• GUI You can now set a wallpaper for the homescreen. This is the least interesting news to me and somewhat expected as the iPad already offers this. The iPhone dock will look like the iPod touch glass dock.
• App folders Apps can be put into folders. Apple’s love to detail manifests itself in the fact that new folders are named after the App Store category the folder’s apps are in.
• Mail.app Several new features including an unified inbox and threads.
• Calendar access via API Great feature if used right by productivity apps.
• MobileMe Notes syncing Finally MobileMe notes syncing will be included. No longer only available through iTunes.
• Bluetooth keyboard iPhone becomes iPad nano.
• iBooks Uhm… yeah. Saw that one coming. Synchronizes bookmarks and reading position between iBooks small and iBooks medium. When will we see iBooks large for Mac? Winnie the Pooh will also be free on iPhone iBooks.
• Game Center Apple’s take on in-game social networks like OpenFeint, Plus+, etc. Bad for those companies/services but good for the user as it is built-in and many games will support it which means you’ll actually find your real life friends online. Maybe.

Multitasking

For many (3rd party) multitasking will be the most important addition to the iPhone OS platform. I think multitasking is not essential on mobile devices like the iPhone (the iPad is another story), especially multitasking which requires the user to manage processes and kill applications running in the background and sucking the battery empty. Apple’s approach promises the flexibility of multitasking while sparing the user the ugly face of it. Developers can access these multitasking features through new APIs:

• Limited multitasking This is a good thing as no app can bring the whole device down (in theory). Developers have different APIs to benefit from multitasking.
• Fast switching Press the home button and the whole view slides up, revealing a row of icons which is flickable to select the app you want to switch to.
• Task completion Certain tasks are allowed to finish in the background (e.g. picture upload).
• Background sound Apps can play music in the background and use the lock screen iPod controls. (Lock iPhone and double-press the home button.) Skype can also run in the background just like iPhone’s phone app.
• Background location Allows an app to access your location while not the front-most app. Great for running/hiking and navigation apps.
• Push notifications While lacking a cosmetic overhaul (admit it, those blue popups are ugly) the new local notifications are part of the best new features. Not requiring a server, apps can notify the user directly from the device. Task managers can now remind you of deadlines, etc. without using an internet connection.

iAd

Steven Jobs: mobile advertising “really sucks”. iAd is interactive HTML5-only ads, built-in. A tab on an ad doesn’t leave the app and allows the user to return to where (s)he were.

A slap in Google’s and Adobe’s faces.

Google, the ad-company, will have a hard time competing against a system-wide solution should the revenue for developers be the same or better. The developer will receive 60% of the revenues which Jobs says is industry standard. I think it will be more important how the ads perform. I can live with 10% revenue if I make more money per month because the displayed ads get more clicks (or taps). If I tap on an ad and the app quits and opens Safari I’ve done this for the first and last time. Should I see a nice looking, HTML5 ad which doesn’t quit the app and which is — dare I say it — entertaining because it is interactive and even informative (Apple demonstrated some ads with games and maps), I will certainly tap on interesting ads again.

In the end, it all comes down to the revenue developers get by including Apple’s iAds and not Google’s. We’ll have to see who wins.

Availability

Another great thing about the iPhone OS 4.0 upgrade will be its availability on older generation devices (iPhone 3G and 2nd generation iPod touch). The users of those devices will miss some features (multitasking, etc.) but they get the update. It’s not a given that you get software updates for your phone or music player two years after you bought it. The original iPod touch and iPhone are not strong enough to run the update, though. I was surprised they got the OS 3.0 treatment in the first place.

iPhone and iPod touch will get the update this summer, iPad owners will have to wait till fall. (I’m already practicing waiting: still two weeks until the iPad arrives in Germany.)

The Future

I have high hopes for iPhone OS 4.0 with the slew of new features and especially Apple’s implementation of multitasking. During the Q&A after the keynote Jobs said “If a user has to use a task manager to manage [multitasking], [the device maker] blew it. Users shouldn’t have to think about that stuff.” (source) This way of thinking is a great starting point to do something as delicate as a good implementation of multitasking right.

Asked about new iPad features, a device that shipped five days ago, Steve replied “We just shipped it on Saturday, and we rested on Sunday”. I’m still waiting for the iPad to be released in Germany, so I can also wait a few months for software updates. Give them some well deserved rest.

Reeder 1.2—which might get submitted to the app store as early as today—will be quite an update. I’ll show the main features currently included and what’s coming in this post.

Design

At first I didn’t like the design at all but after a few minutes I’ve realized it was just unfamiliar. Reeder’s elegant and clean layout has since grown on me and I don’t want to miss it during my mobile news reading.

The beautiful GUI is very clean and functional. Exactly what you’d want while reading your feeds. Next to the refresh icon you find three icons to switch between starred, unread and all items. Reeder also supports Google Reader’s Notes function which I’ve disabled. Version 1.2 doesn’t show a hint of this feature once it’s disabled which follows the tidy GUI approach.

Feeds, Folders and Items

Navigating into a folder will give you a view containing all items of the folder sorted by either source or date. Tapping on the circled arrow of a folder will show you a list of all feeds instead which is great should a folder have more than a few dozens of unread items (right).

While in the item list Reeder 1.2 will offer a clever feature you already know in a more destructive way: swiping an item in a list deletes notes, mails, etc. in the built-in apps provided by Apple. In Reeder you slide a cell to the left to star/unstar it and to the right to mark it a read/unread. As you already know the gesture it feels very natural.

Article View

The article view continues the tidy look. At the top you see the feed’s icon and beginning with version 1.2 you’ll find buttons to mark the item as read/unread and star/unstar it. You are also able to switch to the previous or next item and the familiar share icon gives you access to a number of sharing options.

Sharing

Reeder version 1.2 supports the following services to share/bookmark articles which can be separately enabled and disabled in the iPhone’s default Settings.app:

• Google Reader Share
• Google Reader Notes
• Twitter
• Instapaper
• Read It Later
• Delicious
• Pinboard
• Mail a link
• Mail the article

Twitter

As Twitter support seems to be the most requested feature (judging by the @replies directed at @reederapp on Twitter) I’ll present you with a screenshot of this nice feature:

Personally I like the Titel and Link buttons which allow for more flexibility while composing your tweet.

Go Get It!

Considering the clean and tidy design of Reeder, it’s integration with many third party services and the devotion of its developer to fixing and improving even little things other developers just don’t notice, this is a must-have app for every RSS-reading iPhone or iPod touch owner.

You can get Reeder on the app store for less then the price of a Starbucks coffee and enjoy it every day.

(Keep in mind that I was reviewing a beta version so please don’t leave bad reviews when some features are still missing. They are coming soon!)

Reeder website — Reeder on Twitter

• Safari140 – Twitter extension for Safari with auto-shorten for long URLs and a great shortcut: ^T
• I’m using Tweetie as my iPhone Twitter client. It’s just great!
• Decided to use Twitterrific and Safari140 on my Mac. I like Tweetie more than Twitterrific on my iPhone though.
• ddɐ ʍǝu ʎɯ ƃuıʇsǝʇ — seems to work! Find this text rotating iPhone web app at http://invertr.cinnamonthoughts.org — It even sends text to Twitter’s website so this qualifies as a Twitter tool for this post ;-)

A new Mac/iPhone Twitter client named Lounge already replaced Twitterrific on my Mac (download). I’m also trying the iPhone version found at http://loungeapp.com or on the iPhone App Store.

To launch Attendance Countdown point your Mobile Safari to this URL:
http://attend.cinnamonthoughts.org.

Wide Mail Keyboard is an iPhone/iPod touch web app which allows you to comfortably write e-mails using a wide keyboard with larger buttons while holding your device in landscape orientation which isn’t currently supported by Apple’s Mobile Mail application.

Read more on how to use Wide Mail Keyboard.

To launch Wide Mail Keyboard point your mobile Safari to:
http://keyboard.cinnamonthoughts.org/

Update: After one test the app is gone again. It wasn’t useful to me and it rendered my Settings app useless, even after removing it from the iPhone. Starting the Settings app a second time crashed my phone and it took thrice the time for rebooting. At least the other apps work again.

• Path Tracker is an inexpensive tool to map your route and speed. iTunes link
• iTrail also looks promising. iTunes link
• RunKeeper is more sophisticated (and expensive; $10/8€) but doesn’t display a map with your track on the iPhone 3G. Instead it features a web dashboard to access your workout history and a Google Map. MacRumors article / iTunes link (Now includes map integration and a free version is available.)