iOS 4 Thoughts

For completeness I feel that I need to do a write up on iOS 4 and how it has affected my iPhone 3GS. It has been an experience and one that I, and no doubt many iPhone owners, have been waiting for. Multi-tasking and folders are standard on all smartphones, but the iPhone has taken a long time to come to the party; the question remains as to if it meets our expectations.

The first thing to say is that so far I have not found one app that does not work under iOS 4. Even Pocket Money works fine for me which the developer said would have problems due to the update not having been approved in time. The multi-tasking aspect is not supported by all apps and this is noticeable, but I will come back to why this is not a problem later on.

Performance

The OS itself feels very slightly slower to me; some screen changes are not quite as smooth as they were and occasionally there will be a minimal delay where the screen flip is slightly jagged. It is of course not an issue, but noticeable if you are used to the super smooth iPhone OS performance. I have also noticed that there is the occasional lag after I have used many apps in quick succession. The multi-tasking setup, which is not proper multi-tasking, should not cause this because the apps are using no memory, but it has happened a few times for me so far. It is likely that I will get used to all of this in the next few days and soon forget how it all worked before.

Multi-tasking

This is seen as the big change in iOS 4 and I suspect that many of you are wondering what all the fuss is about. In use it is so unnoticeable that it succeeds almost perfectly. You just don’t realise that multi-tasking is happening until you really need it; this can be useful for me when updating 247 from the iPhone which I admittedly rarely do due to browser restrictions and a lack of image editing, but it is there and available when you need apps to continue from the state they were left in. Multi-tasking is absolutely necessary in all smartphones in my opinion, but the fact is that apart from specific uses like navigation, streaming radio etc. it isn’t actually of much use to the majority of people. I have to say that Apple has done a good job here though and just managed to make it work on the 3GS. I suspect it will fly on the iPhone 4.

Folders

This is the feature I was most looking forward to and it has left me feeling strangely bewildered by the experience. It works perfectly; simply drag an app onto another and a folder is created and automatically named. You can have up to 12 apps per folder and you will soon find the number of pages on your iPhone shrinking. Gone are the days of endless swiping (or Spotlight searching) to find an app and you can now rest easy with a handful of pages which you can tweak until you are happy.

I always saw folders as the solution to the problem of too many pages and too many apps, but have been left pondering if they are such a good idea. They obviously are because you can choose to use them or not, but they add an extra layer and some complexity to the standard iPhone app view that I had not expected to feel at odds with the iPhone interface. I now see why Apple was happy to persevere with the standard icon view for so long and can see the benefits in not using the new folders feature at all. However, I am using them and will decide later if I keep them.

One tip is to make sure you put a frequently used app in a folder. This sounds at odds with efficient use, but does ensure that apps are not forgotten about. For example, InstaPaper is the first app in my ‘News’ folder and this ensure that I delve into the others in that folder occasionally. Not all apps are used every day, but some are good for a quick browse now and then and by keeping these less often used apps in a folder with a daily app, they will still get occasional use.

As someone who always wanted folders I do wonder if the facility will be used by the masses. It feels a little bit too ‘smartphone’ after so long without them and I suspect that most users will avoid them or get confused by them. It is ironic indeed that I am now arguing against what I always wanted.

Other improvements

The zoom feature in the camera app is a nice touch and is one that should really have been present from the start. The Places feature in the camera app is clever as well and automatically shows where each photo was taken; the photos are grouped by location and a simple tap will bring up all of your snaps from a particular location.

Wallpapers were long overdue and add no functionality, but the option is great to have. Now I can look at my children between icons all day!

There are many other small improvements which I am aware of so take some time to have a look around and you will soon discover them. In reality they are minor improvements apart from unified messaging which saves a lot of clicks when dealing with emails.

Problems

There is little doubt in my mind that my 3GS is eating through the battery quicker than before iOS 4 was installed and I will monitor this over the next few days to see if things calm down.

My son’s iPod Touch has had multiple problems since the upgrade. Music tracks start playing and stop almost immediately, no wallpapers, no multi-tasking (which I believe should work on the latest generation Touch) and quite a few restores to iron things out.

Emails are no longer pushed to me MS Exchange account on the iPhone yet they are on the Galaxy S and my MobileMe account works on the iPhone- investigating this as well.

Conclusion

On the whole I am pleased with the iOS 4 update on my 3GS and can see a few benefits that I will continue to use over the months ahead. The iPod Touch update has been a disaster and my son (10 years old) thinks it is the end of the world if his high scores have been lost- I am working on that for him.

It is an update that leaves me in two minds; it is great to have multi-tasking and folders, but I can’t help feeling that it has taken the iPhone OS to a place that it never really wanted to go. The beauty of iPhone is the simplicity and the one layer you get to work with all of the time. This update makes things just a little bit more complicated and, dare I say it, closer to Android and the rest. iPhone is unique in the smartphone world in its ability to do so many things from one single layer and that has now gone.

Of course you can ignore these new features and still use the iPhone like you did before which is probably the cleverest bit of all. It offers a solution for those who want the traditional smartphone flexibility and one for those who want the ‘iPhone’ experience. It’s yet another evolution and this is what Apple does best, but there is little doubt that it has also been problematic for some.

UPDATE: I am now noticing many slowdowns when playing games and trying to run multiple apps on the 3GS, especially when new mail is coming in. None of this happened before. Looks like I may need an iPhone 4 after all- clever move by Apple…