On Thursday, April 8th, 2010, Apple introduced their 4th version of the iPhone Operating System. During this event, over 100 new features and fixes were released including 7 major new features and services. This page reviews the changes that were announced at the Apple OS 4 Event and describes their basic functionality.

Only 2 days after Apple Computer Inc., released its long-anticipated iPad—described by Steve Jobs himself as one of the company's most significant product launches since the iPhone—the company announced that they would be holding a press conference. This press conference, Apple explained, would discuss the next evolution of the Operating System software that runs the iPhone and iPad.

The Apple OS 4 Event was held on Thursday, April 8^th, 2010 at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino. Media outlets such as CNN, FOX and the New York Times were present while technology industry sources such as Gizmodo, Engadget relayed information to the public in real time from the event. The event was split into two parts. The majority of the event featured Steve Jobs and other Apple employees discussing the new features and functions of the iPhone OS. The last part of the conference allowed journalists to ask questions.http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/apple-holding-iphone-os-4-event-april-8th/

• There are over 185,000 Apps in the app store.
• Over 50 Million iPhones have been sold.
• iPhone OS 4 will ship this summer. A developer only release will be available on April 8th, 2010.
• There will be over 100 new features in the iPhone OS 4. 7 "tentpole" or major features were announced at the event.
• Please review New iPhone Features for a complete list of new features and functions that will be included with iPhone OS 4.0.

Multitasking is now available for the iPhone 3GS and the current version of the iPod Touch. The iPhone Edge will not receive Multitasking. Maintaining battery life and overall speed were the biggest hurdles for Multitasking to overcome.

• The Apple development team has given public developers access to 7 different levels of the multitasking API. These include:
  • Audio (for things such as listening to Pandora in the background)
  • Voice Over IP VoIP integration so that services such as Skype receive full support.
  • Background Location access for apps such as the TomTom GPS iPhone App to use Assisted GPS in real time and for location aware services.
  • Push notifications are a new feature in iPhone OS 4.0. This functionality allows applications to send messages to the user. For example, the TV guide application can now alert users when their favorite TV shows are available in the iTunes store.
  • Task completion allows for tasks such as uploads to be pushed to the background and completed while the user continues to use an app.
  • Fast task switching gives the OS the power to switch quickly between multitasked layers.

Applications can now be arranged in folders rather than in a straight list of applications. This improves the user-interface and allows people to maintain subset collections of loaded apps.

New Mail features include:

• Unified Inbox
• 3rd Party attachment opening capability.
• multiple Exchange Accounts
• Fast inbox Switching
• Threaded messages

IPhone and iPod Touch devices now have full support for all iBookstore books.

• Users only need to purchase books once and they will be available on both the iPhone and iPad
• Bookmarks can be synced between devices.

• Enhanced security
• Mobile device management
• Wireless App Distribution
• Multiple Exchange Accounts
• Exchange Server 2010 Support
• SSL VPN Support

There are 50,000 Game and Entertainment Titles in the App Store. Game Center provides application developers with an enhanced, central service to use for multiplayer gaming, friend invitations, leaderboards and achievements.

This functionality is similar to XBox Live and The PSN where Game Developers have access to a common set of tools for interactive gameplay.

• Mobile Advertising is now built directly into the iPhone OS. This allows developers the opportunity to include ads in the apps they create.
• Apple estimates that over 1 billion ad impressions could be served per day. This is based on the fact that there are 10 million devices per day and people spend an average of 30 minutes in an app all day. Before iAds, App Developers needed to send users outside of their application to consume ads, now this can be done inside of an application without redirection.
• iAds will focus on rich, interactive ads rather than the flat ads that users are accustom to seeing delivered by Google AdSense. The goal of iAds is to evoke an emotional, interactive response from the user similar to how traditional TV advertisements effect viewers.
• Apple will sell and host the Ads privately. 60% of advertising revenue will be given to the application developer.
• All interactivity is programmed without a plugin using standard HTML 5