The iOS 4 is can be installed on any
iPhone 3GS and – technically – 3G. We see no point
porting it on a 3G though – the whole thing gets
dismally slow and some of the new features are not
supported anyway. What matters
now is how the OS performs on the iPhone 4. There’s
a quick video you may have already watched in
our blog.
Thanks to its gorgeous new screen,
better still camera and vastly improved camcorder, gyro
sensor and video-call camera, the iPhone 4 is the device
on which users can genuinely appreciate the potential of
iOS 4. iPhone 3GS can run it almost without any
compromises but you’ll get the fastest and most seamless
performance on the iPhone 4 and its 1GHz Apple A4
platform.
On an iPhone 3G you will get neither
homescreen wallpapers nor multi-tasking. The rest of the
stuff is there, but the performance drop is
too much to bear.
But let’s be positive here – we have
an iPhone 4 and a 3GS to enjoy, which is more than
enough. You might have already been through our
iOS 4 review – you’ll find it’s got a lot of common
with the follwoing part of the iPhone 4 review. You will
find identical wording, don’t you worry, we’ve made sure
all the details are updated with iPhone 4 specifics.
Let’s start with the changelog:
General UI changes
- Homescreen wallpapers
-
Applications can be organized in folders
- Multitasking – fast app switcher
with app specific pause or backgrounding
- You can do Google/Wikipedia
searches straight from Spotlight
- Minor icon facelifts
- Video call support (only in
iPhone 4 and only over
Wi-Fi)
- Settings menu gets you the last
toggled setting screen
Text input and management
- Keyboard layouts now cover
QWERTY, QWERTZ, and AZERTY
- Spell checker
Contacts
- Simplified contact adding and
editing
Messaging
- SMS character counter
- SMS search
-
Email threading
- Unified Email inbox
- Email archiving is now available
as an option when you setup Gmail
Camera
- 5x digital zoom in still camera
- Touch-focus in video capture
iPod player
- iPod music player can now
create, edit and delete playlists
Bluetooth
iTunes store and AppStore
- Free iBooks e-book and PDF
reader
- iMovie adds advanced video
editing to the iPhone 4 (paid app)
- iAd service allows for free,
ad-supported apps
And the stuff iOS 4 failed to
deliver
- No Flash support in the web
browser
- No true multitasking for all
applications
- No quick switches for Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth or 3G on the homescreen
- No social networking integration
in the contact list
- No lockscreen or homescreen info
widgets or plugins
- No new ringtones or SMS tones
- SMS,,email, and calendar tones
are still not
customizable
- No proper file browser or
access to the file system
- No USB mass storage mode
- Screen has no vibrating haptic
feedback
- No Bluetooth file transfers to
other
mobile phones
- Contacts lack a swipe-to-delete
or mass delete feature
- No SMS/MMS delivery
notifications
- No smart dialing (but Spotlight
is a somewhat of a substitute)
- No DivX or XviD video support
and no official third-party application to play that
- The whole iPhone is too iTunes
dependent and you’re also limited to syncing
particular types of content only with ONE
computer..
General user interface and key
features
The traditional flat interface should
be all too well familiar by now. Tap an icon to open an
application; press the
hardware Home key to close the application and
return to the Home screen. That’s all there is to it.
Only the Settings section goes several levels deep.
Basically that’s all you need to control your iPhone.
Main menu
Folders
You can group up to twelve apps into
a single folder. Check out the video below to see how
it’s done:
It’s easy, isn’t it? Folder names are
automatically generated depending on the selection of
items you’re grouping together. But you can rename
folders anytime. The folder icon is also created
automatically – it simply displays the icons of the apps
inside.
A homescreen folder • opening a folder • editing a
folder
The folder animations on 4 and 3GS
are fast and fluid, while on 3G you can notice a slight
lag. Still we are happy Apple didn’t cut them out of the
iOS 4 for 3G users.
The new iPhone 4 does pack a serious
punch under the hood. The previous iPhone 3GS is a
responsive device by all means, but the capable hardware
in the Number 4 makes quite a difference. The iPhone 4
is faster in all aspects – general interface response,
programs, menu scrolling, web browser, app loading, etc.
Multitasking
Now it’s time for multitasking. Just
to be clear here, Apple gave due warning it wouldn’t be
the multitasking that hardcore users expect. It’s more
of a quick app switching than actual multitasking.
To start the task switcher you double
click the hardware home button below screen (there goes
our Favorite contacts shortcut). At the bottom of the
screen, a side-scrollable row of icons will display,
showing the running apps. You can kill apps by tapping
and holding on an icon – you then hit the red corner
switch.
Multitasking interface • killing some apps
Apple’s idea of multitasking is not
to let apps run in the background, but instead pause
them at their current state for later access. There are
exceptions for certain apps – such as the iPod or
Pandora – they can actually play in the background.
So the paused apps are not actually
working in the background and that way you can have more
than 30 different apps readily accessible in the task
switcher.
The positive side is the ability to
quickly resume any of these apps exactly where you left
them even games – with no new loading times.
The only one drawback is you can’t
leave MOST regular apps do their thing in the background
and return to them later. If they are not among the
lucky few enabled to properly run in the background
(such as Pandora), they would simply pause instead.
Here is a quick demo video of how
managing apps works on the iOS 4.
Bear in mind that not all apps are
multitasking enabled. If you minimize a game that’s not
yet compatible, later when you get to it again, it will
start from the beginning instead of it resuming where
you left.
As we said, the task switcher is a
scrollable list of icons – but if you swipe to the right
you’ll get quick iPod controls and shortcuts, along with
the accelerometer lock switch. The latter will enable or
disable portrait orientation lock.
iPod controls in the task switcher • portrait
orientation lock/unlock
Despite iPhone 4 and 3GS finally have
multitasking support, the push background notifications
service is also onboard. The service can inform you of
new events in applications that support it (such as some
IM client) by changing the app icon (via an icon badge),
by invoking a pop-up reminder or via sound alerts. In
the same time the applications can simulate that you are
constantly online.
