Thoughts on the iPhone iOS 4

It’s nearly one week since I upgraded my 3GS with iOS4. Been waiting on this for a while! So what’s the verdict? Well … let’s say the excitement isn’t going to keep me awake at night but it’s definitely a worthwhile upgrade.

Pros

1. The multi-tasking / fast-resume functions are good – Evernote syncs in the background after I write a note. It makes VoIP a real possibility. Streaming audio now possible in the background with 3rd party apps. Of course it’s not true multi-tasking really but to be honest I think apple have struck a very good compromise here.
2. Home page group functions – trivial as it sounds this is actually a real productivity boast. My previous 6 or 7 pages of icons are consolidated into 2! Every app is now within two taps rather than potentially 6 slides! I was previously worried the edge of my finger was going to wear away ….
3. If you use your iPhone in bed then the orientation lock is a nice feature. I don’t understand why it offers portrait only but hey!
4. Email option for two exchange accounts is welcome – and the message threading actually works really nicely.
5. Spell checking – works nicely – wouldn’t have been high up my “request list” but quite like this

Don’t cares

1. The general UI tweaks give the impression of being faster. Not sure it actually is. Nice but hardly epic!
2. Background wallpaper. Hmm!
3. Digital zoom etc. Who cares? And the camera now seems slower to start

Still to look at

1. iBooks – Nice idea – not sure the screen will be big enough
2. Bluetooth Keyboard option – I like the idea of this a lot! Will be buying a keyboard over the next few weeks to try it out.

Cons

1. It definitely has had a detrimental effect on battery lift – it was woeful before and now it’s worse!

What’s still missing?

1. Lock screen is wasted. Why can we not have notifications from the various apps like mail shown here rather than forcing a login before we can see anything useful?
2. Notification bar – why can’t we have notifications shown discretely on the top bar for incoming email etc when in other apps.
3. No fast scroll option for scrolling to the bottom of a long document. Or in fact any decent shortcuts as we have with the blackberry
4. Still no settings profiles for fast swapping between car / office / night modes

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