iPhone OS 4.0 – What you need to know

So just over a year since iPhone OS 3 was announced, Apple are back again with OS 4. With over 100 new features, Apple fans around the world are getting excited. However here we wanted to give you a rundown of what to expect from your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

Notable new features in 4.0

Multitasking (3GS and 3rd gen iPod only) – One that got me most excited. I have always been wary to jailbreak my iPhone – although I love to think what I could do if my device was jailbroken, I really don’t want to be the new owner of a £400″ iBrick”. Users simply double tap the home button to bring up a multitask bar which shows all apps open and can switch from one app to the other and close apps running in the background.

User-Defined Wallpaper – Yet another great jailbreak favourite of mine, users now have full control of the background when unlocked instead of being welcomed to just a boring black background.

Spell Check – Already seen on the iPad, when creating sms or notes, if the iPhone believes you misspelled a word then it will show the user a list of possible words that it believes you are spelling.

Camera Updates – Users are now able to have a 5x digital zoom – at last I don’t have to use a third party app that never seems to work. Other updates include touch to focus whilst recording video (3GS only).

Folders – At last, soon I will not have pages and pages of apps, instead have them neatly stored away in named folders.

Game Centre – Not too sure about this one – it’s like Xbox Live but for iPhone with achievements, leader boards and match making. But I have my doubts of this taking off, mainly due to battery life whilst using games on the iPhone and the amount of data this could use. I’m sure there will be reports of massive bills to come – I would have to use wi-fi if I was to use this.

Screen orientation lock – Does exactly that. It locks the device to either portrait or landscape – great feature as I’m always finding the iPhone changing it for me. This is done by a button on the screen, whereas the iPad has a side button like the silent slider on the iPhone.

Overall I’m generally very excited for OS 4.0 – it’s great to have new features to play with and it will make me love the iPhone more for sure. It’s just a shame that not all the features will be available on every iPhone / iPod.