Posts Tagged ‘iPhone OS 4.0’

iOS 4 Golden Master Release Candidate is available for iPhone Developers

June 7th, 2010

iPhone OS 4 is now called as iOS 4 and it’s Golden Master Release Candidate is available for download for paid iPhone Developer only. We’ve been expecting since really long and finally it’s out. This beta release of iOS 4 / iPhone OS 4 is a last beta release from Apple and final release which will graduate beta will be out on 21st June 2010.

This new iPhone OS 4 / iOS 4 can be install on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G and anyways iPhone 4 will be shipped with this OS installed in it. But iPhone 2G / classic wont’ be getting an iPhone OS 4 / iOS 4 update this means that Apple stopped supporting their very first iPhone which was a revolutionary product of in it’s kind.

Tags: iOS, iOS 4, iphone 4, iPhone OS 4.0

iPhone Developers Excited to find Hints of Flash & Camera in iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 4

May 21st, 2010

We earlier covered some great new easily visible changes in Beta 4 release of iPhone OS 4 which includes the new AT&T’s Internet Tethering setup wizard.

Since, the release of beta 4, iphone developers started digging into SDKs to discover the changes it brought to iPhone through its previous update and they found something really exciting.

There are enums setup for iPhone / iPod / iPad Flash & Camera in OS 4 Beta 4 which basically shows that what messages these devices gonna pop out based on the condition of the device.

If you look at the messages shown in the picture carefully you will see most of them are related to the use of Flash and they have separate lines for iPhone, iPod and iPad too.

Well, iPad is going to get OS 4 update during fall. So, the next update (with OS 5) for the iPad will probably the fall again, next year. I’m guessing this will continue for long. So, we gonna keep finding iPad related tweaks in iPhone OS until Apple decided to put out updates during Summer.

Tags: Flash, iphone camera, iPhone Development tips, iPhone OS 4.0, news, OS 4 Beta 4

OS 4 Beta 3 Gets New Feature for iPhone Developers and Users

May 5th, 2010

iPhone OS 4 Beta 3 seems to be quite more stable than that of Beta 2 of iPhone OS 4. It has brought some great tweaks which all the iPhone developers were looking forward to.

The most important feature which was lacking during the previous beta release of iPhone OS 4 was to quit more than one running App at a time. In order to quit the App we need to tap and hold the running App in App switcher, apps wiggle and has red minus symbol to quit the app. Until now, the app which you were tapping and holding to quit, only that app was showing red minus symbol. In this release, that has been resolved and now whatever app you press and hold to wiggle, all has red minus symbol to quit the app in App Switcher.

Now, the most important feature which every iPhone user were waiting for, since the release of 1st generation iPhone in 2007 – the ability to lock the screen orientation. When the iPhone was first unveiled in 2007, the accelerometer was very unique feature of it. Turn to landscape for landscape orientation and back to portrait for portrait orientation of screen; in Safari, Photos, etc. It was the beginning of iPhone. Now, it has completely changed the way you do your day-to-day work. People were finding problem with it. We can’t read New York Times easily when we are in our bed, it change its orientation too frequent. Now, in Beta 3 release of iPhone OS 4, lock orientation has been added which I believe is the major tweak that iPhone developers would love. Earlier iPhone application developers had to add their own screen lock orientation feature in their App.

There is one more feature spotted. The iPod controls widget in App Switcher. When we double tap the Home Screen key the App Switcher shows up. Now, if we just slide to extreme left we will find the iPod controls & a screen orientation lock key.

Overall, this Beta release of iPhone OS 4 is more stable than any other previous Beta releases of iPhone OS 4. We’re still fetching some more update info on it. If you’ve spotted some more updates on this just fill us up through the comment form.

Tags: iphone developers, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4 Beta 3, iPhone OS 4 Features, iPhone OS 4.0

iPhone Developer Spots Facebook Integration in OS 4 SDK

April 20th, 2010

iPhone OS 4 and it’s SDKs were released for the paid iPhone developers on 8, April 2010. Since then iPhone application developers have been digging into SDKs; After spotting the iChat client services earlier with front facing camera libraries, now, Facebook integration has been spotted by Gunning for Safety (which, amazingly, seems to have two areas of interest: nail guns, and iPhone OS).

According to that blog, Apple is probably working on Facebook’s Event Calendar, Contacts to integrate with Calendar, Contacts app on iPhone, respectively. Currently, iPhone has easy setup options for you to setup your accounts on Gmail, MobileMe, Yahoo, etc. You can simply type in your details and you’re done. Facebook, might get listed in this as well.

There was a huge user request received by Joe Hewitt (iPhone Application Developer of Facebook) during development of Facebook 3.0 for iPhone. So, it might be possible that on the other hand Facebook team will work on existing Facebook App to get the proper end user integration.

Tags: Facebook, Gunning for Safety, iphone develop, iPhone Developer News, iphone developers, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4.0, news, OS 4 SDK

Introduction to iAd and How it Affects iPhone Developers

April 19th, 2010

As Steve Jobs showed off iPhone OS 4 on April 8th, 2010, one of the most talked about feature since then has been the iAd – Apple’s own advertising platform for iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. While we have covered some other iPhone OS 4.0 features earlier, this is time we give you an insight into what iAd could mean for an iPhone developer and user.

According to Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc., “People aren’t searching on the mobile device, like they do it on desktop”. He feels that if an user needs to know about a good restaurant, he would most likely load up the Yelp ! app rather than searching for it. On the same note, he mentioned that the current ad bars that are served to iPhone users in many free apps are really deterrent to a good user experience because they take the user off from the app that they were using, onto the app store, or open Safari browser or to some other app. As a solution to all these Apple has introduced iAd, their new Ad platform that is integrated into iPhone OS 4.

Apple has a different approach for their new Ad platform. They want it to be ‘interactive’ and ‘emotional’. Current ad platforms which we see on the web in our everyday life are just ‘emotional’ but not ‘interactive’. Apple wants it to be ‘interactive’. For example by clicking on an ad you can visit a shop virtually and purchase goods or watch the video of a product and play little promotional games and make purchases using your linked credit card with an iTunes account.

If all that is being discussed right now comes out well, it is sure to give AdMob and other mobile ad platforms a run for their money as most iPhone developers would likely prefer to use the iAd system.

iAd specifically looks very promising for iPhone developers as it opens up dual opportunity. Firstly developers can integrate iAd within their free apps to generate some additional income. Second, iPhone developers can create a service offering based on this by developing ads for other businesses who would like to use iAd.

Tags: iAD, iphone developers, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4.0, Steve Jobs

iChat Agent Library Spotted by iPhone Developers in OS 4 SDK

April 13th, 2010

iPhone OS 4 SDKs is been dug by the iPhone developers around the world. Application developers already spotted the iChat Agent which clearly hints that the new iPhone (which is scheduled to be unveiled this summer) will have a front facing camera.

Well, if you have a Mac background, you would already know that iChat is a default app for chatting and now if the same becomes a default app for iPhone for chat with support of all leading IM networks, then what?

There are just too many (Multi network support) IM apps already available in the AppStore, like recently Meebo came out with their sleek app, which is probably the fastest one among all the available. So, if iChat get shipped with new iPhone this summer as a default chat client then what would happen to the other great IM apps that have been dominating the Appstore? Is apple ditching them all right away with their new iChat client? or is it going to be something specific for MobileMe or Mac accounts?

Looking at it from an optimistic perspective, it might be just an OS service that Apple is providing for iPhone application developers so they can use the front facing camera with their IM clients.

What do you think?

Tags: iChat, iphone developers, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4.0, news, OS 4 SDK

Seven Multitasking Service APIs iPhone Developers Would Love

April 13th, 2010

iPhone is about to get multitasking which is the best among all the other multitasking on Mobile devices, said Apple. Until it’s rolled out for public use and iPhone developers start developing for OS 4, we can’t say if they have really nailed it that hard to be called ‘The Best!’.

If you are an iPhone developer planning to make best use of the multitasking feature offered by iPhone OS 4 , here is a simple explanation of the seven service APIs that you have in your arsenal.

Background Audio: iPhone’s iPod App very much runs in background. You can listen to your music via iPod App while surfing the Web on Safari.

But what if I want to use a third party App (like Yahoo music or Pandora) to listen to music while I surf the web on Safari?

Well, till now this wasn’t possible as iPhone never had a support for multitasking. But with iPhone OS 4 you will be able to listen to music via third party apps while surfing the web. Not only this, you can even have iPod controls when the screen is locked, same as we get if iPod is playing the music in background.

Background VoIP: Of course, this was something which was very much needed for the iPhone users. While you are talking to anyone through any VoIP service via their App on iPhone you can’t leave an App to check out your email because that app won’t run in background & as a result you lose the connection. So, through this service API the iPhone can now run any VoIP service App in background on iPhone OS 4. Upon making the app work in background, users can see the conversation notification bar on the top of the screen of iPhone.

Skype is probably the first one to use this service API and demonstrated their App at preview event.

Background Location: If you might have used Google Latitude on Symbian or Android devices you might have noticed that when you let your app run in background, that app keep tracking your location and keep your family and friends updated in your network. But this wasn’t the case with iPhone at all, as it never had a support for multitasking. Whenever you quit your geo-location tracking App, it’s no more running, as a result it can’t update your friends and family in your network.

Making use of these API now you can make your App run in background to keep tracking your location. If an app is running in background tracking your location, you can see a location marker in status bar so that you get to know you’ve been tracked by some application. You can even find which app has used location services in last 24 hours in the Settings menu.

Push Notifications: This is the same notification system which was integrated into iPhone OS 3.0. No changed spotted yet.

Local Notifications: This notification system is different and is completely an offline implementation. For an example consider Alarm Clock. Till now, if the user wanted to use any third party app for reminder or wake up alarm, they just couldn’t find a proper solution to this, because, third party apps can’t run in background and hence can’t notify the user at a given time. Through this service API you can easily notify user at any given time. So, users can now find some great timepieces in AppStore which can remind / notify user at any given time.

Fast App Switching: This API gives an app an ability to save the current session before responding to any other. It saves the session where you left it and when the user returns to an app, the app resumes the session where the user left it.

Tap Tap seems to be the first game using this service API.

Task completion: These services will give the ability to complete some task in background. For an example, if you’re uploading your photos to Flickr via a Flickr App, you just can’t quit an App before the whole task ends. However through this service API Flickr can upload the photos in the background.

This Flickr app was also demoed at iPhone OS 4 preview event.

Tags: background audio, background location, background voip, fast app switching, iphone developers, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4.0, multi tasking, multitasking, multitasking api, push notification, Service API, task completion

iPhone OS 4 Brings Multitasking to iPhone 3GS Users Only

April 12th, 2010

Apple has released iPhone OS 4 in beta preview for iPhone Developers with paid account. But here is a little problem if you’re an iPhone 3G user. iPhone OS 4 works well on iPhone 3G and supports all the new features except for ‘Multitasking. It’s been said, “iPhone 3G has incompatible hardware to support Multitasking feature”.

If you’re an iPhone 3G user you will probably have to wait for some more time to experience multitasking. There’s a new iPhone coming up this summer. It would also mean iPhone developers who are creating apps based on this multitasking feature would serve only users with iPhone 3GS.

Your iPhone 3G will be getting the rest of the cool features offered by iPhone OS 4, like Wallpaper, Folders etc. Keep checking back this place to know more about what iPhone 3G & 3GS are getting in particular.

However, iPhone 3GS has full support for all the features that have been shown off at the preview event. You can refer to our earlier post to read more about all the features of iPhone OS 4 that Apple showed off in the preview event.

Tags: iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iphone developers, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4.0, multi tasking, multitasking

iPhone OS 4.0 – Happy Developers, Happy Users

April 9th, 2010

Yesterday Apple showed off its iPhone OS 4.0 at the Apple Campus in Cupertino which introduced tons of new features along with 1500 new APIs for the iPhone developers. Also, to our delight, we observed that they have covered all the 5 features we predicted for iPhone OS 4.0 in our earlier post.

This is probably one of biggest ever update iPhone has seen and the features introduced are sure to make the iPhone developers and users equally happy.

Finally, iPhone OS 4.0 brought the most needed ‘Multitasking’ (ability to run more than one App simultaneously) and some more unexpected new features to iPhone.

The new iPhone OS 4 has now introduced a bunch of features including

  • iAd
  • Enterprise Security
  • Game Center
  • iBooks
  • In-App SMS
  • Folders
  • Spell Checking

We will be discussing about most of these features in details in further posts.

“Multitasking” was definitely the most awaited feature and the various multitasking APIs introduced by Apple would probably be the most important update for iPhone developers.

Developers always wanted these and now we are sure there are more ideas brewing to leverage these additional features in iPhone. Let us know how you feel these features are going to change iPhone development in the coming days.

Tags: Game Center, iAD, iBooks, iphone OS 4, iPhone OS 4.0, multitasking

5 Predictions About iPhone OS 4 Features

April 7th, 2010

Back in 2009 when iPhone OS 3.0 was released the most anticipated feature was multitasking. After a year, now that Apple has decided to preview iPhone OS 4 this Thursday, multitasking still remains as the feature with the highest demand. Of course there are other expectations from users and Apple also promises to throw in a bunch of other changes most of which are tweaks like User Expo, which is the Home Screen for iPhone.

Let’s try to predict some of the features for iPhone OS 4 and we can come back to check once we have the final words from Apple.

Multitasking: Of course, this is the most expected feature this time. Well, it was rumored last year that iPhone may get Multitasking with the release of iPhone OS 3.0 but when they previewed it, they showed off Push Notification and positioned it as an alternative to Multitasking. Though, this Push Notification services were first demonstrated with the release of iPhone OS 2.0 however got delayed by a year and finally released in iPhone OS 3.0. Today, when all the iPhone competitors have multitasking as their major feature it becomes all the more essential for iPhone to have multitasking. Let’s hope Apple finally gives us multitasking with OS 4.0 and just not come up with another weak alternative.

Better Notifications: iPhone OS 3.0 pushes you the notification right away, whether its an IM you received or to join a multi-player game online. But this notification system is really at its initial stage of development. These notifications come to the user’s iPhone even when the App is not running in background (as iPhone doesn’t allow yet). So, the parts of the notification system includes badges count, sound & window popup alert. If you’re working on any App on your iPhone and you received an Alert Window notification, you can respond to right there. If at all you quit that notification window you need to go to that app and run it & if you forget to do so then you miss it completely. Given the situation it would be extremely helpful for users if Apple improves this notification system, so that the users can view all the unanswered notifications on a separate screen or something similar. Well, let’s see what iPhone OS 4 has to give us on this.

Better Mail App: The current Mail App need each accounts to be configured separately. All accounts have their inbox separate from other accounts. So, the whole navigation flow to check your inbox is to tap, tap & tap to go from one inbox to other. It’s been expected that there will be a common inbox for all the mails account.

Better Syncing: Apple may introduce a whole new way for syncing Mails, Contacts, Calendar and Multimedia content. Today, iPhone does sync perfectly but there are some itches when it comes to third party syncing options. Like, Google Sync.

Some tweaks with Home Screen: If at all Apple gets multitasking to iPhone via iPhone OS 4.0, and then we should see some little tweaks with the Home Screen. There can be a better way to switch between Apps. It’s also expected that iPhone may have more number of Home Screens (if at all they plan to keep same Home Screen pattern), which currently can only hold around 180 apps on 11 screens.

Apart from this, there can be many minor tweaks for iPhone in 4.0 releases. Let’s wait for 8th April and see what iPhone OS 4.0 has to offer.

Tags: iPhone OS, iPhone OS 3.0, iPhone OS 4.0, multi tasking