Today Apple is set to announce iPhone OS 4.0, and probably go into some details about what is going to be in it. Most are speculating about multitasking and some new springboard, but I have to think it’s going to be more than that. There must be something really interesting Apple is going to do with it, or why do it?

Why do a 4.0 unless you are really going to knock it out of the park? I mean, 2.0 brought third-party apps, Spotlight, and of course the multiple springboard screens to hold the apps – that was pretty transformative. 3.0 brought true GPS and compass, and video capability (complete with editing). So what’s left? Maybe iChat, if they plan on including a forward-facing camera in the new hardware. That seems like a long shot, though. Probably iBooks will be in there, but again, that could be an app; there’s no need to rev the OS. I just don’t think multitasking for third-party apps is enough. I think we’ll see something unexpected.

The other big question, for me, is will the iPhone 2G be supported by the new shiny? Clearly, my phone is capable of some multitasking, since Apple’s own built-in apps can do it. I don’t see why an iBooks app wouldn’t run. And a new springboard can’t be hardware dependent, can it? So it really depends on what the new, unknown feature is. If it’s location based, then I can probably count myself out. But then, iPhone 2G wasn’t left out when 3.0 came along with GPS. I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to run 4.0 itself, even if I can’t take advantage of all of the new features, for lack of the hardware (GPS, iChat camera).

A new thought just came to me: what if the new feature is partner network related? Could this be why Apple has stuck with AT&T – that they have been developing some new network feature for 4.0? In that case, while I’ll probably be able to get the OS, I am shit-sure not going to get to take advantage of the new shiny. It makes sense for Apple to develop something like this, to continue to provide an advantage for people to use the official carriers and not unlock as I have done. I gotta say, as a T-Mo user, I haven’t really missed visual voicemail.

Tags: Apple, iphone

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2010 at 9:19 am and is filed under Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.