My thoughts on iPhone OS 4.0
Update April 15 :
I stand corrected on a couple of the points below:
- Push Notifications will still remain the mean of delivery of asynchronous notifications from external servers; Twitter, email and Messenger apps will still need to use these; so Urban Airship is safe
- OpenFeint announced they’ll migrate their platform to build ON TOP of Apple’s Game Center; I don’t know how/if this will work, but they seem to be optimistic about it
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I just spent the last hour watching Bill Gates Steve Jobs delivering the iPhone OS 4.0 Event presentation. Here’s a few thoughts:
- Yes, I’m excited about the new features: multitasking looks great, so do the Mail changes and iAd.
Also, today Apple has upset quite a few people:
- Google, AdMob, Mobclix and many other ad networks are upset because of iAd – the new ad network that Apple will integrate right into their OS
- Amazon, myself and many other developers are upset because of iBooks being ported to the iPhone; the iPhone ebook market, slim as it was, will get even smaller; developers will have to move towards other apps genres..
- Startups mediating app push notifications will be left out of business – for instance Urban Airship
- Startups doing social networks for iPhone games as well – Open Feint, among others
Last, but not least, Apple has upset all iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPod Touch 1G and iPod Touch 2G users:
Although they are boasting 85 million iPhone OS devices sold and using these numbers in their estimations(of iAd sales, for instance), a big part of these will be left out completely from iPhone OS 4.0. Because that’s the major message behind Jobs presentation, and the one he tried to avoid saying: all owners of iPhone 2G and iPod Touch first gen won’t be able to upgrade AT ALL to iPhone OS 4.0. Owners of iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2nd generation(and, apparently, also iPod Touch 3rd gen with less than 32 GB) will not be able to use multitasking and probably also other features in the OS (see the end of Steve’s presentation).
To sum up: Apple is kind of rash to at least 60% of their existing users; their new announced features will only run on newer devices. I understand progress, but I don’t understand how a device one bought less than a month ago can get obsolete overnight (do notice the replies that guy got – pretty ill mannered).
I consider myself partly lucky though – since my iPhone 2G got smashed last September, I had to buy a new one; on a hunch, I went for the 3GS instead of the 3G. I guess I dodged a bullet there, and my device will be still useable for another half year; no one is to say, though, when the next OS updates will make it obsolete.
5 Comments to “My thoughts on iPhone OS 4.0”
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remember how we didn’t get Video Camera or tap to focus on iPhone 2G? It is a device that’s almoast 3 years old. What do you expect. This is like being upset that your old Nokia phone cannot dual boot in Symbian and Android.
it’s time to let go…
not the same thing at all – you can still install iPhone OS 3.1.3 on iPhone 2G
but you can’t even install iPhone OS 4.0 on iPhone 2G – this is what I’m complaining about
I would have understood not being able to have multitasking on 2G, but still be able to have enhanced mail, spellcheck, folders and other features of OS 4.0 that are software only. But Apple isn’t even trying, they are just saying – so long suckers.
Also, they keep saying that they’ve been working to get multitasking right for a long time now. This means they KNEW it won’t work on 3G, but still they kept(keep) selling the 3G. This is almost con-artist stuff – “you can buy this one, it’s more expensive and has a few extra features – but you can also buy this cheaper one, it’s ALMOST as good and cheaper” – only it’s not ALMOST as good, it’s a LOT WORSE and you had no idea about it until today.
Apple has been giving us parts of what it can do for its users. it’s part of their bigger plan and we cannot do anything about it. i have a 3gs too, so it doesn’t affect me at all, but fiance has a 3g (good luck to me getting her a 3gs
).
thing is this was expected to some point, especially that even the hardware of a 3g is pretty bad for doing multitasking (she is using backgrounder ATM successfully but it’s REALLY slow. i really think they tried including 3g in the list too, but they couldn’t so they left it just for the newer devices. What it bothers me is that the macbook pro line didn’t get any update in quite some time (core ix ???).
What i appreciate about Apple is that they said when they launched iphone 2g that it was “5 years ahead of competition”, now after 3 years, an iphone 2g is still awesome (except if you are connected to the internet nonstop like me on a 3g connection).
I am quite happy with what they’ve given us so far, was expecting almost everything they said yesterday and the best part is that what i was expecting, they did it REALLY well. Generally speaking, i guess that is a good thing to follow in life, dont hurry to blow out everything you have at once, but when you do, DO IT like no other.
You are right, what they did was great. It’s what they didn’t do that upsets me.
I don’t think keeping some kind of backwards compatibility would have been that bad, and I think there are millions of iPhone 2Gs out there that would really like some of the new features but are left out of the equation. Just like copy-paste works on iPhone 2G, folders or the new mail would work on them as well, if they only created a service pack or something.
I understand technical impediments when I see them (multitasking for instance), but the rest is just laziness or ill-will.
Totally agree with Alex, evil stuff from Apple’s mastermind, but this is how they build the empire, forcing fans to buy not one but two or more versions of a product