CatholiTech

On June 21st, 2010 Apple released the 4th version of their iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad operating system, dubbed iOS4 (iPhone Operating System Version 4).  After installing the new operating system on my iPod Touch, and getting to play with it for a few days, I am now prepared to do a full review.  This review is limited to the features available in the iPod Touch version of iOS4 and does not include items in the new iPhone version 4.

Some items will end up in both the pro and cons areas of the review, as there are things that are both positive and negative about those features.

PROS:

Wallpaper – Apple has finally allowed the use of wallpaper in the actual home screen of iPhones/iPod Touches in this release of their operating system.  In previous releases, the wallpaper, or, background image, only displayed when a user had their device locked or asleep.  Many people complained about this lack of customization when it came to their devices and Apple took it into consideration.  So now, if someone wants to use a family photo or a picture of a Rosary, Crucifix or image of the Divine Mercy, they can do so.

Folders/Categories – Another vast improvement released in the new version of the iOS is folders.  In the past, it was difficult and tedious to organize apps.  You would have to hold your finger on an image for an application until it started shaking and then drag that image through however many “pages” until you got it to the page you wanted with similar applications.  Now, Apple has made it a lot easier to organize apps by allowing the creation of folders or containers to hold them.  You simply hold your finger on an app and once it starts shaking, drag and drop it onto the image of an app you want to have in the same category.  The system automatically creates  a new folder/category and allows you to name it.

Once you have all of your apps organized, say for instance, utilities, you then click on the container/folder to access those apps.  The background/wallpaper slides open revealing the apps in that folder and allows you to select the one you want, or, move the apps out of that folder if you want.  The animation is very slick and cannot even begin to be compared to the “categories” app  used by jailbroken (hacked) iPhones in the past.  This is a feature that I cannot see any cons in whatsoever.  It makes organization much easier and the execution of this feature is beautifully done.  I abandoned my hacked iOS 3.13 just for this smooth feature, despite other shortcomings, which I will get to later.

Multitasking – Another feature many users were asking for was multitasking.  Multitasking is the ability to run more than one program or app at the same time, or to run an app as a constant background process.  Why is this useful?  Say that someone needs to constantly check their email for business reasons.  In the past, that person would have to open the email app and then wait for it to check for mail.  With multitasking, the mail app can run in the background, periodically checking for new mail and play an audio alert when new mail is received.  While this is a great improvement on Apple’s part, there are quite a few things going into the cons section about this feature.

iBooks – When someone goes into the app store after upgrading to iOS4, they are almost immediately prompted to download a new app called iBooks.  iBooks is Apple’s new initiative to bring electronic books, or ebooks to the iPod/iPhone/iPad.  Now, there are already existing apps such as the Amazon Kindle App and Stanza that do this just as well.  However, despite this, I will say that Apple’s layout and implementation is very nice.  Users can actually “turn” virtual pages and it even includes a free copy of Whinnie the Pooh.   Apple also allows you to download public domain books, such as St. Augustine’s Confessions or St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, for free.  Through the iBook store you can get these free titles, or, purchase new books, usually for $9.99 .  This is Apple’s way of competing with devices such as Amazon Kindle, the Barnes and Noble Nook and the Sony E-Reader.  Again, it is a great little app but, I already have a Kindle and can get all of my Kindle books through the Kindle app.  However, I may use it for public domain books.

Email – Apple has slightly changed the way that email works in iOS4.  If someone out there is anything like me, they have multiple email accounts set up on their iDevice (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad).  In the past, if a user wanted to access their email, they would have to go into an individual inbox for each email account.  Apple has now allowed the option to use a unified inbox.  This means, all of your email from all of your email accounts, is put into one large, easy to access inbox.  This only applies to new messages, not to folders and things.  However, if a user prefers to have everything in one place, it is a great improvement.  As mentioned before, email can be run as a background process, thus improving the ability to check mail.

Other Pros -  iOS4 has some speed and battery life enhancements, as do most upgrades.  There is also improved spell check and several other general tweaks.  According to Apple’s Website for iOS4 there are over 100 improvements.  I have only touched on the major ones that the average user would immediately notice.

CONS

Only For Certain Models – While the wallpaper and multitasking seem to be nice features that the average user would take advantage of, Apple has restricted them to certain devices.  These features are limited to iPod 3rd generation devices with 32GB of space or higher, iPad, and iPhone 3Gs or higher.  If you have an iPhone 3G or an iPod Touch 2nd Generation device, you will not have access to these features unless you find a way to hack your device to enable them.  I will not link to any of the methods but, a Google search might yield some results.

While I understand that the older devices do not have as much memory and would result in a slower user experience, I think that Apple should have left the decision to enable/disable those features to the user, not just state, “sorry, we know you wanted this feature but, you can’t have it”.

No Themes – While having a wallpaper is great, it isn’t a theme.  Themes include customized icons, sounds and wallpapers for a particular device.  One of the reasons many people jailbreak or hack their devices is to enable them to create custom themes to fit their lifestyle.  While the gesture of adding wallpaper is great, it isn’t allowing full customization of the device.

Multitasking – The multitasking interface is absolutely confusing and horrible.  When someone “double-clicks” their home button to see what apps are running, they are presented with a list of every app they have opened recently.  A user then needs to hold their finger on an app’s icon to get the ability to remove it from the list.  This doesn’t even tell a user which app is compatible with multitasking or give an easy way to set whether or not they want multitasking on at that particular moment.  An example of this was when I was listening to Pandora Radio through the Pandora app and my wife asked me to turn it off so that she could make a phone call.  I closed the app and the music kept playing.  I didn’t have a choice to tell it to keep playing, it just did.

In addition to the confusion on how to use multitasking, not all apps can use the feature.  Only an app that is specifically programmed to be able to run in the background can do so.  Otherwise the multitask feature simply saves the “state” of the application so that a user doesn’t have to go through all of the startup stuff for that app.  This is almost exactly what happens when someone puts Windows to “sleep”.  It saves the system’s state so that when it is “woken up” it remembers where it left off.  It is a nice feature but, not true backgrounding or multitasking.  Yet another reason people will still want to jailbreak this version of the OS.

Flash – Flash is a technology used in streaming video, online animation and in the design of many websites.  Apply has consistently refused to add flash support to any of their portable devices.  Their reasoning is that the flash system has security flaws and can slow things down.  The problem is, many video sites and animation sites still use flash as their standard.  Without flash support, there is no way for someone using an iPod Touch, iPad or iPhone to be able to access these sites.  People in the jailbreaking/hacking community are currently working on a way to get flash working on these devices.

WRAPUP:

In the end, the average user should definitely upgrade to the new version of the iPod OS.  It is important to back up everything, including purchased items, prior to upgrading.  iTunes will warn a user ahead of time if they didn’t do this.

The new features are great, and I don’t think that the average person is going to care as much about themes, true multitasking and that certain devices can’t use certain features.  The folders was an awesome feature and worth updating for.  iBooks is a slick book reader and book store and will present some great competition to other companies while creating a great user experience.

The pros definitely outweigh the cons in my mind, which is why I upgraded.  However, as a more advanced user there are still many features that I am disappointed with.  I will be honest in saying that Apple has made some great steps forward in this release. but, when a jailbreak/hack is available for my model, I will be using it.  There are just some things that I want full control over, and can’t get with this OS on its own.

I will eventually do a piece on the moral/legal issues behind jailbreaking and what it really means.  So keep an eye out for that.

That wraps it up for my Pro/Con review of iOS4.  I hope that it was useful to both average and advanced users out there.

Until Next Time,

God Bless