Yesterday, Apple announced the rollout of the latest version of their iPhone OS software, the operating system which powers the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Following the announcement we’ve looked through and picked out what we think are the five best features that the new software will bring to the iPad.
1) Mulit-tasking
Constantly a source of debate as to whether this would make the release or if it was simply impossible, multitasking has finally made it to the iPad. The benefits of this are huge and obvious, although as one commenter described it, “it’s more like app switching than multitasking”.
The iPad, although it will be ‘running’ multiple apps at the same time, will only allow the user to use one at a time. Apple have released a series of new API’s for developers in order to allow apps to multitask on functions such as notifications and playing music.
2) Mobile Ads
Apple is the latest of entrants into the mobile advertising market, not long after the mobile phone network Orange announced their own plans, this time however, with a twist. Apple intends to take the traditional TV style advert and place it on the iPad or iPhone, briefly interrupting users, whilst providing only relevant ads.
This looks to be an addition far more popular with developers than consumers but we’ll have to wait and see just how well Apple have implemented this.
3) Folders
Apple have introduced a folders feature, allowing access to the file structure of the iPad, great for rearranging apps into stacks (similar to Mac OS Snow Leopard), or keeping track of files. The folder functionality is certainly one that needs to be seen to be understood, however from the live demo it looks sure to be a useful feature of the new OS.
4) Background Location
This feature is really a part of multitasking but is so great we thought we’d mention it all on its own. Background location allows apps to keep track of your location in the background whilst you do other things. This would come in handy if you where using your iPad as a large map or on a social location based network such as foursquare.
It hasn’t escaped Apple’s notice that this feature could be slightly invasive and so they’ve added an icon to the toolbar (at the top), to show when background location is active.
5) Social gaming network
The best way to describe this is ‘Xbox Live’ meets iPad. All those great games that have been scaled up for the iPad now have the ability to connect players over the Apple gaming network. So now instead of connecting over Wifi or through a proprietary system, users can play against one another from anywhere in the world, making the iPad a true games platform.
