Apple: activating 230,000 new iPhone+iPad+iPods per day, Android counting upgrades

Apple CEO Steve Jobs started off today’s press event by pointing out the fact that his retired Apple co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak was in the audience. Jobs then went on to focus on a first topic that few were expecting – Apple retail stores in Europe| and China – before moving on to iOS 4, Apple’s mobile operating system. Jobs says Apple has shipped 120 million iOS devices, which include iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. He also announced that Apple is activating 230,000 new devices every day, which is not only higher than the number Google is quoting about Android devices, but Jobs also said that he believes Google is cheating by including “activations” of upgrades.

iPhone 4 jailbreaking breaks FaceTime: great news for the rest of us

Hackers have found a way to “jailbreak” the iPhone 4 in which they fundamentally alter the new iPhone’s operating system using homebrew tools which, while legal, is complex, highly risky, and not advisable unless the user is more interested in using an iPhone as a hacker’s toy than as a smartphone. But said hackers are crying foul across Twitter, as it turns out that this particular method of hacking ones iPhone 4 leaves the key new feature of “FaceTime” videoconferencing broken or disabled. And like something out of a mindscrew B-movie plot, many of these hackers are now blaming Apple for what they’ve done to their iPhone.

While “jailbreaking” is a term that the vast, vast majority of iPhone users have never even heard, let alone would ever consider doing even if they did know what it meant, a (very vocal) relative handful of geeks have traditionally hacked their iPhones in this manner for the sake of turning it into a more anarchist device. “Jailbroken” iPhones can be populated with half-finished apps that your neighbor wrote in his garage last night instead of the hundreds of thousands of third party apps available through the official App Store. Other reasons presented for jailbreaking an iPhone include the ability to have virtual ants crawling across its screen, or other such things that mainstream users would consider absurd in the face of the daunting notion of hackings ones own phone and risking turning it into a brick in the process.

Another less talked about, yet perhaps more central, reason for jailbreaking an iPhone involves simply being cheap. It’s a gateway to being able to steal pay-for apps from the App Store and install them for free, along with accessing various pay-for features such as tethering without having to pay for them either.

In the case of the iPhone 4, the most advertised new feature is that of FaceTime, the two-way videoconferencing tool so easy your grandmother can figure it out. The catch, of course, is that it can only be used over wifi, as live video is one of the most bandwidth intensive tasks one can perform across a network, and adding a bunch of FaceTime video conversations to a cellular network in 2010 would simply make the network even more overburdened. It’s not the news anyone wants to hear, but it is the reality of the situation and will continue to be until U.S. carriers have all moved to 4G networking in the semi-near future. Apparently, some geeks were expecting that they would be able to hack their iPhone 4 into being able to use FaceTime across AT&T’s cellular network anyway – and are now having very public meltdowns on Twitter, as they’ve realized that their “jailbroken” iPhone 4 now no longer loads FaceTime at all. And instead of blaming themselves for not having been able to see it coming, or blaming the hacking community for releasing such faulty hacking tools (yet another argument for never, ever jailbreaking an iPhone), these geeks are blaming Apple.

At the risk of stating it too bluntly, nothing short of psychological defect could cause individuals to attempt to steal something, have it go wrong, and then blame the entity they were trying to steal from. Theft, you say? Yes. Buying an iPhone 4 and signing a contract with AT&T means that you understand and agree to the terms presented, which includes only being able to use FaceTime over wifi. And that binding agreement is just as lawful as any Library of Congress ruling. As we’ve recently had clarified by that particular ruling body, legal to “jailbreak” your iPhone, but not for the purpose of then using it to do something that you voluntarily and contractually agreed not to do. And while the police certainly shouldn’t be knocking down the doors of anyone who hacked their own iPhone for contract-violating purposes, any jailbreaker who then turns around and blames Apple is no different than the bank robber who blames the bank for the fact that he couldn’t figure out how to properly crack the bank’s vault.

In all of this, it’s worth pointing out again that “jailbreaking” simply does not exist among the mainstream iPhone userbase. A quick survey of a hundred mainstream (non-geek) iPhone users would likely reveal that roughly ninety-nine of them don’t even know what “jailbreaking” means in regards to their iPhone, so it’s a safe bet that far fewer than one percent of iPhones have been hacked by their owners in this manner. For the other ninety-nine, today could end up being great news. Not only will it apparently keep these selfish hackers from further degrading your overall cellular network quality by using it for prohibited, bandwidth-gobbling tasks, it just might finally motivate that geekiest one percent of iPhone users to leave the platform in favor of a more geek-oriented smartphone platform (there are any number of options), which would mean that the rest of us won’t have to put up with these anarchist hackers and their continual inappropriate griping any longer.

Here’s why “jailbreaking” your iPhone means you bought the wrong phone.

iOS4 iPhone 3G slowness fix: turn off Spotlight search

There’s no politically correct way to say this: the new iOS4 operating system runs like crap on the discontinued iPhone 3G model, even though it runs just spiffy on newer iPhone models. Most iPhone 3G users have spent the past month cursing Apple for serving up iOS 4 as a recommended update through iTunes, without warning them that the new OS would turn their iPhone 3G into a pumpkin, with everything from incredibly slow execution times for certain taps on the screen (longer than it’s taken for you to read this far into this article), to physically uncomfortable overheating, to a newly super-short battery life. But a few clever iPhone 3G users have been hard at work attempting to find a workaround, as uninstalling iOS4 from an iPhone 3G is anything but easy. One such solution, says TFTS, is to turn of Spotlight indexing on your iPhone 3G.

The downside is obvious: if your phone stops indexing itself, search results are no longer going to be valid. But for those who rarely search for anything on their iPhone anyway, or those who are so desperate to get their newly ailing iPhone 3G back in working order that they’re willing to sacrifice functionality, it’s at least an option. The controls for doing so are buried within the Settings app, under the “General” subheading and then “Home Button” and then “Spotlight Search” and you’ll see about a dozen different types of iPhone content (apps, mail, music, etc) that are being indexed. Turn them all off if you don’t care about search at all, or perhaps try leaving on only the ones you absolutely can’t live without.

Apple has recently acknowledged the problem, so hopefully the iOS 4.0.2 update will bring some official relief (iOS 4.0.1 was only a quasi-fix). But in the mean time, turning off Spotlight indexing might get you halfway home.

It’s important to point out that this problem only relates to the iPhone 3G model (introduced mid 2008, back-shelved mid 2009, discontinued entirely mid 2010), and does not apply to the newer iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4; by nearly all accounts, iOS 4 runs just fine on iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

iOS4 on iPhone 3G slowness comes to a head; you heard it here in June

Apple’s new iOS4 mobile operating system runs atrociously on the discontinued iPhone 3G model, something we first warned readers about a full thirty-one days ago. With the iPhone 4 antenna nonsense finally dying down in the headlines, it appears the “iOS4 runs poorly on an iPhone 3G” storyline is set to become the primary iPhone related headline from tech pundits for the foreseeable future. The iPhone 3G story has finally been picked up on this week publications including the Wall Street Journal, and the story is the same as what Beatweek first reported back in June: while iOS4 runs fantastically on the iPhone 4 and even the iPhone 3GS, those who install it on the iPhone 3G (introduced mid 2008, bargain-binned in mid 2009, discontinued in 2010) have found varying degrees of what can most easily be described as suckage: while a handful of aspects of the interface are sped up on the iPhone 3G, it’s more than erased by random extended delays in which tapping on the screen can occasionally take up to ten seconds or more for the command to execute. This can range from launching an app to pausing your music to answering a phone call, all of which are things that you’d probably rather not wait several seconds to have happen.

These problems, which we simultaneously discovered in house and were notified of by our readers and Twitter followers who have an iPhone 3G, resulted in our recommendation that iPhone 3G users not install iOS 4 unless they really, really want a unified email inbox or folders; those who want iOS 4 that badly are better off simply upgrading to an iPhone 4. The subsequent release of iOS 4.0.1 made the iPhone 3G problems only about half as severe, but has still left iPhone 3G users fuming – not so much because the the new OS doesn’t run well on their discontinued device, but because iOS 4 was served up to iPhone 3G users as an automatic, prompted update in iTunes, with no warning of how potentially unsuitable it was for their device. The problem is even more compounded by the lack of a simple method of downgrading an iPhone 3G back to the previous OS 3 software. As if the slow speed weren’t bad enough, iOS 4 can also cause an iPhone 3G to run noticeably hot to the touch and to chew through battery life several times faster than should be the case.

Tooting ones own horn too often, even when having been proven right, is unbecoming. But it’s worth pointing out that Beatweek readers with an iPhone 3G were made aware of this problem within a few days of the iOS 4 launch, and saved from unwittingly installing software on their device that would render it less usable.

iOS4 still not recommendable for iPhone 3G, despite 4.0.1 improvements

iOS4 still runs unacceptably slow on an iPhone 3G, based on our tests, even with the 4.0.1 update installed. To be clear, this only refers to the iPhone 3G model which was introduced in 2008, replaced in 2009 by the iPhone 3GS, and discontinued altogether earlier this year. Beatweek’s initially in-house tests showed that the initial iOS 4 slightly sped up the iPhone 3G in a few places but made the device inconsistently and unacceptably slow in many more aspects of usage, with the hardware sometimes getting overwhelmed that tapping on a screen item would occasionally result in a delay of five seconds or more the command was executed. Beatweek readers who still use an iPhone 3G have reported the same results. With the new 4.0.1 update, we’ve found that the lags are less frequent and don’t last as long, but even with the noticeable improvement, the iPhone 3G still ran much faster, more smoothly, and more consistently with the previous OS 3.x.x installed – which we still recommend sticking with on your iPhone 3G. However, those users who have already installed iOS 4.0.0 on their iPhone 3G would do well to go ahead and upgrade to 4.0.1, as they will see improvement.

Again, to be as clear as possible, this recommendation only applies to the discontinued “iPhone 3G” model. iOS4 runs just fine on the new iPhone 4 (which comes with iOS 4 pre-installed), as well as the iPhone 3GS. Here’s our hands-on iOS4 full review.

iPhone 3G slow speed sees improvement with iOS 4.01

iOS 4 has left many iPhone 3G users wondering what went wrong, as Apple’s new mobile operating system installs on the discontinued iPhone 3G with no problem but has turned out to make the device run noticeably slower in some instances – and according to some users, unacceptably so. The good news is that today’s new iOS 4.0.1 update appears to alleviate the speed issues to some extent based on our brief unscientific testing. While we still don’t recommend iOS 4 (any version of it) on an iPhone 3G, those who have already installed iOS 4 on their 3G would do well to install this update as it appears to at least partially resolve the issues.

Two things to note:

1. The “slowness” of iOS 4 on an iPhone 3G has been described in widely ranging detail by Beatweek readers, with adjectives ranging from “slightly” to “bricked” so you mileage may vary.

2. The slowness issue only applies to the discontinued iPhone 3G originally introduced in 2008; the newer iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS models have no problem running iOS 4.

Update: upon further testing, we’ve found that while 4.0.1 is an improvement on an iPhone 3G, it’s still unacceptably slow.

iPhone 4 iOS 4.0.1 update released ahead of Apple press conference

Apple has released version 4.0.1 of its iOS4 operating system for iPhone 4 and other devices. As promised, the update “improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display” – a formula which had only been serving to add to the confusion around the supposed iPhone 4 antenna issue. Despite an overwhelming response from happy iPhone 4 users saying that there is no “antenna issue” and the total lack of evidence of any iPhone 4 units being returned for refund, the technology press has had a field day in generating “controversy” about the “iPhone 4 antenna issue” which has now become a major conversation despite being almost entirely a media creation. Tomorrow Apple holds a press conference in which it attempts to bring the rumors, innuendo, and libelously false information about iPhone 4 reception under control. Except Apple to come out swinging tomorrow; while the company shouldn’t really need to point out anything beyond the fact that no one is attempting to return their iPhone 4 despite headline after headline trying to scare users into believing that there’s a problem with it, Apple will likely go further in demonstrating that there is no issue, and making it clear that tests along the lines of “let’s keep holding it in different atypical ways until we can figure out how to slightly weaken the signal bars” does not equate to a “defect” of any kind. Don’t be surprised if tomorrow’s press conference includes the announcement of libel lawsuits against Consumer Reports and other publications who’ve been particularly (some would say intentionally) irresponsible when it comes to the matter.

The iOS 4.0.1 update is a free download via iTunes for users of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G, and recent iPod touch models. Beatweek continues to recommend not installing any version of iOS 4.x.x on an iPhone 3G for slowness reasons (unless you’ve already installed 4.0.0 on it, in which case you might as well try the update), but you’re entirely in the clear for 4.0.1 if you have an iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS.

Slow iOS4 runs faster on iPhone 3G with no Safari web pages open

iOS4 runs spiffy on Apple’s new iPhone 4 and just fine on the older iPhone 3GS, but users of the now two-generations old iPhone 3G have found that the new iOS4 operating system runs noticeably slowly on their device – and unacceptably slowly, according to many of those users. One solution, with immediately noticeable results on our test iPhone 3G unit: don’t leave any web pages open in mobile Safari when you exit the app. It’s not possible to have no browser windows open in Safari on your iPhone, but creating a new blank Safari, then closing all other windows before exiting the app appears to do the trick. Leaving already-loaded web pages open in Safari when exiting the app apparently ties up RAM even with the app not running; using the above method to “clear out” Safari before exiting the app results in other apps loading more quickly and behaving more consistently. It’s a pain for those who prefer to leave Safari web pages open for later use, but iPhone 3G users will likely find it to be less of a pain than putting up with their suddenly glacially slow device. The other, more drastic alternative would be to remove iOS 4 from your iPhone 3G entirely and instead install the older OS 3 operating system – which is easier said than done.

Thanks to Beatweek reader Andrew’s Technology for the suggestion.

iOS 4: iPhone 3G users angry over slowdowns, lack of advance warning

iOS 4 runs sparklingly on an iPhone 4 and just fine on an iPhone 3GS, according to our in-house tests and various third party findings. However, the story is different for those who have installed Apple’s new mobile operating system on their discontinued iPhone 3G, which has several iPhone 3G users upset over not only the lags and slowdowns they’ve experienced thus far on their iOS4-enabled iPhone 3G, but also the lack of any warning from Apple about what they were in for before they installed it. Some Beatweek readers are even suggesting something more sinister:

“I would say that for the average user the itunes prompt that says “new software available, want to upload doesn’t give you any warnings that this could include many cons that may outweigh the benefits. I’m a bit more aware and went in with my eyes open as I’m going to replace the phone soon so could manage to live with a few problems, but even so was surprised at the mystery lags I’ve encountered that have made this a worse phone on balance, despite bring features I love.” – Adebrophy

“I do like seeing both emails on the same page, that is cool. But not sure it was worth the 2.5 hours it took to install it and not to mention I still have to put all my songs back on. I think Apple should have said “do this if you want” – Milesbradford

“As for iOS4 on 3G hardware. Mine is such a backwards step that I feel it should have come with a warning before the install.” – Greg

“Yeah my iphone was already getting more and more sluggish and this was the knife in the coffin. It takes for ever just to load my sms app. Everything seems to be slower.” – Ggioe

“It’s almost unusable. I’m hoping fixed in 4.0.1. Thinking of downgrading back to 3.” – Mark Peden

“I installed iOS4 on my iPhone 3G and now I am debating if I should try to restore back to the older OS. The problem is that my iPhone 3G seems sluggish now. Some apps that opened very quickly before just sit there unresponsive.”

Beatweek’s own hands-on experiences in running iOS 4 on an iPhone 3G are right here.

iOS4 a waste of time for iPhone 3G users? Hands-on conclusions

iOS4 is a highly capable operating system – if you’re using it on a new iPhone 4. If you’re still trying to stretch additional life out of your aging iPhone 3G, you may want to think twice about bothering to install it, as there are pros and cons to doing so. In my case I’ll be getting an iPhone 4 next week, but I was curious as to how iOS 4 would run on my 3G, which I bought back 2008. I wasn’t expecting much to begin with (the 3G is much slower hardware than the new 4), and once Apple made it clear that not all iOS4 features would even exist when you install it on a 3G, I was expecting even less. You can check that sliding scale of iOS4 here as I’m not going to rehash it. But what I can do is to share with you my five days of running it on a now-ancient iPhone 3G (note: I’m referring to the 3G, not the 3GS here).

The new look of the iOS4 home screen, the bottom dock, in particular, does look snazzy, almost too snazzy as it makes the styling of an iPhone 3G look outdated in comparison; the iOS4 interface was clearly designed to match the styling of the iPhone 4. But getting down to things that have a material impact on the user experience, I found that in some cases iOS4 was slightly faster than OS 3 had been, while in other cases it led to unexplained lags in which my iPhone was clearly overwhelmed. I’m not talking about the very first time you launch each app after installing iOS4, as you kind of expect each app to take an extra second to re-wire itself into the new environment on first launch. But even after a few days I still noticed what baseball insiders would refer to as “American League delays” in which things get bogged down now and then for no clearly identifiable reason. In fact, and this makes perfect sense in hindsight, it’s not unlike installing a new operating system on a computer that’s a couple years old. The new OS is faster by design, so it’ll do some things faster. But it’s also assuming more capable hardware, so there are times in which it’s giving your poor old machine instructions that can’t quite be kept up with. If this were a full size computer you’d install more RAM to try to compensate (which might or might not help), but on a miniaturized device like a smartphone, those components are necessarily embedded and there’s no upgrading. So you just have to get used to the fact that some things are a little faster and some are a little slower; if you’re still using an iPhone 3G then by now you’ve already become accustomed to this when you’ve installed various new third party apps which were also written under the assumption of faster iPhone hardware than yours.

So where is the upside? For me, it’s hands-down the ability to view all of my incoming email on the same page. I have two accounts, one for work and one for personal, just like many if not most other working adults (actually I also have a third email account for no good reason, but we won’t talk about that). On my Mac, I see all the new email from all my accounts in the same inbox, in the order they arrived, except when I click on something to separate them out by account. But on my iPhone, I’ve spent the past three years having to tap the screen four or five times just to get from the inbox of one account to the inbox of the other account. It was a terrible, almost drunken design on the original iPhone back in 2007 which bizarrely assumed that you’d be wanting to spend as much time in the sent, drafts, and other random email folders as you would your inbox where all your received email is – and that you’d never want to check more than one email account at a time on your iPhone. I’ve dubbed it one of two of the iPhone’s “original sins” (the other being the inability to turn off that god-awful auto screen rotation system-wide), and now here in iOS4 it’s finally been fixed and done so in a really solid manner. If you have two email accounts that you check regularly on your iPhone, there’s no overstating how important this new feature is. It would have me dancing in the aisles if not for the persistent thought in the back of my head that there’s no excuse for Apple not having implemented this from day one, three years ago, as well as the amount of wasted time and frustration that Apple has needlessly foisted on me and others on a daily basis for the past three years. But alas, the iPhone’s only true fatal flaw has been fixed, and better late than never.

As a side note, I will say that if you really thought you were going to be able to successfully run multitasking on 2008-era cellphone hardware, then you have a misunderstanding of the kind of hardware power required to prevent multitasking from turning your user experience into a complete piece of mush; if multitasking is important to you, go get an iPhone 4 immediately. For the other ninety-something percent of you who don’t even know what multitasking is beyond being a word that the iPhone’s geek competitors like to throw around in television ads, then don’t worry, it’s a meaningless feature in the real world (only implemented on the iPhone to silence said geeks), you won’t miss it.

And that’s about where I stopped exploring iOS4 on my iPhone 3G, to be honest. There’s no speed boost, and that’s actually a slight net-negative as the speed-ups are when you don’t need them and the speed-lags come unexpectedly and tend to be more trouble than the speed-ups are worth. Of all the iOS4 features listed on apple.com that actually make it down to the 3G, the unified email inbox was the only one that I cared about (you can check that list to see if there’s anything you want for yourself). In my case the new email implementation made the iOS 4 installation worth it all on its own, but that massive improvement in my iPhone user experience has felt at times over the past five days like it’s almost been canceled out by the random system lags – sure, they only last a second or two here and there, but this was supposed to be an upgrade. So in my case, if not for the fact that I have two email addresses, I would have uninstalled iOS4 from my iPhone 3G by now and gone back to running the old OS 3 instead (and even OS 3 was designed to be run on the iPhone 3GS, not the 3G).

But again, that’s kind of what I expected before I installed iOS4, and part of why I had already made up my mind to buy an iPhone 4 beforehand. Anyone who is expecting new software (and iOS4 is free, by the way) to magically turn their old slow hardware into something other than old slow hardware, has a misunderstanding of the laws of engineering and physics. These are the same users who can’t understand why they can’t install the new Snow Leopard on their ten year old iMac, or why they can’t install the new Windows Vista on their their ancient PC from the same era, with any success.

Bottom line, based on my five days running iOS4 on an iPhone 3G, and based on what common sense pretty much already told me beforehand: if you really want the features that iOS4 offers, go get an iPhone 4, the new fast and powerful device that iOS4 was specifically designed to run on (here is Beatweek’s full hands-on iPhone 4 review). And if you don’t care about any of the new iOS4 features, there’s no shame in sticking with your old iPhone 3G – but in that case don’t muddy the waters by installing iOS4 on it for no good reason.

Note: if you want to know how iOS4 performs on the more modern iPhone 3GS, check out this hands on review.

iOS 4 hands on review: Apple’s new iPhone and iPod touch software

Today marks the fourth iteration of Apple’s now-traditional iPhone operating system, now called iOS. Like the two years before, this update brings a feature that the iPhone should have had since the beginning. With the 3G and 2.0, it was the ability to install third party apps. With the 3GS and 3.0, it was the ability to be able to copy & paste and MMS. Now, with the upcoming iPhone 4 on Thursday and iOS 4 today, we get multitasking, folders, unified inbox, and some other smaller things.

The biggest feature of iOS 4 is multitasking. Although leave it to Apple to not do it in the traditional fashion found on other devices. Apple has decided to implement some developer APIs to enable multitasking for certain apps, such as audio and location services. A perfect example of multitasking would be with the new Pandora Radio 3.1 update – now you can listen to Pandora and do other things on your iDevice. Over the past few days there have been slews of updates for apps to deliver iOS 4 compatibility, mainly multitasking, there are some that don’t have issues on iOS 4, but aren’t updated for the advantages of the new features. However, even though there are apps that aren’t ready to take full advantage of the new OS yet, iOS 4 also provides fast app-switching, so you can now switch back and forth between apps easier.

While Apple has finally implemented multitasking, and in a way that won’t put much drain on your battery, there are still a few flaws. Since there are only APIs for specific types of ‘multitasking’, there isn’t a way for apps to be fetching data in the background yet. So this means that Twitter apps, Facebook, RSS apps, etc cannot automatically update themselves while you’re in something else. Hopefully, this can be addressed in a future OS update, but for now, we just have to make-do with the multitasking APIs that we currently have.

To get the little shelf of currently running apps, you’ll have to double-tap the home button, and then you can flick through all the apps. Tap and hold until the icons dance, and you can quit apps if you want with the red – button. This also means that there is no more ‘Double tap Home button to” option in the settings. This part makes me a bit sad, since I used to have that set for the camera. But it’s worth the trade off for multitasking.

iOS 4 also brings Folders, another way to organize our apps after the mediocre attempt before, where we could organize apps in iTunes. The folders can be created when an app is dragged on top of another app, and the folder will automatically get a name based on the two apps. The name, fortunately, can be changed. The folders can also only hold 12 apps at a time, which is unfortunate. It would have been nice to be able to scroll in a folder to reduce clutterness even more. Maybe in the future.

The Mail app got a significant upgrade with unified inbox and threaded messaging. Now we no longer have to go back and forth between screens to get access to another inbox for a separate mail account. There are also threaded messages, which will show all the emails that the sender has sent to you in a particular email thread (think Gmail). 

One of my biggest complaints about previous OS versions was that there was no way to turn landscape mode off. I’m extremely pleased to say that iOS 4 brings orientation lock to the iPhone (although not by a hardware button like on the iPad). To get the orientation lock, you’ll have to double-tap the home button to bring up the multitasking shelf, then swipe to the left and you’ll see the audio controls as well as orientation lock. It will only lock or unlock Portrait mode though, if you prefer landscape mode you’re out of luck. 

If you’re worried about security when not around your iPhone, you can have more options when it comes to passcode lock now. Either stick with the Simple Passcode (4 digit number) or use an actual password (turn Simple Passcode off). Location Services can also be fine-tuned to specific apps if you are not comfortable with having it on for every app.

Overall, the entire OS feels much more snappy than it was in 3.x versions. Also, have you tried taking a picture with the default camera app? The shutter animation is extremely fast now, as compared to before. There’s also a digital zoom that can be activated, if you tap on the camera viewfinder screen. The Camera Roll now also has Places, Faces, and Events, if you use iPhoto to manage your iPhone’s pictures.

iOS 4 feels so much more responsive than previous versions. With it being a free update to both iPhone and iPod Touch users, there should be little to hesitate about, unless you’re a 1st gen iPhone or iPod Touch user – these will not be supported with iOS 4. The 3G iPhone and 2nd generation iPod Touch can get iOS 4, but with a couple of limitations, such as no multitasking. 3GS and 3rd generation iPod Touch users will have access to all features.

Stay tuned for a follow-up to iOS 4 with the iPhone 4, coming out Thursday, June 24 – we’ll have hands on coverage of it as well.

iOS 4: five surprises about installation, email, Twitter and libraries

iOS 4 has been released for iPhone and iPod touch, and early hands on experiences with the new operating system have revealed some surprising relevations:

Installation takes forever: Apple warns you up front that the installation could take an hour, and in fact it only took about a half hour. However, following the installation you’re in for a complete restore of all your apps and content. Suffice it to say that if your iPhone or iPod touch is full or music videos, you could be looking a couple hours from start to finish.

Unified inbox really is that awesome: Seriously, what could possibly have caused Apple to take three years to get this feature out the door? One of the iPhone’s original sins, forcing each email account to be viewed in a different inbox and placing a landline of taps in between each of them, has finally been solved in an effortless fashion, and all is finally right with iPhone email. Don’t worry, those who want to do it the hard way still have that option.

Speaking of email… It might have been limited to just my iPhone, but after installing iOS 4, none of my third party email accounts worked at all. In fact they were so thoroughly hosed that my iPhone couldn’t help but throw half a dozen consecutive email related error messages (there were only two accounts in question) the second my iPhone booted up in iOS 4 for the first time. Not exactly the kind of welcome greeting you’re looking for. The only way I could fix this problem was to delete both my third party email accounts from my iPhone and set them up from scratch. I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that I had do that, or the fact that the iPhone OS, despite its advancements, is just as capable of being ignorantly computer-like in its spewing of error messages as an actual computer?

Updating library…Those who would patiently wait for their iPhone or iPod touch to finish syncing in the OS 3 era, only to unplug it and be stuck staring at the never-explained “Updating library” message in the iPod app for several minutes before any content was playable, may be in for mixed news: it happened to be right out of the gate, but this time the message only displayed for a few seconds before allowing me to access my content. So what was thought to be a never-fixed OS 3 bug is still here with us in the iOS 4 era – the only question is to what extent.

Twitter works!That caching problem that some users had with Tweetie 2, which continued on with the official Twitter for iPhone app, may finally be fixed with iOS 4. It was never clear whether the glitch, which saw some users leave the app only to launch it again a short time later and suddenly be missing days worth of already-loaded tweets which would then have to be loaded again, was a bug in the app or a bug in the OS. In any case it seems to have gone away, at least in my case. Fingers crossed.

These are just random musings. Beatweek’s full iOS 4 hands on review by Christine Chan is right here.

iOS 4 released today for iPhone and iPod touch via iTunes update

Apple’s new iOS 4 operating system has arrived today for iPhone and iPod touch via free software update in iTunes. If you haven’t yet found it, connect your iPhone or touch to your computer, open iTunes, click on your device in the left sidebar, and click on “check for update.” The iOS4 download will take several minutes and the installation will take up to an hour; we’re installing it now here at Beatweek and we’ll report back with our hands on findings once that installation has completed. Didn’t Apple CEO Steve Jobs say iOS 4 wouldn’t be released until June 22nd? Looks like the early release is an early gift to mark the start of summer 2010.

iOS 4: iPad userbase still in the dark over release date

As iOS 4 gears up for release this week for users of Apple’s smaller mobile touchscreen devices, iPad users are still in the dark as to when the new version of the mobile operating system will see the light of day for their device. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has stated that iOS 4 will be available for iPad users later this year, but details are still scant in terms of an exact release date (presumably the iPad version of iOS4 still being worked on) or what iPad users can specifically expect from it beyond the laundry list of iOS 4 features that Apple has already presented for the iPad’s smaller cousins. With even the lowly iPod touch gaining iOS 4 before the iPad sees it, this week serves as a reminder that Apple has an increasing number of irons in the fire when it comes to not only development of new hardware products, but also software development as well.

iOS 4 is new unified iPhone OS 4, iPad, iPod touch operating system

iOS 4 is the new name of Apple’s operating system formerly known as iPhone OS 4, according to Steve Jobs, signifying the fact that the OS runs on the iPad and iPod touch in addition the iPhone. The OS name had been a result of the fact that the iPhone was the first device to run the eponymous operating system, but the new name “iOS 4″ makes it clear that the software runs on all of Apple’s iDevices (well, not the iMac of course). iOS4 will feature multitasking and the other new features Jobs laid out publicly earlier this year.

Looking for the release date, pricing, and model options for iPhone 4? right here.

news source: The MacObserver