iPhone OS4.0 new Features & Changes List

Apple previewed iPhone OS 4.0 on April 8, 2010. A developer beta was also released at the same time as the preview. It is expected to be available to the public in summer 2010 (northern hemisphere) for iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch (3rd Generation), and fall for iPad. The iPhone 3G and iPod Touch (2nd Generation) will also get a limited update which will include most, but not all, of the new features. For example, multitasking will not be included. This is due to the limited hardware of the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G. Other devices, such as the original iPhone and iPod touch 1G, are not expected to be supported at all. In the preview, along with 1500 new APIs for app developers, seven most significant “tentpole” headline groups of user features were highlighted out of the around 100 changes to to the new OS feature set. Listed in the order announced, these were titled: multitasking; folders; mail; iBooks; enterprise; game center; iAd.

General New Features

• Ability to multitask /background services by double clicking Home button (iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd Generation only)
• Support for Apple Bluetooth keyboards
• Game Center Social Network
• iBooks and sync with iPhone and iPod Touch
• Advertising via the iAd network

Camera

• 5x digital zoom
• Tap to focus video

Settings

• App-specific location settings
• Cellular data only setting
• Password w/ alphabet characters + numbers
• Simple Passcode Lock (4 digit number) option
• New Wallpapers

Compass

• remove the button link to Maps

Home Screen

• Ability to categorize Apps into folders with default folder naming based on Category name in App Store
• up to 2,160 instead of 180 visible apps (12 apps per folder)
• Custom backgrounds for Home screen and Lock Screen
• Dock appearance redesigned and look like in Mac OS X
• exclamation mark badge appears at the right top of the folder icon if any app got badge notification
• folder name supports up to 13 characters
• remove ‘Rate on Delete’ for Apps

Photos

• categorized by Faces, Events and Places

Camera Roll

• Rotate Photos
• Resize photos
• categorized by All/Photos/Videos

AppStore

• Gift Apps

Maps

• Unified “locate me” icon
• background location icon shown on Status bar

iPod

• Playlist creation on device
• Nested playlists
• Lyrics and Podcast info on Setting
• Volume control with Bluetooth headsets

Notes

• Notes syncing with MobileMe/Gmail IMAP/Yahoo! Mail
• Accounts management appears if syncing is enabled
• Notes setting below Mail,Contacts, Calendars Settings if syncing is enabled

Calendar

• Birthday calendar
• CalDAV invitations

Calculator

• Updated icon

Contacts

• Unified Info by linking contacts from different accounts
• CardDAV

Spotlight

• Search with Web/Wikipedia

Safari

• Recent Searches below search field
• Top Hit in Search
• Google Suggest appears below search field if Search Engine is set to Google
• Unified “Search” keyboard button when search field being used

Nike+

• Upload workouts to Nike+

Accessibility

• Larger fonts in Mail, SMS & alerts

Message

• include a Search bar
• character count
• Mail
• Unified Inbox
• Edit from Outbox
• Support for multiple Exchange accounts
• File & delete Mail search results
• Organize By Thread in Mail
• Quicklook attachments
• Open attachments by registered filetype with corrsponding Apps from AppStore

Other

• Spell Check
• Persistent Wi-Fi
• Wake on Wireless
• Auto-join and Auto-login and IPv6 on individual Wi-Fi Networks setting
• Enhanced data protection
• Wireless app distribution
• Mobile device management
• SSL VPN support (both Juniper and Cisco)
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 support
• Added Cangjie and Wubihua Keyboards for Simplified and Traditional Chinese
• text replacement between Simplified and Traditional Chinese
• Switch keyboard shortcut (holding the “earth” button on keyboard for a while)
• Added support for Danish voice control
• Improved Bluetooth driver for A2DP devices

Source: Wikipedia