Sorry, no.
We won’t be running minute-by-minute reports of the hours leading up to Apple’s iPhone OS 4.0 announcement.
There’ll be no news about the weather outside the event, no photos of people milling around outside the venue, and definitely no blurry mobile pics of us holding our press passes.
No coffee shots
Similarly, anyone hoping to see pictures of the backs of fellow reporters heads, shockingly dull videos of people standing about in hallways drinking coffee or comments about the amount of Apple staff seen clutching hallowed iPads, will also be out of luck.
We won’t be filing minute by minute reports of every second leading up to the event, neither will we be anxiously blogging updates to tell you that the event hasn’t started instead.
No fashion reports
We won’t be reporting on what ancillary Apple staff are wearing, doing, or possibly thinking about.
If you want that kind of guff, look here for a never-ending flow of pointless fluff about nothing in particular (the sideways on video by Greg Kumparak showing people hanging around is truly priceless stuff).
Instead, we’ll be posting up a report when there’s some actual news to impart.
So until then, were off to do something useful. Like have a coffee.
We’re a bit underwhelmed to be honest, but here’s what the updates amounted to:
Notable new features for users (“tentpoles” marked in bold):
* Multitasking.
* Spell check (like on the iPad).
* Bluetooth keyboard support (again, on the iPad).
* User-defined wallpaper (a jailbreak favorite).
* Tap to focus when recording video, just like with photos, and a 5x digital zoom for the camera.
* Playlist creation and nested playlists.
* App folders for sorting apps! You can even put an app folder in the dock.
* Enhanced Mail! You can have a merged inbox view, switch between inboxes quickly, and sync to more than one Exchange account. There’s also threaded messaging (at last!) and in-app attachment viewing.
* iBooks, just like on iPad, only smaller. You can wirelessly sync books between platforms, a la Kindle.
* Enterprise features, including remote device management and wireless app distribution.
* Game Center. It’s like Xbox Live, but for iPhone games. Includes achievements, leaderboards, and match making. It will be available as a “developer preview,” and out for consumers later this year.
For Developers:
* New SDK, available today.
* 1,500 new APIs.
* Background audio (think Pandora and Spotify).
* Background VoIP (think Skype).
* Background location data, both with live GPS for backgrounded turn-by-turn, and cell tower-based for lower power draw.
* Local notifications. Like push notifications, but sends a notification straight from the app without needing a push notification server, perfect for an alarm, for instance.
* Fast app switching. Saves the state of an app and resumes it from where you left off, without dwelling in memory.
* iAd. Apple says it’s for keeping “free apps free.” The ads keep you in the app, while also taking over the screen and adding interactivity — using HTML 5 for video — up to simple gaming in-ad. Apple will offer a 60 / 40 split on revenue, and users can even buy apps straight from an ad.
* In-app SMS.
* Map overlays.
* Quick look for previewing documents.
* Photo Library access.
* Calendar access.
* Full access to the camera.
* Video playback and capture.
* Date and address “data detectors.”
* Automated testing and performance / power analysis (the same tools Apple uses).
Pundits are less than impressed with Apple banning the use of Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone Compiler:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/08/apples-iphone-lockdown-apps-must-be-written-in-one-of-three-la/
http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler
TechRadar goes on to condemn Apple for “behaving like mid-90s Microsoft”
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/now-apple-is-behaving-like-mid-90s-microsoft-682443