would be better if the goal were to actually place phone calls.

Individual circumstances and preferences color what choice makes the most sense to a particular user. However, it's also important to look at the overall attractiveness of a product in the global market, as if Apple maintains its lead, then problems like AT&T's coverage holes will be resolved with network expansions and the eventual availability of iPhone on other US carriers. Conversely, if enough users flock to Android, then Apple will eventually lose its wide lead in being able to attract the primary attention of the best third party developers.

To get a sense of where future momentum is headed, this series will provide a comparison of iOS and Android as platforms in terms of hardware features, desktop and cloud integration, mobile carriers, OS features, third party apps, and market share, and what these difference reveal, not just about how competitive the current offerings are, but how these will affect the viability of iOS and Android going forward.

Is Android ahead in hardware features?

One of the primary advantages ascribed to Android is that it should allow for more competitive choice among different hardware makers, which conceivably should result in faster advances in hardware innovation. This has particularly seemed to be the case in the last six months, when a flurry of new Android devices appeared while Apple's iPhone 3GS grew increasingly out of date in comparison.

Again, as with other markets, the pace of Android-based releases will likely slow in terms of both hardware cycles and software releases, just as cars are brought to market in annual cycles. It wasn't too long ago that people complained that Apple released a new iPod or iPhone every year. Certainly, a three month cycle in new Android phones is going to be difficult to sustain.

Overall however, this idea that "platform openness" automatically results in better hardware features has only been proven to give Android a temporary advantage that is now lost with the introduction of iPhone 4, which significantly outpaces top Android phones not only in interface polish and usability, but also in hardware specifications, the very thing the Android ecosystem is supposed to excel at (see chart).

For example, the iPhone 4's cameras not only provide the both front facing capture and HD recording capabilities that many Android phones lack, but also captures usable 30 fps video rather than the 20 fps video of today's high end Android devices. Apple also supports faster 802.11n WiFi networking and debuted advanced, 6-axis motion sensing with iPhone 4's new gyroscope. The new phone also offers multiple mic noise cancellation, a feature only a few of the fanciest Android phones have.

And iPhone 4's video iPod legacy means the device supports composite (RCA) and higher fidelity component analog video as well as the iPad's 1024x768 VGA-style output for video projectors and monitors. The HTC Incredible only supports basic composite video output (putting it on the technical sophistication of the 5G iPod from 2005), while the HTC Evo, despite packing support HDMI, delivers limited quality video output and can't output analog video at all. Most other recent Android phones offer no video output capabilities at all. So much for a purported lead in raw hardware features.

Platform monoculture doesn't always drive hardware innovation

The idea that an open platform should drive hardware innovation was not borne out in the PC arena. Specific PC models have often offered better graphics options and sometimes introduced faster processors quicker than Apple's Macs, for example, but Macs have long offered higher quality components, better industrial design, and often introduced or popularized new features first (such as USB, FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet, optical digital audio, sudden motion sensors, backlit keyboards, DisplayPort, and so on).

Recently, the intense competition among PC makers has resulted in efforts directed primarily at achieving lower prices (achieved by cutting hardware corners or using old technology), resulting in the short term boom among netbooks. Apple has kept the bar high among Macs, resulting in better quality at a higher price. Rather than pricing itself out of the market, this has resulted in Apple's Mac sales outpacing the grown of the global PC market by a factor of around 4x. In smartphones however, Apple is maintaining a quality edge at an equal or lower price, thanks to the economies of scale the company enjoys due to its sales of tens of millions of iPods.

The iPhone debuted with far more storage memory than any other phone offered, and continues to lead in that area with iPhone 4, which also packs in a huge amount of system RAM and on-board storage memory. Apple also has the resources to develop its own custom silicon for the iPhone 4's A4 application processor (the "system on a chip" that holds the CPU, GPU, supporting chipset logic, and RAM). The company also has the resources to find and gain exclusive access to best-of-breed technologies such as iPhone 4's new Retina Display high resolution IPS screen, which offers a significant leap ahead of the high resolution displays Android phones brought to market this year.

Unlocking the hardware

Apple also has the resources (and the interest and motivation) to develop technology portfolios that support sophisticated hardware and software integration, such as the new FaceTime, which ties new camera hardware into sophisticated but easy to use software that supports video calling.

In the Android world, hardware makers may include a front facing or high resolution camera, but the software that runs that camera may be poorly integrated, as was the case with both the Motorola Droid (a very high megapixel camera paired with awful software that couldn't take good photos) and the new HTC EVO 4G (which supplies a front facing video chat camera but relies on problematic, proprietary software from third parties to actually do anything).

Apple's iPhone 4, like the 3GS last year, doesn't just shoot video but actually makes it easy to trim videos and distribute them. Apple's interest in making a very sophisticated (but $5) iMovie app for iPhone 4 shows the extent of its interests in pushing hardware using innovative software. That's something that is conspicuously missing on both the Windows PC and among Android mobile devices, where hardware specs are supposed to stand on their own merits, regardless of usability and practical functionality.

Similarly, Android phone makers began introducing high resolution screens and new screen technologies (such as OLED displays) a few months ahead of Apple's iPhone 4, but failed to deliver software support that makes existing third party titles look good and properly fit the screen on all of the various different resolutions supported. Apple evenly quadrupled the iPhone's resolution, and provided developer support that automatically renders text and user interface elements within existing apps at the optimum resolution.

Apple is also adding leading support for the latest OpenGL ES standards for graphics hardware acceleration in iOS 4 to enable game developers to create sophisticated titles that look great and perform well, while also incentivizing development of third party software using its high volume App Store, which actively discourages software theft.

Even if Google delivered the same software support to take full advantage of the fast GPU hardware its partners are including on their phones, it can't attract the attention of developers because its store is geared toward hobbyists, not commercial developers. In part, this is because Google does little to protect developers from having their software "openly" stolen by users who don't want to pay for content.

iPhone 4 continues to advance the state of the art in hardware via software in other areas as well, introducing the first gyroscope in a smartphone along with the CoreMotion APIs for developers to use so they can actually take advantage of it.

As with Apple's other software APIs, including CoreLocation and Accelerate, the new motion-control frameworks in iOS 4 abstract away the differences in hardware between new and older iOS devices, avoiding the fractionalization problems Android experiences as each new model introduces (or fails to include) specific hardware features. The result is that Apple's iOS makes it easier for third parties to actually use new hardware.

The next segment in this series will look at how Android offerings compare against iOS 4 in terms of desktop and cloud services integration.

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Apple unveils iPhone 4 with 326ppi display, gyroscope coming June 24

Calling it the biggest leap since the original iPhone, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone on Monday, complete with an all-new, thinner design, camera flash, front-facing camera, a second noise-canceling microphone, and a gyroscope for six-axis motion sensing.

Availability
The new hardware arrives on June 24, while preorders begin on June 15. It is available in the same prices and capacities as last year's model: $199 for 16GB, and $299 for 32GB. The iPhone 3GS will be available for $99. The hardware is available in both black and white.

"iPhone 4 is the biggest leap since the original iPhone," Jobs said. "FaceTime video calling sets a new standard for mobile communication, and our new Retina display is the highest resolution display ever in a phone, with text looking like it does on a fine printed page. We have been dreaming about both of these breakthroughs for decades."

Design

Jobs boasted that the new iPhone is beyond any consumer product that's ever been seen, only 9.3mm thick and 24 percent thinner than the iPhone 3GS, making it the "thinnest smartphone on the planet."

Jobs said that the structure of the phone is now connected to the antennas, improving the reception of the iPhone with its stainless steel border.

"I don't think there's another consumer product like this," Jobs said. "When you hold this in your hands, it's unbelievable."

Created from a unique alloy, then forged to be five times stronger than standard steel, the CNC-machined band is the mounting point for all the components of iPhone 4. The band provides impressive structural rigidity and allows for its thin, refined design. It also functions as both iPhone 4 antennas.

As revealed in the prototype device obtained months ago, the hardware has an LED camera flash, a micro-SIM slot, and new flat back and front.

The front and back are made of aluminosilcate glass, chemically strengthened to be 30 times harder than plastic, more scratch resistant and more durable than ever. The front and back glass have an oil-resistant coating that helps keep it clean, and encircling iPhone 4 is a highly finished stainless steel band made of a custom alloy that is forged to be five times stronger than standard steel.

Display

The new device also has four times as many pixels in the same amount of space, providing for sharper text and more accurate colors through what Apple has dubbed "retina display." The new device has a display with 326 pixels per inch, beyond the display capabilities of the human retina, Jobs said.

"Once you use a Retina Display, you can't go back," he said.

Network issues prevented Jobs from showing the website for The New York Times to demonstrate the display, but he did display new photos from the device. When Jobs turned to Scott Forstall, senior vice president for iPhone software, for ideas, someone in the audience suggested they try the Verizon network.

The new display is 960 by 640 pixels, with an 800-to-1 contrast ratio. Like the iPad, it also has an LCD screen with IPS technology for superior viewing angles. Jobs said IPS is a better option than OLED.

"We think this is going to set the standard for the next several years," Jobs said.

Internals

The new hardware also has a larger battery that offers longer uptime, including 7 hours of talk time 3G, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music, and 300 hours of standby.

A new two-axis gyroscope, combined with the iPhone's accelerometer, will offer "much more precise movement," Jobs said. He demonstrated it by showing a Jenga-style application with a stack of wood in a 3D space, and turning had the image adjust accordingly.

The hardware also has the A4 processor found in the iPad, and has a second microphone for noise canceling.

Dual cameras

The iPhone 4 also includes a whole-new camera system that includes LED flash with a 5 megapixel lens that records HD video. The new rear camera will record 720p video at 30 frames per second. Users can also use built-in video editing to trim their HD clips right on the phone.

The handset's forward facing camera can be used for video chat with the application FaceTime, allowing users to see someone using another iPhone 4 as they talk to them. Videos can also be edited using the new iMovie application, which will cost $4.99 on the App Store.

Accessories

Apple will release its first official case for its handset with the iPhone 4. Called a "bumper," it will cover the stainless steel perimeter of the handset and is available in six colors, including white and black to match the options on the device itself. The bumper costs $29.

Apple will also have a new dock to match the new iPhone 4 hardware. It will also cost $29.

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Multitasking in Android vs iPhone OS 4.0

source: appleinsider.com
How you work on a smartphone is very different from how you work on a desktop computer. This reality is particularly true when it comes to multitasking. The approach to multitasking taken by Google's Android and Apple's upcoming iPhone 4.0 is also very different. Here's how they compare.

Desktop Multitasking

On a desktop system running Mac OS X, you don't just want to have multiple apps open and running, each with its own set of open windows. You also want lots of stuff happening in the background, because otherwise your expensive CPU and GPUs are just sitting there idle when they could be doing useful stuff.

Over the last decade of Mac OS X's development, Apple has added lots of new technologies to keep the processors working. The operating system debuted in 2001 with a fancy new compositing graphics engine, which with each new release kept giving the CPU (and later GPUs) additional busy work to do in the background, from shadows to translucency to reflections.

Mac OS X also has Spotlight indexing happening at regular intervals, and throws in automatic file system defragmentation and Time Machine backup change tracking as files are accessed, just to mention a few background features. The faster Macs get, the more extra background tasks the system can throw at the various available processor cores without causing (hopefully) any discernible slowdown for the foreground app.

Many of the new improvements in Snow Leopard were centered around managing how to most efficiently parcel tasks out to the various processor cores available in the system (Grand Central Dispatch) and taking novel advantage of the often idle GPU (OpenCL). The more a desktop operating system does in the background, the richer the experience it can offer.

Mobile Multitasking

When the iPhone appeared and debuted Apple's first mobile variant of Mac OS X, the design goals for the new operating system were turned completely upside down. When a system has to run off its own limited battery, you don't really want it to be doing lots of stuff in the background at all. You really want everything to be idle as much of the time as possible.

Of course, there's still lots that needs to be done, and in many cases, even more to do than a typical desktop. For example, there's a constant need to watch for incoming phone calls or SMS messages. This means the baseband unit has to constantly track the nearest cell tower with an acceptable signal in order to be ready to accept incoming calls or messages.

Power management certainly wasn't an entirely new idea; Apple had been selling notebooks for nearly twenty years, and had created increasingly sophisticated methods for shutting down unnecessary hardware to conserve battery life.

But on a handheld mobile device like the iPhone, there's not just hardware power management to think about. There's also a radically new user interface for working with apps. Apple invested a lot of engineering into deciding how to best deliver a mobile device that balanced features and functionality with acceptable battery life.

Not Multitasking on Purpose

A major design decision of the iPhone was to limit effective multitasking to core system apps, including Phone, SMS, iPod, Clock, and processes that supported these and similar features. When third party apps appeared with iPhone 2.0, there was no provision for running these in the background.

Apple's explanation was that enabling third party apps to run concurrently would simply consume too much battery while presenting potential security problems, and would necessitate providing a manual tool to manage background processes so that they didn't consume all available system resources.

Instead, Apple said it was working on a solution to the primary reason apps would want to run in the background: listening for external updates. Apple's strategy was delivered later than expected as it realized what a huge undertaking this would be, but the resulting Push Notification service enabled iPhone apps to seem responsive to external updates without actually running in the background, constantly polling servers for updates.

There was no technical limitation that kept third party apps from multitasking; the restriction was artificially imposed by Apple to simplify and optimize the performance of its mobile devices. By jailbreaking the iPhone, users can activate unregulated multitasking among third party apps. However, this results in battery life and performance issues the user will need to manage manually.

Apparent Multitasking

Google created multitasking for Android that works very differently than multitasking on a desktop system. In fact, they're so different that its almost confusing that both are referred to using the same word.

On a desktop system, multiple apps all open at once (in addition to background processes) are all able to do work concurrently. As the mouse moves between windows of different apps and clicks on things, events are sent to each app. They're all on and active, although tasks can sit in the background and essentially do nothing, taking up no real processing power and consuming no real memory (thanks to the mechanism of virtual memory) until the user activates them.

On Android, when a user switches from one app to another, the background app is suspended. This is like going into a coma; it's still taking up memory (which is scarce) but can't respond to anything or continue work or begin any new tasks. If the system runs low on memory, it begins saving the state of suspended apps and terminating them.

Terminated apps still appear to be running. When the user jumps to the app, it is relaunched and passed its saved state by the system so that it loads up to look like nothing ever happened and it has been actively running in the background. So far, this isn't really multitasking at all, but rather just a faster way to switch between apps that each run one at a time like the iPhone.

Costly Multitasking with Services

In order to actually do things in the background, Android apps must supply a "service" component, which spins off tasks that can continue even when the associated app is suspended. An Android service uses a client/server model to perform background tasks such as music playback or polling a server for new messages.

It's often these background services that are most likely to eat up battery life on Android phones, because they can open network connections to a remote server and keep those connections open. This forces the 3G or WiFi radio to remain constantly active, which is one of the fastest ways to drain the battery on a mobile device.

An Android service can also activate GPS to obtain regular location updates. This can be even more expensive in terms of battery life, as GPS exercises both the mobile network and the GPS antenna (as mobile signals are used to assist in the task of GPS tracking). Services can also eat up available RAM and consume CPU, but battery life is usually the primary problem.

Multitasking in iPhone 4.0 vs. Android

Apple was certainly aware of how Google had designed Android's multitasking model, and there's no evidence that Google patented the concept of services in its publicly documented, open source operating system. So the fact that Apple didn't clone Google's entire model for multitasking indicates that Steve Jobs wasn't just blowing hot air when he said Apple had studied the problem and devised its own approach to multitasking that it believed to be better.

At the same time, some aspects of Apple's new multitasking APIs are very similar in approach to Android's. According to an overview of the differences in Android and iPhone 4.0 by David Quintana, the "apparent multitasking" of iPhone 4.0, which Apple calls "Fast App Switching," is nearly identical to Android's app suspending concept described above.

When you switch from one app to another in iPhone 4.0, the previous app is held in memory but all activity is frozen. As noted earlier, this isn't really multitasking in the sense of desktop OS multitasking, but rather just an illusion that multiple apps are all running, when they're really not. They're just ready to run again as soon as you switch back: hence the name Fast App Switching.

Before Apple announced this mechanism, many iPhone programmers had expressed the idea that the system didn't really need "multitasking" as much as a "saved state" concept that would allow users to rapidly switch between apps. That's exactly what Fast App Switching does.

Just as with Android, iPhone 4.0 can reclaim memory by saving and then terminating apps that are frozen in the background, so when the user returns, the app can be reopened to the same place it was when the user quit. However, unlike Android, iPhone 4.0 presents a simple way to expressly quit a running app without needing a process management utility like TasKiller.

Because hitting the Home button no longer exits the app, Apple has now made a touch and hold shortcut that presents a red minus badge on running apps that can be used to quit them and remove them from the task tray of running apps, just like the Home button used to do. There's no manual management of apps and systems processes that could result in unanticipated problems for users.

Incidentally, this type of "apparent multitasking" is also what Microsoft plans to use in Windows Phone 7 at the end of the year. And once again for emphasis: this aspect of multitasking isn't really about running multiple apps at once as occurs in a desktop environment, it's about leaving them in memory so you can quickly switch between them.

More Efficient Multitasking in iPhone 4.0

Going beyond the apparent multitasking of Windows Phone 7, iPhone 4.0 will also support a specific set of tasks in third party apps that users will actually want to continue in the background after they leave an app. This is conceptually similar to Android's services, but is implemented in a new way. As Quintana writes, on iPhone 4.0 "background processing is however vastly different than Android."

A primary difference, Quintana notes, is that there is no concept of services in iPhone 4.0. Apps don't provide a background client/server component. Instead, Apple developed a set of rules that apps must follow in order to continue doing tasks after the user switches away from the app.

The idea of apps continuing to work after the user switches away is not new to the iPhone; it's only new to third party apps. Apple's Phone app already does this, as the company has long touted in its ads. With a call in progress, the user can hit the Home button and browse the web or look up a contact or check email while the Phone app remains on the call.

The same thing happens with the iPod app, which can continue to play music. SMS and Mail continue to get messages in the background and so on. However, this would quickly become a problem for users if all of the scores of apps they installed were all consuming resources without restriction as they checked for messages and streamed updates and continued other operations in the background.

In order to balance users' desires to do multiple things at once against users' expectations that their phone would work responsively for a reasonably long period of time, Apple defined a number of background tasks that third parties can implement, and set up rules that ensure these tasks are performed as efficiently as possible.

System-Wide Notifications as a Prerequisite for Efficient Multitasking

The first step down this path was delivered last year: Push Notifications. Rather than having apps sit in the background or spawning background services to poll remote servers for updates, Apple created a system wide service to efficiently listen for updates on behalf of the user's apps, and then present the user with notifications that the user then can act on (when convenient) by launching or switching to the app that has received the notification.

This is something other platforms don't really have in place. Even RIM's Blackberry, which is hailed for its push messaging savvy, has only recently opened up a public push messaging facility for third party apps. The result of this is that most Blackberry apps have already been designed to inefficiently poll their server for updates because unregulated multitasking was already there to allow them to do it "the wrong way." Users pay with shorter battery life.

Android apps similarly cause problems for users' battery life because they're each polling in the background rather than allowing a unified system thread to watch for updates while the individual apps all remain asleep. Apple's Push Notification feature therefore thoughtfully solved a complex problem before multitasking for third party apps was even attempted on the platform.

With iPhone 4.0, there's a second type of system level notification being added: Local Notifications. This mechanism allows apps to set reminders on a schedule that the system handles for them. Rather than being events that are pushed from an external server, they're set up by an app while it's awake, and then held and delivered on time by the system while the app sleeps.

An example might be an app that sets a reminder of a live webcast; the app doesn't need to remain in the background counting down to the notification; the system accepts the reminder and delivers it to the user at the set time on behalf of the app while the app itself goes to sleep.

Getting Things Done in the Background

While it's most efficient to have apps sleep, there are a few cases where an app actually needs to do something in the background. The most obvious involves finishing some time-consuming task such as a file upload. Users don't want to be forced to watch a progress indicator, which is what they currently have to do.

Right now, if a user quits a third party app while it's finishing an operation, the operation will fail because the app is forced to quit by the system. Apple's own apps, including Mail and SMS, can continue to send messages after the user appears to have quit the app, but that's because Apple's own bundled apps aren't forced to quit. Other apps are.

To accommodate this type of multitasking in iPhone 4.0, Apple added the Task Completion API, a feature that enables app developers to design their app so that it can request a specific amount of time to continue a task after the app is supposed to be put to sleep in the background. Once the app finishes its task or its requested time period expires, the system suspends the app as usual.

Three Special Background Tasks: VoIP, Audio, and Location

There are three other multitasking scenarios Apple supports in iPhone 4.0 which are related to ongoing tasks an app might want to do. This mechanism of granting exceptions to the "one app at a time" model for specific types of apps was anticipated in AppleInsider's earlier coverage of the development of multitasking in the iPhone OS.

The first exception API allows apps to work like the bundled Phone app: being able to accept calls and continue a call while other apps are being used. Only Apple's Phone app can place mobile calls, so this feature is called Voice over IP, as it's designed to support calls placed over an Internet connection using an app like Skype.

In order to make use of this new background VoIP mechanism, an app registers with the system and can then be suspended while the system maintains a network socket listening for incoming VoIP calls. When a call request occurs, the system wakes up the VoIP app and transfers it control of the network connection to service the call.

A second scenario is similar to the built-in iPod app: Background Audio. This allows apps such as Pandora to request the ability to continue playing a music stream even when it is not in the foreground. Apple ties the same background playback controller used for iPod to the app that has requested the use of the new Background Audio facility.

A third scenario for multitasking involves regular location updates. The new Background Location serves two types of apps that use location data: GPS apps that supply driving directions and social networking apps that use the user's location to notify their friends or suggest nearby events.

In the first case, Apple allows apps devoted to driving directions (like TomTom) to remain awake and access GPS in order to provide audible directions even when the app is put into the background. This would normally drain the battery pretty quickly, but most people who are using GPS do so in a car with a kit that supplies constant power.

On the other hand, social networking apps such as Loopt similarly need to know the user's location in order to be useful, but are not typically used in a car kit. If they used GPS, they'd nail the iPhone's battery pretty rapidly just to offer a lightweight service of limited value. In order to support these types of services efficiently, Background Location supplies them with data the phone already gets on a regular basis every time the user moves between mobile cell towers.

This update happens when the user moves between 500 and 1000 meters. When a location change is noted, the system wakes the app, updates its location, provides it with a period of time to process the change, and then suspends it again. This gets around the battery taxing use of GPS while still allowing these types of apps to work without constantly being in the foreground (as is currently the case on the iPhone).

Reasons for Multitasking Differently

In addition to increased efficiency, Apple's approach to regulated multitasking allows for simplified compatibility between devices like the iPhone 3G, which won't support multitasking, and more recent devices that do. Apps that take advantage of the new APIs simply request the ability to do things in the background, so if the hardware doesn't support it the requests are just denied by the operating system.

Google's approach with services requires a new model of client/server components. If Apple had copied that, developers would have to create one set of apps for older devices and an entirely different code base of apps for newer ones, a complex and problematic transition step given that Apple already has a vast library of existing titles in the App Store.

Additionally, much of what developers do with services on Android is already handled by the iPhone OS with Push Notifications. So implementing an Android-like services architecture for iPhone 4.0 would suggest to Android developers wanting to port their apps that they should do so using services rather than the more efficient Push Notifications, creating a problem like the one that exists on the Blackberry, where push features are largely ignored and go unused.

Unified development tools: Clang, LLVM and Xcode

This also all leads to the conclusion that Apple's design for incorporating multitasking features in iPhone 4.0 is all about doing what's best for the iPhone OS platform, rather than trying to create compatibility or similarities with other platforms that do things differently.

It should come as no surprise that Apple is not at all interested in making it easy or simple to port apps between the iPhone OS and other platforms. Doing so would only water down the advantages of the iPhone OS and encourage developers to aim at a lowest common denominator that worked across platforms rather than aspiring to take full advantage of the unique features of the iPhone OS.

This is the same reason why Apple has no interest in supporting Flash or Java as a meta-platform on the iPhone, and also why the company does not want to support third party efforts to create development tools that output iPhone apps. The Flash Professional strategy Adobe hoped to roll out will not offer its users the ability to support iPhone 4.0's multitasking features, Adobe would not be able to rapidly add these features as soon as Apple would like, nor would it necessarily even be in Adobe's interest to add them.

Apple's new prohibition of iPhone 4.0 development in languages other than C, C++ and Objective-C was largely seen as an attack on external development tools like Adobe's Flash CS5. However, observers including Rainer Brockerhoff have since noted that Apple's focus on C languages likely has more to do with the company strategy for optimizing iPhone OS development using Clang.

Clang (short for "C Language") is an open source project Apple funded to serve as a new front end compiler for (unsurprisingly) C, C++ and Objective-C code. Clang connects to LLVM, the Low Level Virtual Machine, which serves as the back end compiler for Apple's Xcode development tool for both Mac OS X and iPhone OS.

The combination of Clang and LLVM effectively replaces GCC (GNU Compiler Collection, the GPL-licensed compiler for Unix-like operating systems). Because Apple's replacement compiler tool chain is licensed under the more permissive BSD license, Apple can integrate it more closely into its Xcode Integrated Development Environment.

Additionally, Clang and LLVM enable Apple to better optimize various steps of the code compiling workflow, creating Mac and iPhone apps that are more efficient, faster, more compact, and easier to debug, due to a variety of optimizations and enhancements that the flexible, modular new compiling tools provide over GCC.

Having invested so much strategic work into Clang and LLVM, it's no wonder Apple is working to push developers to use its own development tools rather than trying to leverage emerging lowest common denominator platforms to deliver iPhone apps that aren't optimized for the iPhone or the latest features of the iPhone OS, including new support for multitasking.
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10 Essential iPad Tips & Tricks

source: gizmodo.com
Any idiot can use an iPad at a basic level. It's designed that way. But even still, there are things that you're just supposed to magically know—things no one ever necessarily tells you. So we're here to help.

The Hard Reset

The single most common thing people don't realize about the iPhone OS (from my experience) is how to perform a hard reset—which you'll find extremely useful in cases when the system freezes.

Just hold the top (power) and bottom front (home) button for a few seconds. Your iPad will restart. To force quit an application, just hold the home button by itself in a similar fashion.

Cut, Copy and Paste for Experts

Copying text is as easy as double tapping a word. But when you want to copy a whole paragraph, like for an address, you have to stretch those annoying little blue knobs...or do you?

Tap any editable text four times. You'll highlight the whole paragraph.

Import Your Own (Free) Books

Apple's iBooks app is your portal to reading and buying eBooks on the iPad—and it includes a section with a few free books. But don't forget, just like iTunes and the iPod can import and play music downloaded elsewhere, the iTunes and the iPad can import and display books downloaded elsewhere. Formats are limited, however. The iPad only supports ePub (with or without DRM).

Your local library may be a great source for free ePub checkouts. Also, Project Gutenberg has 30,000 free ePub books you can download, all of which have fallen out of copyright. There's lots of good stuff in this collection if you read classics, and the project even has an RSS list for new arrivals.

If you want to convert PDFs and other DRM-free formats to ePub, you can use Calibre.

Easy Mute

There you are, in the back row of a funeral just minding your own business when, oops, you forgot to mute those YouTube clips on your iPad! No worries. There's a quick way to cut the speaker.

Holding down the volume down button for about two seconds will mute your iPad.

Never Buy a Digital Photo Frame Again

You probably know by now that the iPad doubles as a digital picture frame. You can access this function a few ways, but the easiest way?

When you wake the iPad, look to the right of Slide to Unlock. You'll see a flower. Click it. The slideshow will begin after a moment. Toggle the speed in Settings—oh, and while you're at it, turn off "zoom in on faces"—it tends to just grain/muck up your photos.

Take Giant Screenshots

Another oldie but goody that many that many people don't realize you can do in the iPhone OS: screenshot anything you're looking at. And keep in mind, when this happens on the iPad, it's at 768x1024 resolution—making it potentially a lot more useful in the full-sized monitor realm than iPhone screenshots.

Push the top (power) and home buttons at once for half a second. The photo will be stored in your photo library.

Super Fast Webpage Scrolling

So you're all the way to the bottom of a blog when you realize that you want to read a story back at the top. Don't do the whole repeatedly drag your finger across the screen thing. That's a horrible method for covering a lot of real estate. Instead:

Tap the title bar once. WOOOOSSHHH. You're right back on top of the page. (Making "wooosh" noises doesn't expedite the process, but it does wonders for general effect.)

Preview More Of Your Mail

Did you know that you can set your mail to preview more than two lines? The iPhone has this option, too, but its smaller screen means that it's not so practical. On the iPad, however, I find the feature is pretty handy for skimming several emails without opening them.

Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts and Calendars and select "5 lines" under Preview. Also, while you're at it, you might want to update your Push email from "Manual" if you like to have your messages waiting when you open the Mail app. Of course, this will drain power a bit more quickly.

Bring Up the Virtual Keyboard With a Real Keyboard

When you have a Bluetooth keyboard connected to your iPad, the virtual keyboard will cease to appear. (This is a good thing.) However, what if, for some random reason, you needed that virtual keyboard? Don't unpair your Bluetooth. Just...

Hit the eject key on Apple's physical keyboard. It'll bring up the virtual one.

Downrez 1080P HD Videos...Or You Can't Watch Them

You may have 1080P videos on your computer, but the iPad can't play them—in fact, iTunes won't even let you copy them to the iPad! The easiest solution? Downrez them to 720P using an app like Handbrake.

Joel gives you a full tutorial on that here.

Hopefully you learned at least a thing or two, but of course, the iPad is a new device. So we need your help spotting the best tips—share them in the comments!

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